Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Five really should have guessed that something would go wrong. The universe hated him, it was an abject fact. And right now, Five hated the universe right back.

He stumbled through his jump, trying, trying, trying to stay awake but it was getting harder every time he landed in the wrong place and had to do it all over again.

The commission had come after him, again. He’d killed the last few dozen they’d sent and frankly he was getting tired of it. He wished they’d just give up.

This guy they sent hadn’t tried to kill him though, which was enough to tip off Five that they were getting desperate. This guy was just trying to incapacitate him, an easier, more manageable task.

Make him weak, then kill him. Simple tactics but smart.

Smart because Five had been hit by whatever drug they were injecting into him via dart guns. Unfortunately for them, he’d also managed to jump and run before it started to take effect. Then he’d landed too far from the academy and had to do it again, and again and again.

He was getting tired now but he had to get somewhere safe. He didn’t even have the energy to contemplate what the drug was going to do. Maybe it was poison and he’d die slowly but he doubted it. If they poisoned him, he’d be able to find a cure and the commission wouldn’t take that kind of chance.

Five stumbled, his knees were weak and his head was swimming. The world tilted and the edges of his vision tinged black. He wasn’t anywhere near the academy. Actually, he didn’t know where he was. He didn’t have time to figure it out before his knees buckled and he hit the ground with a quiet thud.

When Five woke up, it was because someone was talking to him. He didn’t know who and he certainly didn’t know why. He wasn’t entirely aware as he pushed himself up to sit.

Everything hurt, his whole body ached. A thrumming pressure stung behind his eyes. Blurring the person in front of him. People? He thinks there’s two.

He should run, he really really should but he couldn’t even organise his thoughts enough to stand, let alone maneuver and escape whoever it was in front of him.

Ignoring the spikes of pain when he opened his eyes properly, he focused his vision on the figures in front of him. It was definitely two people, a man and a woman. They were still talking to him.

“Hey, that’s it. Open your eyes sweetie” the woman was speaking, softly and sweetly. Five was fairly certain she wouldn’t be attempting to kill him in the next few minutes.

“Hey there kid” she smiled as Five blinked at her with bleary eyes, trying to chase away the remnants of unconsciousness.

Five felt wrong. He felt smaller than usual or everything else felt bigger. Everything just felt wrong, Five had to figure out what they had done to him. Everything hurt so much. His head pounding and his body protested at even the slightest movement. He had to get out of here, back to somewhere safe.

“Hey, hey. It’s ok kid. You’re safe” the woman’s says gently, grabbing Five’s hand in her own. His hand was so much smaller than it should be.

He recognised the woman’s face from somewhere. She was Diego’s friend wasn’t she? The lady cop who’d been shot in the previous timeline.

If she was Diego’s friend, she’d probably know where Diego was. Five would feel safer if Diego was here.

Wasn’t that a stupid thought? Five was perfectly capable of defending himself, he preferred it most of the time but right now he wanted Diego to be here and take him home, to somewhere safe. He wanted his brother. If that didn’t make him feel ridiculous, Five doesn’t know what will.

Then someone walked in and maybe the universe didn’t hate him completely. Diego wasn’t being arrested for once, instead he was just strolling in chatting casually with an officer beside him.

Five is vaugley aware of Patch saying something to him but he doesn’t hear it, already off the chair and sprinting towards Diego. Everything about it made him feel awful, moving burned and his head felt like someone had taken a hammer to his skull. He knocked into Diego’s legs just as the other officer departed.

“Woah, hey kid what’s— Five?”

“Who else would it be dumbass?” Five’s voice came out wobbly and childish, he sounded like he was about to cry, he probably looked like it too. He certainly felt it.

“What, uh.. what happened?” Diego asked, watching his cautiously but not commenting on his wobbling lip. Five shrugged.

He was right though, he felt better now that Diego was here.

“It’s a long story” Five mumbles. He still wasn’t certain what had been done to him, but now that his head was clearer he had a pretty good idea. After all, waking up in a younger body wasn’t a new thing for him.

Patch decided now was the time to show up and Five was now acutely aware that he was still wrapped around Diego’s leg.

“Diego? Do you know him?” She asks and Diego nods, mechanically.

“He’s my nephew” he replies and Five glares up at him

“I thought you had a niece?” Patch looks at him, like she knows he’s lying to her.

“I have 6 siblings Eudora” he says quickly “what’s he doing at a police station?”

“Some officers found him passed out on the steps” she says it pointedly, like she was judging Diego for it. Five could understand why. He’d been passed out, bleeding and in oversized clothes, it doesn’t paint a good picture of his family.

Five knew he’d have to bail Diego out of this one, since he did get it him into it in the first place.

“Mom let me play with your old uniforms” Five starts “I was playing superhero, I wanted to show you but I got lost” he points to the emblem on the blazer. He doesn’t say anything else, hoping Patch would fill in the gaps for herself.

Diego seemed to get it well enough, playing along

“So you came to the police station?”

Five nodded, tightening his hand around Diego’s pants leg. His knees and hands were bleeding, he’d probably scraped them when he’d passed out

“What happened to your knees buddy?” Diego asks and Five glares at him harder.

“I tripped” Five mumbles, feeling every bit as childish as he looks even knowing it was a lie. Suddenly Diego lifted him up onto his hip, brushing his hair out of his face

“Well, your mom is probably worried about you. We should be getting home, if that’s ok with you” he looks towards Patch and Five refrains from smacking him in the face in front of the police officer.

Patch looks a little stunned, watching them with shock and curiosity. She nodded a little.

“Yeah, just..um. Take him to a doctor, he probably hit his head when he fell” she leaves quickly after that, apparently not knowing what she’s supposed to do now.

Five smacks Diego in the face as soon as they’re at the car

“Put me down”

“Hey, I was just playing along with what you came up with” Diego says, grabbing Five’s much smaller wrist in his hand to stop the next hit “what the hell happened Five? You look like your four”

“It’s a long story. One that I only feel like telling once”

“A family meeting then. Joy” Diego mumbles, opening the car door and putting Five in the passenger seat. He buckles Five seatbelt for him, despite the noise of indignance and threats of violence Five makes.

Chapter Text

Diego drives slow and Five knows for a fact that he doesn’t usually but he can respect the circumstances. They don’t speak, Five doesn’t want to. His head still hurts and his limbs feel heavy.

When they pull up in the alley that Diego usually parks his car, Five undoes his seatbelt before Diego even gets the chance to get out of the car.

Diego sighs at him and Five scowls, but it ends up looking more like a pout. At this point Five is too tired to care.

“I’m going to take you to see mom first, get your hands and knees cleaned up ok?” Diego says it gently, Five almost can’t tell it’s an instruction rather than a suggestion.

Five wasn’t in the mood to be told what to do but he nods anyway, walking as quickly as his much smaller body would allow. Getting himself cleaned up was a good plan.

Grace is in the kitchen, cleaning some pots and pans from dinner the night before when they walk in. She doesn’t look surprised or ask any question and Five likes that.

She just fetches the first aid kit from under the sink and sets Five up on the counter so she can clean and bandage his scrapes. Five winces a little as she dabs the rubbing alcohol on his knees.

“You must have taken quite the spill” she says kindly, putting a bandaid on his knee with practices precision. It had childish cartoon trains on it but Five paid no attention to it.

Grace presses a light kiss to his palms and says happily

“There! All better”

Five almost laughs. Grace hadn’t kissed his scratches or scrapes in a long time. She hadn’t done it since Five was still young and Grace was still mom. Since long before everything around them went to shit.

“I’m going to fetch you a uniform that fits properly, I believe the others are in the living room” Grace says, gently lifting Five off the counter and back onto the ground. Five can’t find it within himself to be annoyed at the interaction as Grace walks off, heels clicking.

Five ignores how the pain in his hands seems to have gone away.

Diego is watching him with a smirk on his face. Five ignores that too.

Diego and Five walk into the living room to the usual mess of their family.

Luther it standing near Allison who’s sitting next to Vanya, Klaus is draped upside down and is talking to someone in the empty chair beside him, presumably Ben.

Their quiet chatter stops when they spot Five. He groans internally, this was gonna suck.

“Diego why do you have a child?” Allison asks. It’s a reasonable question but it annoys Five nonetheless. She looks a little stressed and Five is pretty sure she thinks Diego kidnapped him.

“It’s Five” Diego says shortly, sitting himself on Vanya’s other side and propping his feet onto her lap. She looks annoyed but doesn’t push him off.

“how?” Luther asks, brows furrowed and arms crossed. He’s watching Five with caution. Not fearful, just confused.

“Well, Five was about to tell us, isn’t that right Five?” Diego addresses him and Five nods. His scowl in set firmly on his face as he speaks.

“The Commission sent someone to incapacitate and kill me. They managed to inject me with a drug which I assumed did this. I got away before any real damage could be done” Five says, short and simple but his voice comes out as something other than his own. Childish and high pitched but thankfully it’s not wobbling like it had done when he was at the police station.

“Can you reverse it?” Vanya asks. Five hadn’t really thought about that yet.

“It’ll take some time but eventually I should be able to” it was a suitable answer, a truthful one as well

“What about the commission, they’re still sending people to kill you aren’t they?” Allison asks, even more stressed than before

“It’s more than likely yes” Five says.

“Can you defend yourself like this?” Luther asks, gesturing to him. Five didn’t know actually. He still had all of his training but the commission did this with the intention of making him easier to kill.

“Of course” he lies. They don’t believe him, he can see it on their faces. He wouldn't either.

At that moment, Grace comes down the stairs with a neatly folded uniform for Five. She greets all of her children with a warm smile before leaving again to finish the dishes.

“Ok, we need a plan” Allison mumbles, standing up “Five how long do you think this will take to reverse?”

“Anywhere between a few weeks or months” Five grinds out. He hates to admit it but this is an unknown. He’ll have to figure out how to it works before he can reverse it.

“Ok, someone should be with you most of the time and you can’t go out on your own anymore” she says and Five glowered “no, don’t give me that look. You look like you’re four. Even if you can defend yourself you’re at a disadvantage.”

“Fine” Five concedes but he’s still glaring at her, hard enough that Allison is sure if looks could kill she would be dead.

“We need to get you clothes as well. You can’t wander around in a school uniform all the time” she adds “and probably a car seat” she says the last one almost entirely to herself. Five lets out an indignant huff but doesn’t argue, he can see the logic behind it.

“Five you go get dressed, I’ll make a list of the things we’ll need to get. Once your done Vanya and I’ll take you to the store to find some clothes” Allison says, leaving the room to presumably get a pen and some paper.

She doesn’t leave much room for argument. So Five takes the folded clothes off the coffee table and heads towards the bathroom to get changed. Vanya pushes Diego’s feet off her legs and goes to change out of her pajama pants.

Getting changed takes longer than Five would care to admit.

He ends up completely forgoing the tie after a failed 4th attempt at tying it and for whatever reason his fingers won’t cooperate to tie the laces of the old shoes mom had found.

Allison and Vanya are waiting for him by the door when he comes out of the bathroom. Allison has a folded piece of lined paper and her keys in hand, she’s already walking out the door by the time Five completely comes out of the bathroom.

Vanya doesn’t move though, insead staring at Five’s untied shoes.

She doesn’t say anything as she kneels down and ties them for him, doesn’t ask if he needs help or tells him she’s going to. She just silently ties the laces while Five stands still and embarrassed.

She doesn’t say anything about it when she stands up either, just smiles at him and gestures of him to follow her.  

Chapter Text

Allison was waiting by the car when Five and Vanya caught up to her.

“Are you ready to go?” She asked, Vanya nodding.

Five on the other hand, looked slightly murderous. He definitely didn’t want to be going on a shopping trip. He didn’t see anything wrong with the uniforms.

However, he highly doubted he’d steer Allison away from this particular mission of hers so he kept his mouth shut. At least if he went along with it, it would be over quicker.

Allison still had Claire’s car seat in the back seat, Five realised with a detached awareness of where this conversation would be going.

“Absolutely not” he says, before Allison can even suggest it.

“Five, please don’t argue” Allison pleads.

Objectively Five knew that it would be better if he sat in the car seat, he wouldn’t bounce around as much and on the off chance they did get into a car accident he wouldn’t get as hurt.

However, this was overshadowed by the fact that Five absolutely did not want to get in a fucking car seat. This entire situation was already humiliating enough.

“I’m not sitting in a car seat” he spits at her, fully prepared to just walk away and not come back. This shopping trip is not worth the headache it’s about to worsen.

“Five please? You look like your four, if I get pulled over and you’re not in the car seat I will get in serious trouble and I can’t risk that” Allison pleads again, looking more than a little desperate and damn it, Five has to do it now.

Allison shouldn’t be allowed to pull the Claire card, it’s really not fair.

He glares at her and Allison is sure that if looks could kill she would be very dead but he gets in without another word, climbing into the car seat awkwardly and sitting with an annoyed huff.

Allison does the straps for him, to his displeasure.

“I’ve got to adjust them Five, once I’ve done that you can do it yourself” she says, when he tries to smack her hands away.

Five glares at her again and crosses his arms.

Allison sighs. This was going to be a long trip.

Vanya makes him hold her hand to walk across the parking lot.

“This is stupid” Five says, trying to pull his hand out of her grip

“Maybe, but I’m not gonna be responsible for you getting hit by a car” Vanya replies

“I won’t get hit by a car Vanya, I’m not an idiot” Five says with clear annoyance and Allison thinks he’s about to stomp his foot.

“Humour me” Vanya says “you can let go once we’re in the store”

Five scowls and Allison is pretty sure that’s just going to be his default facial expression until he’s back to normal. He stops trying to pull away.

The store is busy, people walking in every direction with shopping carts and arms full of groceries. It’s loud too and the fluorescent lights make Five’s head pound.

Everyone is bigger than him and Five is suddenly aware of just how vulnerable he is like this.

“You can let go of my hand now Five” Vanya says quietly once they’re inside. Five doesn’t.

“What about this one?” Vanya asks, holding up a shirt with a blue cartoon dog on the front

“No”  Five says, regarding it with mild disgusts. Vanya sighs, putting it back. They weren’t having much luck finding clothes that Five liked.

Five’s head pounded, he just wanted to go home. Instead he was here, surrounded by strangers and loud noise. He had a death grip on Vanya’s hand, refusing to let go.

It all made him feel ridiculous, he was holding his sisters hand like a child because what? He was scared of strangers?

It was pathetic but no matter how much Five berated himself, he didn’t let go. It just felt safer to be holding onto Vanya.

Allison came back with her arm full of white button ups and cardigans of varying dark shades, holding them up for Five to inspect

“They’re the most grandpa-ish kids clothes I could find” she says with amusement and Five looks at her with what Allison is almost certain is supposed to be a glare but ends up just looking like a pout.

“Do you like them?” She asks, already putting them in the cart so Five assumes he doesn’t actually have a choice. It was a good thing he liked them well enough.

The children’s pajamas don’t have much selection in terms of Five’s taste, they were all brightly coloured with cartoon patterns on them.

Vanya hadn’t even tried suggesting any to him yet, fully aware he’d probably say no.

Five was getting more and more annoyed the longer it took. He just wanted this stupid shopping trip to be over.

Vanya skipped over another pair of pajamas, digging all the way to the back of the rack to try and find something Five wouldn’t hate.

Five appreciated it but he just wanted to go home now.

If that meant he’d just have to put up with childish pajamas he was willing to make that sacrifice for the moment.

“What about those ones?” He points to a flannel set, baby blue with grey dinosaurs printed on them.

Exactly the kind of childish he’d been trying to avoid but they look soft and warm, which was more than Five was used to in any case.

Dinosaurs aren’t childish anyway, dinosaurs were real so by default they were less childish than the pajama set opposite them with dragons on them.

Five picks whatever pajamas look the most comfortable and have the least cartoonish pattern on them and soon enough Allison seems to be satisfied with the amount of clothes they have and takes the cart from Vanya.

Vanya takes him to the toys, leaving Allison to pay for all of the clothes.

Five glares at her but she nudges his side

“Relax would you? We’re picking something for Claire” she explains, strolling through the aisle slowly. Five’s hand was still gripping hers tightly as they walked.

Vanya takes two stuffed animals off the shelf, studying them with an almost humorous seriousness before holding them out for Five to see

“Do you think she’d like the princess or the rabbit more?” She asks after a minute.

Five shrugged, he’d never met Claire though neither had Vanya. He liked the rabbit better.

“Guess we’ll just get both and let Allison decide” Vanya mutters, tossing them both into the cart and continuing on.

They stop in the art aisle, colourful markers, pencils and paints lining the shelves in a nauseating rainbow.

“Hey, can you go choose some colouring books for me while I pick the best pencils to get her?” Vanya asks, eyeing the endless display of coloured pencils in front of her.

The colouring books aren’t far away, barely even three steps but Five still hesitates to release her hand.

He doesn’t want to leave Vanya’s side. Worried that she might disappear or that maybe he will. It’s an irrational thought and Five knows it. Vanya isn’t going to vanish in the minute it takes him to choose a few colouring books for Claire but he still finds himself reluctant to let go.

He does though, slowly uncurling his fingers from the death grip he’d been holding her hand in and walks the barley three steps away.

He picks two books, one with classic fairy tales and one with space. Vanya picks a 24 pack of crayola pencils.

They meet Allison outside the store.

Five’s head is still pounding against his skull and his eyes are drooping. He’s leaning against Vanya, barley aware of his surroundings.

Allison looks between Vanya and Five curiously, only receiving a shrug from Vanya. Five doesn’t even seem to realise he’s leaning against her.

Five is tired. His head hurts and he’s tired and he really really wants to go come now.

He wants to go home so badly that he doesn’t protest when Vanya picks him up to walk him to the car or when Allison straps him in the car seat instead of letting him do it himself.

He just lets his head rest against the side of the seat, drifting in and out of awareness while the car moves steadily. Falling asleep while the radio played quietly and his sisters whispered in the front seat.

Chapter Text

“Should we wake him up?” Vanya asks, peering at the sleeping Five in the backseat. She and Allison had been sitting in the garage of the academy for at least 3 minutes just staring at him, trying to figure out what to do.

“Probably” Allison says, though she sounds sceptical. Vanya didn’t really want to wake him up, it was rare for Five to sleep.

“Maybe we should just carry him inside and let him sleep” she says, turning to face Allison who shrugs

“If he wakes up while we’re carrying him one of is will get stabbed” Allison says, looking between Five and Vanya.

“Rock paper scissors?” Vanya offers her hand and Allison snorts. It was a ridiculous way to settle it but Vanya remembers it being the main form of non violent dispute settlement when they had been younger and didn’t want to involve mom or Pogo.

“Loser carries Five” Allison says, nodding her head to the back seat. Vanya nods.

Allison picks rock, Vanya picks scissors.

“I’ll carry the bags in, good luck” Allison says, hopping out of the car satisfied that she wasn’t the one who had to carry Five inside. Vanya looks at Five again.

He certainly looked like a four year old, with his head slumped to the side and thumb shoved into his mouth somewhere along the way home. If Vanya didn’t know otherwise she’d say he looked like an average little kid.

He looked peaceful, in a way Five never seemed too.

Vanya sighed. She was probably going to get stabbed.

Klaus, for one, was very confused.

Diego had walked in about 3 hours ago followed by a teeny tiny child that had then turned out to be a teeny tiny Five. Before Klaus could even process that, teeny tiny Five had gone on to explain why he had been teeny tiny, Klaus hadn’t been listening properly but Ben relayed the important to him. Time Assassins wanna kill his teeny tiny brother. At least that part was consistent.

Allison had then taken the reigns and whisked teeny tiny Five away on a shopping trip with Vanya and now they were back, with teeny tiny Five sleeping soundly in Vanya’s arms.

It was all a little odd, even for klaus but if there was one thing he was good at it was rolling with whatever weird punches the universe threw at him.

Luther wasn’t as good at it, if the way he was staring at Five with confusion and thinly masked concern was any indication.

“Did you guys get attacked?” Diego wasn’t either apparently

“What?” Vanya asks, startled out of staring at teeny tiny Five’s absolutely adorable sleepy face

“Five’s unconscious, did you get attacked?” Diego repeats, pointing his knife between Vanya and Five

“No, no we didn’t get attacked” Vanya says, gently brushing some of Five’s hair out of his face “he fell asleep on the way home”

“You mean he’s just taking a nap?” Luther asks incredulously

“Well..yeah?” Vanya sounds a little confused and Klaus could sympathise with that, truly he could “he’s probably exhausted, he just got turned into a toddler”

Klaus watches her pause and pull a face at the words that just came out of her mouth and barely manages to contain his laughter. It wouldn’t do to wake up teeny tiny Five.

“Well, he looks precious!” Klaus announces, clapping his hands together quietly. Ben would probably be telling him to shut up if he wasn’t so entranced by teeny tiny Five. He slides off of the couch and towards Vanya, leaning in close to Five’s face.

He looked the same, mostly. Smaller and rounder but nothing else had changed. He still looked annoyed most of the time but instead of his signiature glare it had dissolved into a harmless pout. There just wasn’t anything scary about those big adorable eyes. Not that Klaus would ever say it to his face.

“So, the little tyke wear himself out on one of those carasouls? Oh oh I know, playing with all the bouncy balls on display” Klaus says, mostly in jest.

The mental image of a scowling and grumpy Five spinning slowly while the cheery music played made Klaus giggle.

“Well, it wasn’t that” Vanya mumbles, swaying slightly when she hears Five whine quietly in his sleep, his face screwed up in silent discomfort. The creases between his little eye brows smoothed out and Klaus could almost see a smile on his face.

“Vanya’s good at this” Ben mumbles, his fingers hovering over Five’s cheek.

“Yeah she is” Klaus says quietly. The others don’t seem to realise.

“Where’s Allison?” Luther asks, his attention no longer held by Five

“I think she went upstairs to put away Five’s new clothes” Vanya says absently, sitting on the couch with Five still cradled against her, carding her fingers through his hair gently.

“Should we be expecting some paw patrol shirts in the near future?” Klaus asks, plopping down beside Vanya and kick his feet over his head

“Nope” Vanya says “it’s more plain collared shirts and sweaters”

“Yeah that sounds right” Klaus muses, watching Ben. He was still hovering over Five, fingers so close to touching him

“He’s so small” Ben mumbles “I don’t remember Five ever being this small”

“probably because you were equally as small Benny” Klaus mumbles. It’s as if he’d never seen a baby before.

“What’s Ben saying?” Diego asks, suddenly interested in the conversation. Klaus forgets they can’t hear him sometimes.

“Oh you know, the usual, marveling at how teeny tiny Five is as a toddler” Klaus says, rolling backwards of the couch, narrowly avoiding hitting the coffee table “well, I’m starved. Wonder what Mom’s got cooking for lunch”

Five woke up wrapped in Vanya’s arms, being shaken gently by Allison.

“What do you want?” Five grumbles, unhappy at being woken up. At least his head didn’t hurt anymore

“Mom’s made lunch, we’re going to eat now if you want to come” Allison says quietly, mindful of her bleary eye’d brothers state of exhaustion.

Vanya’s arm is still wrapped around Five’s torso as he sits up and he realises that they aren’t in the car anymore. That meant someone had carried him. More concerning that meant he had fallen asleep.

He remembers being tired, wanting to go home so badly he had considered crying to get his way but deciding against it, he remembers following Vanya to meet Allison out side the store and from there it was a bit of blur.

Vanya had carried him to the car hadn’t she? And Allison had done his seat belt for him. He remembers the radio playing while Allison and Vanya discussed Vanya’s upcoming rehearsal and his head feeling heavy, then nothing.

God damn it.

“Fine” Five says, adding as much arrogance as his tiny voice would allow, sliding of Vanya’s lap and steadying himself to walk.

Lunch was going to be the worst.

Chapter Text

Everyone had packed around the kitchen table to eat lunch.

A variety of sandwiches that mom had made and cut into triangles were set out on a platter and in the middle of the table.

Five wasn’t particularly hungry and the two triangle pieces that Allison had put on his plate for him didn’t seem appealing in anyway at the moment. His mind was on other things.

Now that the last of the lingering ache had dissipated and Five could focus, he was preoccupied. The commission would be coming for him again and now he was an easier target.

He knew already that the transition had impaired his motor skills and his emotional stability but if that was intentional or simply a side affect of now being four years old was a mystery.

Five didn’t like the implication of it being intentional.

“Five” Allison taps him on the shoulder gently, bringing his attention away from his thoughts

“What?” Five bites and Allison points to his plate, where the sandwiches sat untouched

“You’re not eating” she says, face contorted in motherly concern that annoyed Five to no end.

“I’m not hungry” Five replies. It was true, food was the furthest thing on his mind at the moment.

“You still need to eat Five” Luther says, apparently deciding he was apart of the conversation now. He tries to sound authoritative and Five can admit that he does a good job. Not good enough for Five to listen to him though.

No, instead Five pushes the plate away from him and crosses his arms with a scowl in an astounding display of maturity.

“Five” Allison scolds, pushing the plate back in front of him “eat your sandwich”

Five feels the indignance flare, frustration and anger boiling. He’s not a child, he doesn’t need to be treated like one. He is certainly not in the fucking mood to be treated like one either.

He feels the tears again, stinging and hot behind his eyes as he tries to push back his frustration to form a cohesive argument.

It doesn’t work.

Instead, Five blinks out of the chair, jumping to his room in the standard flash of blue.

Five jumps and silence follows. Honestly Vanya isn’t surprised it happened.

Five was already frustrated and they had just made it worse by trying to force him to do something he clearly didn’t want to do.

“I’m going to go make sure he’s ok” Vanya mumbles into the silence, picking up her and Five’s plates, making her way out of the kitchen.

She walks to Five’s room balancing a plate in each hand, passing mom with a quiet greeting and warm smile on the way.

Vanya knocks with her foot.

“Five?”

“What do you want” Five isn’t asking, not really. It’s more of a warning to go away and not come back. Vanya takes it as an invitation.

“I brought your lunch up” she says, using her elbow to open the door and kicking it closed behind her again.

Five scowls at her, eyes on the plates in her hand

“I’m not-“

“You don’t have to eat it right now, I figured you wouldn’t go back down to grab it though so I brought it to you”  Vanya cuts him off, depositing his plate on his desk and sitting cross legged on the floor, biting into her own sandwich.

Five watches her, fiddling with the loose threads on his sheets as they sit in mildly uncomfortable silence.

He really is so much smaller now. it was hard to imagine any of them being that small but here Five was, just shorter than Vanya’s hips. He was adorable but Vanya valued her life enough not to let him know that.

“Do you have any idea how to reverse it?” She asks, his head snapping to attention as she speaks. He pauses, thinking.

“No, I don’t” he says, frustration and resignation seeping into his voice. He was a lot more expressive as a toddler, Vanya had the feeling it wasn’t on purpose.

“Is there anything I can do to help?” She asks, moving from to floor to sit beside Five on the bed.

Five shrugs his shoulders, picking at the threads and not looking Vanya in the eye.

“How’d they do it?” She asks, it hadn’t been explained in much detail as of yet and she couldn’t help but be curious.

“Dart guns, hit me in the back of the neck and injected some chemical compound that caused this reaction” he gestures to his body, pulling his knees to his chest.

Vanya could see all the sadness and frustration on his face clearly. Unshed tears were shining in his eyes and his nose was red. Vanya was pretty sure he was actually about to cry out of frustration alone.

He wouldn’t want her to see it but Vanya didn’t want to leave him, not when he was looking so upset. Even if he was technically an adult, right now he just looked like a young child.

She needed to do something about it.

“I’m going to go get some water” she says, watching him intently as she stands up “I’ll be back soon”

Vanya leaves and Five curses at himself when he feels the tears start to slip down his cheeks.

He felt so small. Everything was so much bigger, scarier. Even without the pounding headache the absolute feeling of wrong that surrounded him put Five on constant edge.

He hadn’t wanted Vanya to leave, he had wanted her to stay and he’d wanted to sit with her arm wrapped around him. He’d wanted Vanya to let him fall asleep against her. He wanted to feel safe.

It was stupid. Crying because his sister left him alone in his room was stupid. Crying because he’d been asked to eat his lunch was stupid. It was all just stupid.

He couldn’t stop crying now though, his face buried in his knees muffling the hiccuping sobs and his fists curled around the soft blanket in a pathetic attempt to comfort himself.

This was all so stupid.

Chapter Text

Everyone was still in the kitchen when Vanya came back down.

“Is Five ok?” Allison asks when Vanya comes through, standing up to greet her

“I don’t think so” Vanya mumbles, continuing on with Allison trailing behind her “he’s frustrated you know?”

Allison sighs, pressing a hand to her forehead

“I shouldn’t have done that”

“Probably not but you were just trying to help” Vanya says, heading past the kitchen the where Mom was in the storage room “he’ll get over it, everything’s just a little over the top for him at the moment”

Mom turns around, smiling at both of them

“Hello girls, do you need something?” She asks sweetly, setting down the tin in her hand

“Hey Mom, I was just wondering if when we were younger and Five was upset you’d do anything special to make him feel better?” Mom’s expression falls a little

“Oh dear, is Five upset?” She asks and Vanya nods. Mom hums, nodding her head a little

“When Five was younger he liked calming himself down, he was actually the last of you to give up his soother”

“I don’t think giving Five a pacifier is going to make him feel better” Vanya says, Mom hums, walking past them and beckoning for them to follow

“No, it wouldn’t” she says, opening the kitchen cabinet and searching around the back. She takes out a plastic cup, it was green with a with a blue lid.

Vanya remembers it as Five’s cup, the one that he’d thrown at Luther's head a lot when they had been younger because he thought it was funny to watch it bounce off.

He used to sit with the lid in his mouth long after all the contents of the cup had been emptied.

She remembers it especially because when they had been six Reginald had taken it off him and that had been the first time Vanya had ever witnessed Five having a tantrum.

He had screamed and cried until his little face was completely red, he’d even hit Reginald. That had been the first and last time any of them had seen Five loose his composure that bad.

They had never seen the cup again and Five had had an angry blue and purple bruise on his cheek for the rest of the week.

“Just give him some juice in this, I wouldn’t offer it with the lid if it’s his current state that is upsetting him” Mom says kindly, filling the cup up with orange juice and handing it to Vanya.

Five is still crying when Vanya comes back in. His head was buried in his knees and Vanya could hear him sniffling.

“Five?” She says quietly, gently sitting on the bed beside him. He looks up, his face a mess of snot and tears, his cheeks a shining red.

Vanya smiled at him so sweetly, using her sleeve to wipe his face. Five almost starts crying a new wave of tears.

He feels absolutley pathetic. Being comforted by his sister while he cried like a baby for practically no reason at all.

“Mom got you some orange juice” she says, holding out the cup to him.

“Is that my cup?” He asks, his voice weak and breaking. Vanya feels her heart break a little.

“Yeah, it’s got the lid too if you want to be nostalgic” she says, offering the lid with her other hand.

He shouldn’t want it, he didn’t need to drink out of a sippy cup but he remembers that cup. It had been an odd thing to attach comfort too but he’d loved it.

Then Reginald had taken it away, with a sneer about childish attachments and a promise to correct such behaviours.

He takes the lid, turning it over in his hand and trailing his finger in the groove. Vanya was still holding the cup.

“Can you put it on?’ He whispers, feeling too much like he’s admitting defeat. He holds the lid out to her and Vanya smiles, taking it back and putting it on the cup.

He takes the cup in both hands, resting it on his knees as he drinks the juice. Vanya stays where she is, her hand resting close enough that if Five moved just a little they’d be touching.

He shouldn’t do it. He was already acting childish, he shouldn’t start cuddling with Vanya because he’s sad.

He does it anyway. His want to appear mature losing in favour of his desire for comfort. He shuffles away from his spot pressed against the head board and tucks himself into Vanya’s side, sipping from the spout of his cup slowly.

“You tell no one of this” he says, not even a hint of a threatening tone.

“Of course not” Vanya says, smiling gently as she cards her fingers through his hair gently.

Five feels safe and he almost hates himself for it. He ignores it in favour of feeling Vanya’s steady breathing and her fingers through his hair.

Five doesn’t fall asleep, though he could. They just sit, mostly in silence while Vanya plays with his hair and he drinks his juice. He keeps the cup in his mouth even once all the juice is gone, savouring the familiar comfort that it brings. Vanya doesn’t say anything about it.

His eyes dry and his face feels dirty from snot and tears but he doesn’t move. Content to sit pressed against Vanya’s side and pretend that everything was ok for just a little while longer.

Eventually they would have to move, Five would have to eat the sandwich that was on his desk and he’d have to face the rest of his siblings but for now, he was happy to just sit on his bed with Vanya and feel safe.

The Handler wasn’t happy but lately she never had been.

They’d had Five right where they wanted him, weak and easy to kill and yet somehow. somehow, they had managed to lose him.

It truly goes to show that if you want something done you have to do it yourself.

On the bright side, she could definitely have some fun with this. The drug had been purely experimental and she would have to study Five personally before they killed him.

She could imagine Five’s delight to such experiments, he’d had such a thrilling time here last time that they’d have to make some adjustments before he arrived of course.

Yes. This could prove to be a very interesting experiment if handled properly.

Who better to handle it than her?

Chapter Text

Vanya isn’t sure how long she and Five sit on the bed, long enough for her leg to go a little numb and start to tingle, long enough for Five’ stuttered breathing to even out and long enough for their siblings to come knocking.

“Yoo hoo, are you two alive in there?” Klaus calls from outside the door, rapping his knuckles against it loudly. Five jumps away from her side, swiping his hand roughly across his face.

“We’re fine Klaus” Vanya calls back

“Well that’s wonderful sis, i’ll just be on my merry way then” he knocks on the door once more, before continuing down the hall loudly.

Five sighs, letting out the breath he had been holding and slides off the bed. His hair is sticking up in every direction and his eyes are still rimmed red and bloodshot. He doesn’t want to face the others yet.

“I think you should eat your sandwich now” Vanya says quietly, standing beside him and smoothing his hair out gently “i’m going to go get you some water, i’ll be back in a few seconds”

Five nods and Vanya smiles down at him, brushing his hair with her fingers once more before leaving. Five resists the urge to cling to her, to make her stay with him.

He eyes the sandwich and sighs.

He really was hungry now.

Diego is in the hallway when Vanya comes out, idling a little way away from Five’s room, fiddling with one of his knives while he leant against the wall

“Hey Diego” Vanya greets, waving a little awkwardly. Diego nods at her in acknowledgement.

“How’s he doing?” he asks, pointing his knife towards Five’s door

“Better than before” Vanya says, Diego follows her as she walks to the bathroom “he’s dealing with a lot. I think i got him to eat the sandwiches though”

“That’s good” Diego says, standing in the doorway as she fills the cup “did it help?”

“The cup?” he nods “yeah actually. I’m not surprised, Mom tends to be right about this kind of stuff”

Diego chuckles a little eyeing the cup

“I thought for sure dad threw that thing out” he says, a little wistfully. They’d all had one like it but Five had kept using his the longest.

“He probably gave it to mom to throw out and she just kept it” Vanya says, capping the lid over it once the cup was filled

“Isn’t that going to make him mad all over again?” Diego asks, gesturing to the cup

“He can take the lid off if he wants, i just don’t want to spill it” Vanya knows that Five won’t take the lid off but Diego doesn’t need to know that.

“Luther’s trying to call a family meeting but Allison’s making him wait for you guys to be ready” he says and Vanya nods

“I think it’ll only be a few more minutes” she says, smiling as she walks past Diego back towards Five’s room.

Five is sitting on the bed, half way through the second triangle piece when Vanya comes back in. she hands him the cup without a word. He doesn’t take the lid off.

“Luther wants to talk to all of us” she says, pulling a tissue off of his desk and wiping his face gently

“I don’t need you to blow my nose for me Vanya, I’m not an invalid” he mumbles in half hearted protest. He was tired again. “What does he want to talk about?”

“Probably you” Vanya says, throwing the tissue away. Five’s face feels cleaner now, which he’s happy for.

“I can handle it myself” Five says, glaring at nothing in particular

“Probably, but we want to help” Vanya shrugs, taking the empty plate off of Five “you ready to face them yet or do you want to stay here?” She asks

Five sighs, sliding off the bed and standing beside Vanya. Annoyance and resignation on his face as he begins out the door.

They convene in the living room, which seemed to be the usual place for family meetings Five didn’t want to attend. Vanya doesn’t go very far from him, lingering a few feet away from him while he stood with his arms crossed.

Allison had migrated to be sitting closer to him as well, which would have annoyed him more if she didn’t look so guilty.

Klaus kept staring a little to the left of his head and giggling, so Five assumed Ben had come to stand by him as well.

Luther and Diego were on the couch, as far apart as them both being on the couch would allow and Klaus was sitting on his heels in a chair.

“Well? What do you want” Five says, his voice holding it’s usual arrogance once more.

“We need a plan” Luther says and Five rolls his eyes.

“Ok then, what’s your plan” Five asks, sarcasm evident. Luther looks a little put out and Allison jumps in

“We’re here to figure out a plan. Immediate and long term” she says, uncrossing her legs and standing, indicating that the floor was hers now “the commission did this, so the commission is going to come after you right?”

“It’s more than likely” Five says

“You can’t defend yourself properly so we need to find a solution” Allison says

“I can defend myself just fine” Five spits, angry and glaring up at her. It’s a lie and they all know it’s a lie, including Five.

“Not properly, you have too many disadvantages stacked against you for it to be a fair fight” she says, sounding almost desperate for him to understand what she’s saying “Five you are four year old, whether you have powers and training or not a group of grown men with guns will overpower you”

Five stays glaring and silent.

No matter how he wanted to spin it, Allison was right. Five’s powers, emotions and abilities were on the fritz, if the commission came after him he doesn’t know if he’d be able to get out. Hell, he’d barely managed to get out the first time, he’d been lucky.

“Fine” he says “what’s your solution then?”

“One of us should be with you” she says “it’s less conspicuous than a four year old walking around on their own and we can help you defend yourself if the commission comes”

Five nods, biting his thumb as he goes over it in his head. One of his siblings being around him at all times wasn’t something he wanted but in terms of plans, it was a good one.

No one would question a four year old and his 30 year old caregiver if they were walking down the street, at most they’d think it was an adorable family and move on with their lives.

He didn’t look like Allison, Luther didn’t function in regular society just yet, Klaus would draw attention to them no matter what they did, Ben was dead and Diego had knives strapped to his body.

Vanya though, she functioned just fine, looked like a regular person and Five could easily be passed off as her child. She was also the most powerful. It was just a bonus that Five liked her best.

“I’ll stay with Vanya” he says and Luther looks distressed

“Five she—“

“She’s the most powerful of us and she’s the last person people are going to look at with a child and be suspicious” Five interrupts before Luther can say something stupid

“She’s not trained properly”

“Maybe not to our standards but she can still fight” Five says. Luther looks like he’s about to protest again and Five has a feeling this conversation is going to dissolve into a different issue very soon. Diego seems to agree.

“Vanya is probably our best bet. She’s got the most power and least conspicuous personality. We want Five safe that’s the way to do it” he says, glancing over at Vanya.

“Yeah, I mean Vanya’s got crazy blow up the moon level powers. If we want to keep our darling Five safe and sound she’s definelty the way to go plus she’s the only one of us who’s any good at the whole adulting thing. Five’s got his best chance not being killed with her” Klaus says, rocking forward onto his toes. It looks like he’s about to fall for a second

“Ben says he’s offended that you don’t want to stay with him and that he’s clearly the most well adjusted sibling” Klaus adds after a beat of silence.

“Ben’s dead, he wasn’t even in the running” Five says, looking beside him where he assumed Ben was

“A little to the left darling” Klaus says, rocking forward and off the chair. Falling onto the floor with a thud and startled yelp.

“We need a way to reverse it as well” Luther says, eyes on Klaus as he sprawls across the floor “have you got any ideas?”

“I need to know how they did it before I can reverse it” Five says, crossing his arms tighter around himself. His eyes were itching, he was over talking about this.

“How do you do that?” Diego asks and Five sighs

“I’ll have Mom run some tests tomorrow” he says, unfolding his arms. He’d moved closer to Vanya at some point, close enough that he could easily lean against her legs if he wished. He wouldn’t, not right now but the offer was tempting.

Mom comes into the living room with a bright smile

“Dinner will be ready in 2 hours” she says happily, addressing them all. She looks at Five, who’s eyes are drooping and is swaying lightly on his feet “I believe that Five needs to take a bath before dinner”

Suddenly Five is awake again, eyes snapped open and looking at mom with horror and betrayal in his eyes.

Fuck

Chapter Text

Five had blood and dirt under his fingernails, he smelt of gunpowder and his face was dry and itching from crying. Taking a bath would get rid of those things and he knew that. He didn’t want to take a bath.

Mom would definitely make him take a bath and Diego would be on Mom's side, so would Allison and Luther would go along with Allison. Five had no doubt Klaus would help them for his own amusement. Ben couldn’t help him but Vanya might.

Not that it mattered very much right now, since Mom was looking at him expectantly. Waiting for him to take himself up to the bathroom. That wasn’t happening.

Five jumped, landing in the laundry room. It wasn’t the first location he thought he’d end up but it made for a good hiding spot. At least until one of his siblings came looking for him.

Five blinked out of the room barley a minute after the word ‘bath’ left Mom’s mouth. It was almost comical how quickly he left. Klaus certainly found it funny, if the way he was laughing from where he was laying on the floor was any indication.

Mom sighed “oh dear” she said, looking around the room “will you please help me find him?”

Diego is the first to speak up

“sure mom”

The others follow in suite, it’s not like any of them had much else to do at the moment.

Allison almost found him first, everyone else had gone upstairs expecting him to have hidden in his room. She went downstairs.

Five had spotted her before she had spotted him and jumped again. He landed in one of the old training rooms upstairs.

It hadn’t been used in years by the looks of it, the only light peaked through the dusty windows. The floor was a blue mat, the kind Five remembers learning how flip people twice his size on.

He hears heavy footsteps and jumps again. He lands in Vanya’s old room, technically Klaus’ now seeing as at some point he had taken a sledgehammer to the wall. It had fairy lights strung up and drawing on the wall.

The door creaked open and he jumped again. It was kind of fun, almost like when they played hide and seek as children. He’d landed by mom’s paintings this time. He giggled childishly as he crawled under the chair, waiting until he had to jump again to avoid getting caught.

Allison met up with Vanya on the ground floor

“He’s jumping away every time someone gets close” Vanya says, smiling fondly

“I noticed, he was in the laundry room. Jumped as soon as i got down the stairs. I wouldn’t have seen him for a while if that flash didn’t happen” Allison says. Scanning the room for signs of Five

“Did you see where he went?”

“Right now? He’s upstairs by Mom’s paintings, i heard him giggling” Vanya says, nodding towards the stairs

“Giggling?” Allison asks, a little incredulos. She couldn’t really picture Five giggling, as a small child or otherwise.

“I think he’s having fun” Vanya says, fond doesn’t even come close to describe how she sounds.

“He’s really latched onto you hasn’t he” Allison says. Vanya looks surprised, like she hadn’t realised Five had essentially been attached to her hip since their shopping trip. Knowing Vanya she probably hadn’t.

“I guess so” she says gently “i think what happened has really messed with him”

Allison nods and suddenly there’s a flash of blue in front of them followed by Diego shouting.

“Jesus christ! Five!”

Five sees Diego's boots and jumps.  

He lands right in front of Vanya and Allison. Not the best move.

He grins at them, ready to jump away again when Vanya steps forward and grabs him around the waist with her arm

“Game over Five” she says, sending him a traitorous grin. Five squirms, kicking his leg out. He would be able to jump if he tried, maybe. Probably.

“I don’t need to take a bath” Five says as Vanya carries him towards the bathroom. Allison goes to find Mom

“Quit whining, it’s just a bath” Vanya says and Five scoffs

“I am not whining”

Vanya nods, her disbelief clear on her face.

“Mom won’t take long Five, the bath will be quick and then you can go back to doing all of your regularly scheduled Five activities.” she says, setting him back down on the ground and standing in the doorway.

Considering Five could teleport he wasn’t sure what that was supposed to do.

Mom comes in barely a minute later, smiling at Vanya and thanking her before ushering her out of the room. Five crosses his arms.

“I don’t need you to give me a bath, i can do it myself” he says. Mom nods at him

“Of course you can silly” she says, turning the taps on, the bath beginning to fill with water. From anyone else the words would sound condescending but Five is genuinely unsure if Mom could be condescending.

She putters around Five, grabbing a towel and pouring bubble mixture into the bath.

Five has vague memories of when he had been four the first time and Mom would give them baths. They didn’t have any bath toys but she’d always bubbles in and hum while she washed their hair for them. Mom hadn’t given them baths since they 5th birthday and Reginald had decreed them too old for such treatment.

Mom knelt down and untied his shoes for him. He kicked them off into a corner.

He definitely wasn’t getting out of having a bath now.

Vanya left the bathroom, heading to Five’s room almost automatically.

His cup was sitting discarded on the floor, Vanya moved it to his desk. Five would probably try and change into actual clothes instead of pajamas if given the option to choose and there wasn’t any point in that.

It was more than likely that Five would fall asleep once dinner was over, with everything that had happened to day as well as the amount of times he’d used his powers. Vanya was surprised he was still awake right now.

He’d been swaying on his feet during the meeting, eyes drooping shut until Mom had mentioned a bath. It had been cute.

Vanya pulled open Five’s draw, looking at the neatly stacked pajamas. They weren’t terrible but Vanya seriously doubted Five wanted to be having dinner in front of everyone in any of on them.

It took her entirely too long to decide on a pair that wouldn’t get her killed.

She picked them up carefully, carrying them to the bathroom to give to Mom,

The dirt and blood wasn’t under his fingernails anymore and Five smelt more of the vanilla body wash than gunpowder now. His face was clean, it didn’t feel dry or itchy anymore.

Vanya had come and given Mom some pajamas for him to wear, they were dark blue with white stars printed on them. Honestly it could have been worse.

Mom had washed his hair and hummed while he poked at the bubbles and flicked water around.

Sooner rather than later Five was being lifted out of the tub and wrapped in a fluffy towel. Mom smiling as she handed him the pajamas and pulled the plug out of the bath. Leaving the room to let Five get dressed in peace.

It hadn’t been terrible, he’d have to admit. He still didn’t want to take a bath.

Chapter Text

The pajamas were soft and warm, Five couldn’t say he disliked them.

Once again it had taken him longer than it should have to get dressed but he’d succeeded eventually and this time he had no tie or shoe laces to worry about.

Vanya was standing in the hallway when he pushed the door open, talking to Mom about something. He walks over to her quietly, standing by her leg silently observing the conversation.

“It’s really nice Mom, you’ll love it” she says kindly, mom was smiling. It was different to the robotic smile Five had grown up with, more genuine.

“Thank you Vanya, I can’t wait to see it”

“See what?” Five asks, drawing their attention to him

“I was telling Mom about the art museum downtown”  Five nods. He’d seen the flyers for that plastered on telephone posts all around the city. Mom would love it.

Vanya puts her hand on Five’s head, only to pull her hand away when she feels the wetness

“Five you didn’t dry your hair, like at all” she says, shaking the drops off her hand. Five shrugs, it would dry on it’s own eventually.

Mom smiles at him fondly, handing Vanya one of the folded towels in her hand and continuing down the hall to put them away.

Vanya gives the towel to Five

“Dry your hair” Five doesn’t, instead he just drops the towel on the ground and stares at Vanya blankly.

“Really?” she asks, picking the towel up and giving him a dry look. Five shrugs again, this time not hiding his grin. Vanya rolls her eyes but she’s grinning now too “Fine then, i’ll do it”

“Wait-” before Five can protest properly, Vanya drops the towel over his head and begins to shake it. Five finds himself laughing, trying to push Vanya’s hands away without seeing them.

When she takes the towel off, Five’s hair is sticking up in every direction but no longer dripping with water. Five was smiling, big, bright and innocent. Vanya laughs a little.

“Come on, we’ve still got half an hour before dinner” she says, beginning down the hallway. Five follows her, a small smile still present on his face.

They end up in the library, looking through all of the books no one had opened in years. Five was convinced that there was one written by Reginald in there and had been focused on finding.

“Five there is no way there’s a book by dad in here” Vanya says, scanning the shelf

“Really? You think that publishing a book isn’t on the list of pretentious things he’d do?” Five asks, pulling another book halfway out before shoving it back in

“Hey, i published a book” Vanya says, glaring in mock offence

“And it was pretentious” Five says, Vanya sticks her tongue out at him. He pulls another book out and shoves it back in. “come on, he’s got an entire list of obnoxious accomplishments and you think writing a book isn’t something he’d do?”

Something about Five’s tiny four year old voice saying obnoxious makes Vanya laugh.

“Yeah, ok you have a point” Vanya says. She recalls the countless times Mom had recited Reginalds accomplishments to them, preprogrammed to boast about him. “Did you ever figure out what he was in the olympics for?”

“No” Five says “maybe that’s what the book is about”

“Maybe he used a pen name?” Vana suggests, scanning a different shelf, still not catching any by Reginald Hargreeves.   

“Dad marketed his own children, no way he used a pen name” Five says, using the shelves as a way to climb up higher to get to more books. Vanya scoffs

“Do you remember that cereal?” she asks and Five pulls a face. Clearly he did.

Five had never liked all the marketing that Reginald had done, claiming it unnecessary if their mission was to save the world. The cereal had been something he despised with a particular passion. All of them had, not even Allison had enjoyed that one.

“That was ridiculous” Five says, another book gets pulled out and pushed back in

“Most of what dad did was ridiculous” Vanya agrees.

Another book gets pulled out and pushed back in.

They don’t end up finding the book before mom comes in to inform them that dinner would be ready soon and that they should head to the kitchen. Five is still pretty insistent that it exists

“It’s probably on something stupid like tennis” he tells her very seriously as they approach the kitchen

“Maybe that’s what he went to the olympics for” Vanya says and Five pauses, face screwed up adorably as he thinks

“Is tennis even an olympic sport?” Vanya shrugs, she doesn’t know.

The only other person in the kitchen so far is Diego, who’s trying to help mom but being continuously shooed away.

Five sits so that he’s facing the door, exactly the same as every other night. Vanya sits beside him silently, Diego is eyeing the pajamas but wisley doesn’t say anything about them.

The others come in slowly, Klaus chatting with the air that everyone assumed was Ben, Allison comes in while she’s on the phone to Claire and waves at them. Luther comes in last, sweaty and red in the face wearing running clothes.

Mom puts their plates in front of them the second Allison hangs up the phone. Five’s plate had a notably smaller portion on it but no one commented. Vanya watched out the corner of her eye as Five wrinkled his nose in disgust at the beans on his plate.

Klaus had an almost identical expression to Five, pushing the beans to the side with an exaggerated noise of disgust.

“Klaus you’re a grown man, eat your beans” Allison says, amused

“Nope, being a grown man means i don’t have to eat those crimes of nature” Klaus says, sticking a bit of the grilled chicken in his mouth. “shut up Ben” he mumbles to the empty seat beside him

Allison rolls her eyes.

“So how’s Claire?” Vanya asks, Five had started eating around the beans.

“She’s good, she can’t wait to come stay with us for christmas” Allison says happily, going on to relay the stories of Claire’s day that she had just been told.

“Oh, that reminds me, Five and I got her a present while we were at the store earlier today” Vanya says “i’ll have a look for it after dinner but i’m not sure if she’ll like it”

“I’m sure she’ll love it, thank you” Allison says gently, grinning widely.

“Would anyone like some juice?” Mom asks taking the pitcher from the fridge. Klaus and Diego call their various forms of confirmation.

“Would you like some juice Five?” Mom asks gently. Five nods, swallowing the food he had in his mouth

“Yes” he says, Vanya nudges him a little and he adds “please”. Mom nods

“Would you like it in your cup?” she asks. Five looks a little shocked that she was asking at all, maybe assuming he wouldn’t have a choice.

He’s silent for a moment, everyone waiting for the inevitable scathing rebuttal. It doesn’t come.

“Yes please” Five says, nodding and pointedly refusing to look any of his siblings in the eye. He keeps eating, the beans still untouched.

There’s a silent decision not to question it, their knowledge that if they did Five would get defensive and they would more than likely have a repeat of lunch outweighing their curiosity at his behaviour.

Mom nods, smiling happily and gently patting his head as she leaves to retrieve his cup.

“Klaus, you can’t just ignore all of the vegetables on your plate” Allison says, pointing her fork between Klaus and his plate. All of his grilled chicken was gone and now he had been pushing the vegetables around his plate with a wrinkled noise.

“Sure i can, that’s the whole point of being an adult. Not having to eat your vegetables” Klaus says, pointing his own fork at Allison.

“Don’t be such a baby, vegetables are good for you Klaus” Allison says and Klaus smacks her fork with his own, initiating a sword fight between them.

Vanya watched in amusement, Five’s dinner had been forgotten in favour of him watching his dueling siblings.

“Wow Klaus, this is super mature” Allison says snarkly, even though she’s smiling and laughing as she retaliates. Klaus winks, exaggerated and grinning

“You know it Alli” he says giddily, as Allison knocks his fork out of his hand and it clatters onto the table.

“I won, so now you have to eat your vegetables” she says smugly, and Klaus sighs dramatically.

“Such are the rules of fork dueling” he says, holding his nose as he scoops some carrots into his mouth.  

Mom comes back, giving each of them their cups. Five’s was only filled halfway and the lid was on. Allison looked a little scared as they all waited for Five to jump away, annoyed at being treated like a child once more. Instead, he picks up the cup and drinks some of his juice.

Vanya decides to take to lead before her siblings accidentally say anything and the situation goes wrong. She continues eating, completely nonchalant. Diego is the first to follow her lead, then Luther surprisingly steers the conversation away from Five completely.

“Vanya do you have rehearsal tomorrow?” he asks, his own plate had been finished a while ago. Now he was just sitting and drinking water so he could be apart of the conversation.

“Yeah, in the morning. It won’t go for very long” Vanya replies, watching Allison and Klaus begin to eat their dinner again.

Five finishes last, the others had all finished and taken their plates away before leaving to do their own things. Vanya stays in the kitchen with him.

She nudges him when he refuses to eat the beans that are pushed to the side of his plate

“We made Klaus eat them, you have to as well” she says and Five glares at her, arguments against that already on the tip of his tongue.

He eats them anyway though, because Vanya told him to.

Once he is finished, Vanya fills his empty cup of with water and hands it to him, steering him out of the kitchen and up the stairs to his room.

They don’t do anything special while they’re up there but Vanya pulls one of the books off his shelf and starts reading out loud quietly. Five writes equation in his notebook, listening half heartedly to what Vanya was saying.

They had done this before, when they were both kids. Vanya would sit in the room and read to him while he did his calculations. He would half listen, until eventually one of them left the room to do something else.

It didn’t take very long for his head to begin to droop and his eyes to drift shut. Vanya had only been reading for about 10 minutes and he’d only managed to scribble own three equations. He didn’t fight it though.

It had been a long day, a weird and tiring one. He’d have plenty of time tomorrow to figure everything out.

He let his eyes close, the sound of Vanya reading soothing him into a gentle darkness.

It wasn’t hard to locate Five.

He had, of course, sought out his family in his weakened state. The field agents reported that he had become attached at the hip to his sister, the little brown haired one that The Hander knew better than the underestimate.

They had also reported, quite interestingly, that Five was acting odd. Childish and tired, slowed reflexes and difficulty with his fine motor skills. Had he not been with his sister he would have been easy enough to capture.

Well, now she would definitely have to investigate the effects of this drug further.

Chapter Text

Vanya didn’t have her old room to stay in anymore, since Klaus had knocked the wall down and claimed her old space as his own. She didn’t care very much, it was rare for her to spend the night at the academy even now.

It wasn’t hard to find somewhere else to sleep, the academy had 43 bedrooms in total. She had picked one at random the first night she stayed over and everyone had decided it was Vanya’s new room from then on.

Beyond a change of clothes in the draws and a candle Vanya liked it didn’t have many personal touches. It was all fairly standard issue for the academy. A bed, lamp, desk, bookshelf and set of draws.

Mom had put her old sheets on the bed and at some point someone had stocked the bookshelf with many of Vanya’s old favourites.

It was nice, Vanya actually enjoyed staying in it but she had rehearsal tomorrow. She should go home, get some sleep, be prepared and rested for tomorrow. She didn’t want to leave Five.

He had fallen asleep almost as soon as she started reading, not that Vanya was surprised. It had been a long day for him. For all of them really but he’d be feeling the affects the most.

He looked peaceful in his sleep. Vanya smiled, mostly to herself as she gently took his notebook and pen out of his hands and put them on his desk.

She adjusted him so that he was actually laying down instead of sitting against the pillows and pulled the covers up to his chest. She stroked his hair gently, kissing his forehead lightly.

“Goodnight Five” she switched off the lamp.

When Five woke up the next morning Vanya was gone.

It was silly to have expected her to stay with him all night but he hadn’t thought that she would be gone when he woke up. She might have gone home, back to her apartment and far away from Five.

His mouth formed a thin line and his eyebrows furrowed. Vanya wouldn’t have left him, she was probably in her own room, sleeping. According to his clock it was early, about 5 AM.

She was asleep in her own room because it was too early to be awake.

That made perfect sense.

He should check just to make sure.

He pushes the covers off himself and slides off the bed. The floorboards are cold but Five doesn’t care. He tiptoes silently out of his room, pushing his door open with a quiet creak. The rest of the house is silent, Five doubted any of them would be awake at the moment.

Vanya’s new room wasn’t very far from his, it was just down the hall. The door was closed, which didn’t mean very much. The door would be closed if she was in there or not.

Five snuck past Ben's room silently, he was pretty sure Ben would be with Klaus but he didn’t want to wake him up if he wasn’t. Five didn’t know if ghosts slept but it seemed like the polite thing to do. Even if Five himself wasn’t a very polite person, Ben had always been fairly respectful of other people.

He pushed Vanya’s door open, wincing a little at the loud creak it seemed to make.

Sure enough, there was a Vanya shaped lump underneath the purple covers. Five knew she hadn’t left. He crept further into the room, shutting the door behind him as quietly as possible and pausing to make sure he hadn’t woken her up.

When she didn’t move, Five continued through the room. Climbing onto the bed and sitting for a moment watching Vanya. She was fast asleep, breathing in and out gently. Five nodded, satisfied and hopped of the bed.

He crept out of the room, back past Ben’s room and down the stairs to the living room in complete silence. It would be at least an hour before anyone else would be awake. Even Mom.

Five could probably work on his equations, not that any of them would be necessary or relevant to his current problem. At this point he only did them out of habitual curiosity.

He didn’t really want to do his equations though. He didn’t know what he wanted to do, free time had always been something he didn’t quite grasp the concept of.

He could probably try and find that book in the library, then he’d be able to show it to Vanya at breakfast.

Five nodded to himself, turning on his heel to head to the library.  

Luther is standing in the doorway, staring at Five.

“What are you doing up?” he asks. For someone so large, Luther was fairly good at making himself seem smaller, curling in awkwardly on himself. It was weird, one of the changes Five hadn’t been able to understand.

Before they had time traveled to fix things Luther had been big and imposing, he stood straight and tall in an attempt to command respect. Now he just hunched in on himself, like he didn’t want to be seen.

“I was awake, i didn’t see the point in just laying in bed” Five answers casually “why are you up?”

Luther shrugs, moving a little closer to talk to Five

“I’m always up this early” he says. That makes sense, Luther had a pretty strict self imposed routine, it would make sense for him to be awake before the sun had even risen.

“What do you do?” Five asks.

“I exercise most of the time” Luther says “usually until the rest of you wake up for breakfast”

“Are you going to do that now?” Five doesn’t know why he’s asking, it’s not like he cares either way what Luther does with his free time.

“Probably” Luther says, shrugging again.

They stand in an awkward silence for a moment, before Luther clears his throat

“do you want to come with me?” he asks. Five blinks.

He and Luther weren’t particularly close, they didn’t spend a lot of one on one quality time together. They had differing interests and hobbies and personalities. But Luther was offering and well, Five didn’t have anything better to do.

Finding the book would be better if he had Vanya there with him anyway.

“Sure” Five says. Luther doesn’t smile at him, not properly anyway, but he looks pleased that Five accepted.

Five follows Luther to one of the training rooms and watches him do laps while sitting on a stack of obstacle blocks for exactly three and a half minutes before he gets bored.

His eyes scan the room, landing on the long forgotten bag of tennis balls shoved hastily in the corner that Dad had used for a training exercise when they had been much much younger.

It had been a test in reflexes when they were about 3 and a half. He had loaded them into some of those tennis ball machines and told them to dodge until he said stop.

He warped the bag too him, after a minute or two of trying without success. Luther hadn’t seemed to notice. Good, that was good.

Five threw one, as hard as he could at Luther’s legs.

Luther stops in his tracks and looks at Five with confusion. Five grins and throws another, hitting Luther in the knee.

“What are you doing?” he asks

“I’m helping” Five says matter-of-factly, reaching in to grab another ball

“By throwing things at me?”

“Testing your reflexes” Five says. Luther laughs and nods

“Yeah ok, so i just dodge the tennis balls?”

“You try to dodge the tennis balls” Five explains, throwing another and hitting Luther in the ankle. Luther nods, starting to run his laps again, Five launching another tennis ball. This time he misses.

In the end, Five wins. He’s positive that Luther wasn’t dodging properly but he doesn’t care. More than happy to focus on the fact that he won.

“It wasn’t even a competition” Luther argues, not seriously if his smile and poorly hidden his laughter is any indication.

“Yes it was and i won” Five says, Luther was walking a lot slower than usual and Five still couldn’t keep up. He was tempted to just start jumping ahead of him.

“Fine, if it was a competition, which it wasn’t, you would have won” Luther concedes, hands raised in surrender. They walk to rest of the way to the kitchen in comfortable silence.   

Vanya is sitting at the kitchen table, a cup of coffee in front of her. Five is at her side in an instant

“Morning” she mumbles tiredly. Five climbs onto the chair next to her and Luther grabs a glass of water.

Five snatches the coffee away from her and takes a sip. It tastes disgusting, bitter and flavouress. Like drinking dirt.

“That tastes gross” He pushes the cup back to Vanya with a sour look on his face. Vanya shrugs at him, taking a long sip and swallowing smoothly.

“What times your rehearsal start?” Luther asks, sitting across from Vanya.

“9 AM, i’ve got 2 and a half hours before i need to leave” Vanya replies.

“You’re leaving?” Five asks. He sounds anxious at the thought. He was anxious at the thought.

He didn’t want Vanya to go away, he wanted her to stay here with him and the others.

“I’ll only be gone for a few hours Five” Vanya says gently.

Five looks away, his eyes are a little shiny and his bottom lip trembling.

Oh.

Oh no.

Chapter Text

Five’s lip starts to tremble and he feels the hot sting of tears behind his eyes.

Vanya was going to leave.

Somewhere in the very back of his mind he knew that she would be coming back and that crying over her leaving was ridiculous, he didn’t need Vanya with him every second of the day.

The much more prominent part of him absolutely did not agree. If Vanya left, she might not come back. She might disappear exactly like he did. He didn’t want Vanya to disappear, he wanted her to stay with him.

The tears began to spill onto his cheeks and Five sniffed miserably, avoiding looking at Vanya entirely.

“Hey, Five it’s ok” she says, kneeling in front of his chair, holding his hand in her own “it’s ok, i’ll be back i promise, it’s just rehearsal”

She was going to leave and Five couldn’t make her stay. He turns away from her, right as the rest of his siblings decide it’s time to make their appearance.

He wipes his face roughly. He doesn’t want to be here anymore.

He jumps.

He ends up in his room, deciding promptly that the best place to be was on his bed wrapped tightly in his blanket.

He feels childish, tears slipping down his face and his nose running as he cries pathetically. He finds that he doesn’t care.

If Vanya wanted to leave she could. Five didn’t care, she could go anywhere she wanted, as far away from him as she pleased. He didn’t care.

He was still crying.

Allison is the first to react

“What happened this time?” she asks and Vanya stands up, looking a little confused.

“Luther and I were just talking about my rehearsal and he started..” she trails off, waving her hand rather than saying the word “then you guys walked in and he jumped”

“Why?” Allison asks

“Vanya told me what time she was leaving and he started crying” Luther supplies, still looking a little panicked. Allison nods, like that makes the all sense in the world.

“He doesn’t want you to leave Vanya” she says “he’s gotten really attached to you, what four year old wants to leave their mom for the first time?”

“Woah, woah, Five does not think i’m his mother. He’s not even actually four” Vanya protests

“We don’t know what this drug did but we know enough to be able to make the assumption that it hasn’t just changed him physically” Allison says “when have you ever seen Five act like the way he was yesterday?”  

No one says anything. The revelation bringing disconcert to the room.

“We really need to get mom to run some tests” Luther says and Allison shakes her head

“Not before we find him and calm him down”

Five was getting sick of crying, he had cried more in the past 24 hours than he had in 3 decades combined. Crying felt terrible, it made his nose run and his eyes itch and his face feel hot.

He very much wanted to jump back downstairs to Vanya, to stay with her until he felt all better. He didn’t entertain the idea very much, after all Vanya was leaving and that was why he was crying in the first place.

It was irrational to be so completely afraid of her leaving the house without him. He knew, logically, that she would come back. Every other part of him, all much louder and much more insistent, didn’t want to take the risk.

Someone knocked on his door. He ignored it.

The door was pushed open anyway.

Allison came in, and Five ignored the pang of disappointment that it wasn’t Vanya who came looking for him.

“Hi” she says softly, sitting across from him. Five scowls at her but knows that much of its effects are lost due to his watery eyes and snot covered face.

“Everyone’s looking for you, Vanya is looking in her room right now” she says. “What’s got you so upset?” she asks.

She doesn’t touch him, doesn’t run her fingers through his hair or put a hand on his shoulder. He’s glad, he doesn’t want anyone but Vanya to touch him.

She must not expect a reply because she doesn’t stay sitting for very long. She stands briefly, to take Five’s cup off of his nightstand. She holds it in her hand studying it for a moment with a fond smile.

“Mine was purple wasn’t it? With a pink lid?” she isn’t asking Five, just thinking out loud. Five nods anyway, hers was purple with a pink lid. She had been the first of them to stop using it.

Five makes grabby hands for the cup, not caring if he looks childish and ridiculous. He just wants the small comfort he know it will bring. Allison smiles at him, handing him the cup.

The water tasted a little funny from being on his nightstand all night but that was fine. Five had eaten lots of things worse than funny tasting water.

Allison sits back down, he back against the wall and legs crossed. She was still in her pajamas as well. They looked a lot less warm than Five’s.

“Do you remember when Mom first came? Diego thought that she personally hung the moon in the sky” she says gently “then the next day when he had to train, he didn’t want to leave her. He just kept crying and crying, clinging onto her skirt so hard and the rest of us thought it was ridiculous”

Five does remember that, they hadn’t grown attached to mom as quickly as Diego. They all thought him crying over leaving her was the strangest thing. Five hadn’t cared about Mom either way at the time but Vanya hadn’t liked her because she made her eat the oatmeal.

“And when Ben asked him why he was crying so much, he said that he didn’t want her to go away like all the other nannies”

Oh, so this story has a point then. Five probably should have figured that out sooner than he did. He looks away from Allison.

“Is that why you’re upset?” she asks gently. Five doesn’t have to answer her, she probably doesn’t expect him too.

“I don’t want her to disappear” Five says. His voice scratches, it sounds stuffed up and weak. He sips his water slowly.

“Why would she disappear?” Allison asks. Five shrugs. He doesn’t know why she would disappear, just that she could.

“I did”

For a brief moment, Allison looks shattered by his words. She recovers quickly though, nodding in acknowledgement of what he said.

“So you don’t want Vanya to leave in case she disappears?” she asks. Five nods, wiping his nose of his blanket

“ew, use a tissue” Allison pulls one out of the box on his nightstand, handing it to him.  

“She should just stay here” Five mumbles pathetically into the tissue.

“She’s got to go to work Five, she won’t be gone very long. Only a few hours” Allison says gently

“A lot can happen in a few hours”  Five mumbles, huddling his knees closer to his chest as a new wave of tears roll down his cheeks. Allison sighs.

“Five I promise that Vanya won’t disappear while she’s at work” she says, resting her hand on Five’s ankle. It’s comforting.

Five knows that Allison couldn’t possibly keep her promise to him but well, she promised. Allison can bend reality to her will, if she promised then there was no way that Vanya would disappear.

He nods at her, sniffling pathetically.

“Ok” he says, wiping his eye with part of the blanket he still had clenched in his fist.

“Ok” Allison smiles, standing up and offering her hand to him “let’s go get breakfast, then you have to get some tests done with mom”

Five nods, pushing his covers off and climbing down from the bed. He doesn’t take Allison's hand but he walks beside her, close enough that occasionally they would brush against each other as they moved. It was enough to make the tears stop.

They all trickle back into the kitchen at their own pace, Five and Allison are first, followed soon thereafter by Diego and Vanya.

Five is back at Vanya’s side the second she’s through to door. Hovering close to her as she walked around the kitchen preparing breakfast for herself and Five.

“Do you feel better now? She asks quietly, passing Five his plate. Peanut butter toast and apple slices. He doesn’t but he nods anyway, not trusting his voice to remain steady if he speaks.

Luther and Klaus come back in last, talking about knitting and yoga And the benefits it would have for Luther. Klaus kept subtly insulting Luther in ways that went right over his head. Five thought it was amusing.

They all ate in relative silence, Five sat in between Vanya and Allison facing the door.

“Five, after breakfast mom is gonna need to run some tests with you, are you good with that?” Diego asks cautiously. Five nods, swallowing the food in his mouth

“Fine” he says shortly, picking up another apple slice. “What tests will she be running?”

“Uh, i’m not sure. I think she said something about DNA” Diego says unhelpfully. Five rolls his eyes.

The rest of the morning passes mostly uneventfully. Five gets dressed then meets Mom in the infirmary. She takes a blood sample and cheek swab, tells him she’ll let him know when she’s finished analysing it.

Five becomes Vanya’s shadow after that. Trailing after her silently with a tiny scowl on his face the whole time.

They go back to the library, continuing their hunt for the book that Five is still very insistent exists.

It all seems to be going perfectly fine until Vanya realises she had to leave in less than 10 minutes.

“Five?” she says quietly, watching him pull a book out and study it briefly. He looks up at her. It’s a little jarring how small he looks, with a round face and big eyes.

“What is it?” he asks, sliding the book back into the shelf

“I have to go or I’ll be late” Five looks at her, Vanya is half expecting him to begin crying again. Instead he nods, his jaw set and eyes trained on her

“Ok” he says, his voice doesn’t give any hints that he’s upset and Vanya smiles, running her hand through his hair gently

“Come walk me to the door” she says.

“Ok” he nods

Diego ends up with them somehow, running into them on their way and starting up a conversation with Vanya that Five didn’t care about.

Vanya kneels down to talk to him

“I’ll be back in 3 hours ok?” she says quietly. Five nods. His eyes aren’t red or watering and Vanya takes it as a good sign

“Bye Five” she whispers, kissing his cheek and heading out the door with a wave to Diego.

Five stands, stony and silent watching the door

“You good?” Diego asks, Five glares at him. For the first time since being turned into a four year old it was every bit as threatening and venomous as it usually was.

“I’m perfectly fine” he says, through gritted teeth. He doesn’t spare Diego another glance as he turns on his heel and walks away.

Chapter Text

Five was decidedly not perfectly fine but he didn’t want any of them to know that. In the past 24 hours he had managed to completely wreck the thin veil of maturity he still had.

At the time he hadn’t cared very much, ruled almost entirely by the overwhelming emotions he had felt in the moment. Now, it was ridiculous and humiliating.

So what if he missed Vanya? She was a grown woman and he was a grown man. He didn’t need to be crying every time she left the room.

His body didn’t seem to get the memo, hot tears stinging his eyes as he walked quickly to his room to hide away. Vanya would be back in a few hours, there wasn’t any reason to be crying.

He would just go back to his room and work on equations until she got back. It would be fine.

Except Klaus was in the hallway, blocking the path to his room, because the universe hated him.

Klaus wasn’t doing anything as far as Five could tell, dancing a little on the spot and talking to the air. It could have been Ben or Dave. Five was pretty sure Klaus would just ignore him.

He walked past him, not even sparing him a glance and hoping Klaus would leave him alone. He doesn’t, because the universe really hates Five.

“Hey there Fivey! Where are you off to?” He calls and Five stops, cursing in his head

“Nowhere that concerns you” he bites. His voice wobbles and Five was going to kill whatever bastard did this to him slowly and painfully because now, now there was no way Klaus would leave him alone.

“Awww, I’m hurt! Don’t you want to spend time with your favourite sibling?” Klaus asks, sliding in front of Five

“Vanya’s my favourite” Five says, staring at Klaus with annoyance

“Second favourite?”

“Ben”

“Ben’s dead, he doesn’t count” Klaus says and Five shrugs

“Still Ben” Klaus sticks his tongue out at Five.

“At least tell me I beat Luther” Klaus says, Five shrugs. Klaus looks affronted, holding his hand against his chest and gasping dramatically

“This is slander” he says, Five takes the opportunity to push past him.

“Hey hey hey, where’re you going”

“You already asked me that” Five spits, Klaus is looking at him with concern and Five wanted to scream. He doesn’t have the energy to jump, he knows he doesn’t have the energy to jump.

He does it anyway.

He ends up outside somewhere, not even close to his bedroom but that was to be expected. Five was emotional and drained. He hadn’t been thinking anything other than that he wanted to get away from Klaus and the others.

He was still near the academy, just down the road if Five had to guess. It would be fine, he’d be able to jump back easy.

He’d be fine.

Klaus watches Five jump away and sighs. He’d developed a habit of doing that when he was upset, which means Klaus should really go looking for him.

“Check his room and the library first” Ben says, wandering ahead of Klaus.

“Where else would he go?” Klaus asks. Five was a habitual person, he usually stuck to the same rhythm. When he was upset, he’d blink away to his room until he wasn’t upset anymore.

Usually Klaus would leave him to cheer himself up but well, something about Five’s wide watery eyes made Klaus think he needed someone with him. Especially since he was physically four years old.

“What do you think upset him?” Ben asks, Klaus twists the handle to Five’s door and shrugs preparing to have a marker thrown at him upon entrance. It doesn’t come.

Five’s room is empty, the sheets crumpled and his sippy cup on the side table. Klaus still found the sippy cup a little amusing, tough little Five drinking from the spout like a toddler was humorous but Klaus knew better than to bring it up.

“Vanya left this morning didn’t she? She had rehearsal or something” Klaus supplies, heading towards to library “little tyke was probably upset about that, he’s imprinted on her like a little duckling” Klaus giggles a little.

Five had been following Vanya around since their little shopping trip. Hovering around her, letting her run her hands through his hair, Klaus even saw her give him a kiss on the cheek this morning.

“Do you think whatever happened to him affected him mentally as well?” Ben asks after a moment of silence.

“What’d ya mean?”

“I mean he’s been acting weird, with the cup and getting so attached to Vanya, it’s like he’s actually four”

Klaus scoffs

“No way, he’s probably just wired since, you know, he was drugged and almost very nearly killed less than 48 hours ago”

“What you think Five’s in shock?”

“In his own odd little way” Klaus confirms

“Five spent an entire week getting almost killed and he didn’t act like this”

Klaus shrugs, entering the library

“Hey! Five, my darling murderous baby brother? You in here?” He calls, he doesn’t expect a reply. If anything he’d get the familiar flash of blue and be clued in that Five was at the very least in the academy.

He didn’t get that either.

He looked through the whole library and didn’t end up finding Five. Now Ben seemed worried

“Do you think Five left the academy?” He asks, thinly veiled panic in his voice

“Five wouldn’t do that, he’s stubborn not stupid” Klaus mumbles unconvinced by his own words. “I’m going to call the others, they’ll help me look for him”

The others, as it turns out, are also panicked.

“What do you mean you can’t find Five?” Allison asks,

“I mean I ran into him in the hallway, we had a short little chat, he did his usual flash of blue and now I can’t find him” Klaus says “I’ve checked the library and his room already”

“What’d you say to him?” Diego asks

“Nothing! I asked where he was going, he was all teary eyed and upset!”

“He was crying?”

“No, he was about to be crying, that’s why I asked where he was going” Klaus says defensively.

“Why was he about to cry?” Luther asks

“I don’t know, I thought it was cause Vanya left, wasn’t that why he was upset this morning?” Klaus asks and Allison nods

“Do you think he’s jumped to her?” Luther asks, Diego shakes his head.

“No way, It’s all the way across town, he wouldn’t make it” he says.

They lapse into silence. Tense and uncomfortable as they think.

“Klaus, me and you will stay here looking for him. Diego and Luther can go and look for him outside” Allison says “someone should call Vanya, make sure he’s not with her”

With that, she turns on her heel and the others follow.

Five was on his own, which was good. If Five was on his own, that meant the others weren’t there to protect him.

He would be weak, easy to catch. It was the perfect time to strike. The Handler was curious though.

He looked distraught and confused. Tears were shining in his eyes. It was such an odd state for Five to be in.

He didn’t seem to know where he was, which in itself was enough to spike her interest.

She would strike, eventually. For now, she’d observe.

Chapter Text

The Handler was a patient woman, she knew how to bide her time, waiting for the perfect moment to act. In her line of work, timing truly was everything.

Five was tricky and he was clever. If she wanted to catch him, she had to make sure to do it right. The beauty of being patient was her ability to observe, to plan.

Five was alone, weak and distraught. He would be easy to kill but The Handler had different plans.

This new drug was affecting Five in odd, amusing ways and she would be the first person to admit she had a bit of a vindictive streak. Five had humiliated her, he had single handedly destroyed everything she had worked for. It was only fair she do the same in return.

Once he was captured, The Handler would need to test the extents of the drugs effects. Five was a proud man, he fought long and hard to be viewed with the respect he desired.

This Five though, teary eyed and lost wearing velcro shoes and a children’s size small? This Five wasn’t that man. This Five wouldn’t be feared or revered.

The Handler took pleasure in seeing how far he had fallen in such a short amount of time. She’s sure the others at the commission wouldn’t take the same amount of enjoyment from his suffering as she would.

Though his current state would reinstate that The Handler was in charge. That she wasn’t to be trifled with. He would be an example for them all.

After all, she had brought the legendary Five to his knees, ruined him, taken everything that made him legendary from him.

She had made him and she will destroy him.

No one would cross her again.

Five sits underneath a tree with his eyes closed. He breathes deeply, willing the tears to go away.

He’s hidden, out of the way of any concerned cemeritans and wandering eyes, no one was going to find him unless they were really looking. He doesn’t know why that brings him such an acute anxiety but it does.

He tightens his hand around the knife he had stolen off of Diego at some point during breakfast. It was one of the smaller ones, the kind that could be easily hidden. It looked rather large in Five’s child sized grip though.

This would all be over soon. Mom would find an anomaly in Five’s DNA and from there he’d be able to work on a solution. He’d have something to focus on other than all the overwhelming feelings that kept resulting in tears.

He doesn’t remember crying this much when he had actually been four, though he supposes he doesn’t remember much about being four at all.

He hadn’t cried very often in front of the others, he at least knows that. Even from a young age their father had been fostering their rivalries. You couldn’t show weakness like that and expect to have the upperhand.

He opens his eyes slowly, peering around at the world around him. He never realised just how much he appreciated things like trees and crickets until there were no more to appreciate.

The world had been so quiet when he was in the apocalypse, he loved listening to the crickets. A constant reminder that the world was intact and life was being lived.

It was nice, sitting here under the tree.

He wished Vanya was here, she’d like it too.

He picks up a rock out of the ground, it was covered partially by soil but it was smooth and dark grey. He could take that with him, give it to Vanya to show her, that way she would have been here even if it was indirectly.

He pockets the rock.

Maybe the others would like it here too. Ben would, Allison would appreciate it as well. He doesn’t know about Diego or Luther but Klaus likes it when he gets included so he’d like it here too.

He should get them rocks as well. Then they all would have been there. Vanya’s would be special though.

He nods to himself, silently digging through the dirt in search of more rocks for his siblings.

Five managed to find 6 rocks.

one was about the size of Five’s palm and light grey with bumpy edges and dirt embedded in the grooves. He decided to give that one to Luther.

He found a sharp rock, broken and pointed and decided that it was for Diego.

Ben’s was clay coloured and flat with specks of dark brown on it. Klaus’ was round, it looked almost blue and had a hole in the side.

He found one that glittered a little in the sunlight and decided that it was for Allison.

Once he finished finding all the rocks, his mind wandered back to the fact that he was alone. It wasn’t safe to be alone, the commission might come for him or the others would disappear.

He needed to get back to the others. They were probably looking for him.

He felt the universe itch around him almost unwillingly. He didn’t know where it was going to take him but he trusted it would be somewhere safe.

The Handler watched Five dig through the dirt with his tiny little fingers, uncovering rocks and shoving them into his pocket with child-like intensity. She watched him do that for a full half an hour before he blinked away in a sudden flash of blue.

He hadn’t even noticed her, though she didn’t expect him to. She was carefully concealed, not a chance of being spotted even by someone like Five when they were at full capacity.

His behaviour was curious and The Handler was intrigued.

She’d strike soon and when she did it would be spectacular but for now, she watched. Waiting and biding her time.

After all, timing was everything in her line of work.

Luther and Diego had made it about 4 blocks away when a flash of blue stopped them, Five stumbling out of the jump clumsily and falling to his knees in front of them.

He seemed unharmed, dazed and tired but unharmed. That was good.

“FIve?” Diego asked gently, kneeling down “you good buddy?”

Five looked at him, familiar pout on his face

“Of course i’m good. Why wouldn’t i be?” he asks annoyed. He doesn’t look upset, his eyes aren’t red or watering and his voice wasn’t wavering.  

“You tripped is all, you scrape anything?” Five shakes his head, standing on wobbling knees and taking a few steps to steady himself.

“I’ll call Allison, let her know we found Five” Luther says, taking his phone out and dialing. He doesn’t talk to Allison long, hanging up barely a minute later and nodding.

“Come on, we should get home before Allison has a panic attack” he mumbles, taking the lead.

Five walks beside Diego, reaching into his pocket and pressing a small pointed rock into Diego’s hand silently.

Chapter Text

“Five, you can’t just run off like that” Allison says. It’s the first thing to come out of her mouth when they walk through the door. She looks notably frazzled, Five rolls his eyes.

“I didn’t run off” he says shortly, pushing past Allison. He’s stopped by her hand gripping his arm and pulling him back. Allison studies him silently for a moment, turing his face with her hands as Five scowls, determined to kill her with his glare.

“Stop that” he says, trying to whack her hands away

“I’m making sure you’re not injured” she tells him, turning his head to the right

“I’m not” Five spits, attempting again to pull away from her

“Like you’d actually tell us if you were” Allison shoots back, releasing his face from her hands

“Five, you can’t just leave whenever your upset. You have to talk to us” she says gently dropping her hands on his shoulder

“I wasn’t upset. I left because i was bored” he lies smoothly. Allison shakes her head and sighs, her annoyance clear. It sets Five on edge a little.

“Well you can’t do that either. You could’ve gotten hurt” Five scoffs, pushing her hands away roughly, she lets them fall to her side.

“I shouldn’t have to remind you that i spent years as an assassin. I can kill people in my sleep with a safety pin and you think i can’t handle being on my own for half an hour?” he spits, anger and frustration boiling over. He was sick of being treated like a child. He was sick of feeling like one.

“Five, we had this conversation yesterday. You can’t defend yourself properly like this!” Allison says, she doesn’t shout but she raises her voice just enough for Five to flinch. That makes the room stop.

“I don’t need your protection” he hisses, pushing past Allison with as much strength as he could muster. They don’t try to stop him as he stalks up the stairs to his room.

He doesn’t have the energy to jump.

Allison sighs, putting her hand against her forehead.

“I’m going to call Vanya, let her know we found him” she says, aggravation in her tone. With that she leaves, presumably to call Vanya.

“Someone should probably go after Five. Make sure he doesn’t leave again” Luther says. He doesn’t move to follow through with his own instruction and Diego sighs.

“I’ll do it but if i get stabbed, i am personally blaming you” he says. Luther looks relieved and Klaus shrugs, already halfway out the door on his way to do his own thing.

Diego was going to be pissed if he gets killed because he decided to do Luther a favour.

Five doesn’t do anything once he gets to his room. He doesn’t start ranting to the air or scribbling equations on the wall. He just sits on his floor, staring angrily at the wall.

He didn’t need a babysitter. He didn’t care if he looked like a child, he could take care of himself. It didn’t matter that he didn’t have complete control of his powers or that he couldn’t tie his shoelaces anymore. He didn’t need his siblings hovering over him.

His door opens without warning, Five hurls the knife in his pocket at the intruder.

“Fucking hell Five!” Diego shouts, narrowly dodging gaining another scar on the side of his head “is that one of mine?”

“Took it at breakfast” Five mumbles, standing up and dislodging it from the door frame. Diego comes further into his room “what do you want?”

“I’m just making sure you don’t run away again” Diego says, snatching the knife off of Five and adding it back to his belt

“Running away implies i didn’t intend on coming back” Five says, glaring at Diego

“Did you?” he asks, eyes on Five’s bookshelf

“Eventually”

“You mean like when Vanya came back?” Five glares at him harder. That had been exactly the plan.

Diego laughs at him.

“Where’d you go?” he asks, pulling a book out and flipping through the pages casually.

“What does it matter?” Five bites, trying to take the book of Diego. He doesn’t want him touching his stuff.

Diego holds the book above Five’s head with one hand, showing him the rock with the other

“What’s this for?” he asks and Five stops scowling.

“It’s a rock” he says slowly, as if Diego didn’t know what a rock was.

“Yeah, why’d you give it to me?” Diego asks. Five shrugs, his glare and pout replaced with embarrassment.

“I don’t know. I got it from the park for you”

“Yeah? How come?” Diego puts the book down, sitting on Five’s bed. Five stays standing, looking between Diego and the rock. He’d gotten it so that they would have been at the park with him. It sounded stupid now.

“I thought you’d like it” Five mumbles. Diego shuffles a little to the side, patting the space beside him demandingly

“Come here” he says simply. Five does, sitting next to diego cautiously, their legs pressed against each other. Diego holds the rock up, inspecting it.

“Why this one?” he asks, oddly gentle. Five’s only ever heard him talk to Klaus like that. It was soothing.

“It was sharp” Five mumbles again. Slowly he pulls the other rocks from his pockets, showing them to Diego. He keeps Vanya’s in his pocket, that one was special.

“This one’s for Allison” he says, gently resting the glittering rock aside “those ones are for Klaus and Ben, Luther gets the big one” Diego takes each of the rocks gently, nodding as he turns them over in his hands

“Why the rocks?” he asks. Five’s cheeks tinge pink and he looks away, embarrassed.

“Because then you would have seen the park too” he answers, mumbled and quiet after a minute.

“Was it a nice park?”

“It was quiet. And big. You would have liked it” Five says shyly. Diego nods along

“Maybe we can take mom there one day”

Five blinks, frowning

“I didn’t get mom a rock” he says, a little sadly. How will mom have seen the park if she didn’t get a rock as well? Mom would have loved the park.

“Mom won’t mind, i think she’d like it better if she saw it all for the first time with you anyway” Diego says gently. Five nods. Mom would like it better to see it all new, she could even help Five pick her rock.

Suddenly, he yawns. His eyes water and he rubs them absently.

Diego smiles at him

“You gotta stay awake for a little while longer buddy, Vanya should be home soon” he says and Five scowls at him

“I’m not tired” Diego nods, not believing him for a minute.

“Of course you're not, come on. How about you give the others their rocks while we wait for Vanya”

“Ok” Five says, sliding off the bed and scooping the rocks into his hands. Diego stands too and they begin their walk back towards their siblings.

Five doesn’t seem to notice when he slips his hand into Diego’s.

Diego frowns.

That wasn’t good.

Chapter Text

Diego lets Five lead, tugging him through the house by his hand. Five seems focused on finding the others and giving them their rocks, leaving Diego to watch him with growing concern.

It wasn’t a secret that Five had been acting strange. It wasn’t even a secret why. Diego just hadn’t registered what it meant until this moment.

Five was Five, arrogant and stubborn and unwilling to communicate exactly like the rest of them. Except now Five was also a kid, with emotions he didn’t know how to deal with and thoughts he didn’t understand.

Now Five was a kid, who wanted to give cool rocks he found in the park to his big brothers and sisters. It was cute, which Diego was having a hard time reconciling with the mental image of Five that he had.

It was also concerning. Diego didn’t know much about what had happened to Five but the main objective seemed pretty clear. Make Five easier to kill.

The commission was good at what they did, a lot of the time they were lucky that Five managed to be half a step ahead of them. The only reason they weren’t all dead yet was Five and his ability to out maneuver the bastards.

now they had a personal vendetta against him and Five had to be at the top of his game to survive. Whatever that drug had done to him meant he physically couldn’t be.

They needed to find a way to fix this, a way to make sure that Five would be safe and they needed to do it soon.

They found Klaus first, running into him in the hallway on their way down to the living room. He stared between Diego and the hand that Five was holding tightly in his own with a bewildered expression. All Diego could do was shrug.

Five lets go of Diego’s hand to select the correct rock, handing the blueish one to Klaus

“This one is for you” Five says, offering no other information. He holds Bens rock out “this is for Ben but i wanna give it to Ben not you” he says. Klaus looks lost and Diego gives him a look that hopefully conveys “ just go with it ” properly.

“Um, ok. Ben won’t be able to stick around for long but i should be able to get him here long enough for you to give him the rock” Klaus says. Five seems satisfied with the answer and moves back from Klaus.

The faint blue swirls around his hand, Ben flickering into view a few times before becoming solid.

Five comes closer, handing Ben the rock. Ben’s expression is soft, almost adoring as he takes it.

“Thank you” he says gently and Five nods, his face screwed up in embarrassment, taking off down the hall again. This time leaving DIego behind. Ben flickers out of view and the pebble drops to the ground.

“What the hell was that?” Klaus questions, picking the rock up. Diego shrugs.

“Five got us rocks”

“Why?”

“He thought we’d like the park he disappeared to”  Diego relays, showing Klaus his own rock before slipping it back in his pocket

“I’m not following” Klaus says

“I don’t really understand either but he’s trying to show us he cares in his own Five kind of way, so i’m not gonna question it and make him feel bad about it” Diego says. Klaus stands silent for a moment, looking to his right.

“Ben says that’s sweet” Klaus says “and i say that you're a big softie”

Diego flips him off.

Five finds Luther next, in his room fiddling with a model rocket he made years ago. Five doesn’t bother knocking, walking in and standing beside Luther silently.

Luther nods at him, adjusting one of the wings

“Hey Five” he greets

“I got you a rock” Five says, before he can convince himself that this was stupid and didn’t give it to Luther.

Luther pauses, setting the rocket down and looking at Five with confusion

“A rock?”

“Are you so stupid you don’t know what a rock is?” Five bites, no real venom behind his words

“I know what i rock is, why’d you get me one?”

“I thought you’d like the park” Five says. He’s aware that Luther won’t make the same connection he did to the rocks and the park but to Luther’s credit he nods his head and accept it as his answer.

“Thank you, that was thoughtful of you” Five scowls at him.

“I’m not a child, you don’t need to praise me for my thoughtfulness” Five says, handing Luther the big light grey rock

“Thank you for the rock Five” he reiterates, setting the rock on the display shelf Five knew Luther kept all of his favourite model rockets. Five hides his grin, nodding at Luther and leaving silently.

Five stands in the doorway of the living room watching Allison for a long time before he actually enters the room.

She was upset at him for leaving, it had scared her and annoyed her. Usually, Five wouldn’t care, he could handle himself just fine and Allison was being ridiculous but a part of him was upset about it.

He didn’t want Allison to be upset at him, it made him feel bad. It was a childish thought but it was in his head anyway. So he stood in the doorway, building up the courage to go and give her the rock he had chosen for her.

In the end, Allison had looked up from her book and spotted him in the doorway before he came into the room.

“Five?” she asks. She doesn’t sound mad or annoyed so Five steps into the room cautiously.

He doesn’t say anything as he walks towards her, she watches him with her head tilted and confusion in her eyes.

Silently, he holds the rock out for her to take, averting his eyes from her, choosing to stare at the ridiculous decorations throughout the room instead.

“Is this for me?” she asks gently, taking the rock only after Five nods “it’s pretty, where’d you get it?”

“From the park” Five says shyly, embarrassed.

“Is that where you went?” Allison asks, sliding to one end of the couch and waiting for Five to sit down.

He nods.

“Did you like it?” she asks gently, closing her book and putting it on the coffee table beside her.

“I liked the trees” he says “there were crickets there, they started making noise when i sat really still” Five cringes a little at how childish he sounds but Allison nods, intent on listening to what he has to say.

“I really missed trees. And crickets” she doesn’t ask him about it, just nods as he talks silently encouraging him to continue.

He does, telling her about the crickets and the trees and the dirt and that one worm he had dug up when searching for the rocks. She crinkles her nose and asks him questions.

“Do you know what park it was? So you can go again with someone” she asks, once he finishes telling all of his stories

“The one down the road, where all the old people go to feed the pigeons”

“Well no wonder you like it” Allison teases and Five laughs.

The front door creaks open.

“I’m home” Vanya calls quietly.

Blue flashes and Five jumps.

Chapter Text

Vanya had gotten a call about 10 minutes after arriving to rehearsal, asking her if Five had jumped to the theatre. Allison had told her that it would be fine, that they would find Five and that no, she didn’t need to leave rehearsal early.

Vanya had spent the rest of rehearsal waiting anxiously for another call, telling her they had found Five. it came a little over half an hour before she could leave.

The other members of the orchestra seemed to notice that she was on edge, a small group of girls Vanya couldn’t say she knew the names of coming up to her at lunch and asking about her wellbeing.

She had waved them off, with a polite smile and thankful nod

“Just waiting on some news” she had said. They had nodded and left her be.

Usually, Vanya was slow to pack up, slow to leave the theatre, slow to walk back to whichever home she was on her way to. This time, she was packed quick, out the door first and took a cab to the academy rather than walking.

She opened the door, the creak quietly resonating through the entryway.

“I’m home” she calls in greeting. There’s a flash of blue and Five is beside her, face pressed into her side and arms wrapped around her waist.

She doesn’t think much of it as she sets her violin down and lifts him onto her hip. He buries his face in the crook of her neck, mumbling quietly.

“I missed you”

It was quiet enough that Vanya would doubt he’d said it at all if his tiny fist hadn’t tightened around the part of her shirt he had bunched in his hand.

“I missed you too” she whispers back, pressing a light kiss to the side of his head as Allison comes through the door to the living room.

“Hey Vanya” she says warmly. Five squirms in her arms and Vanya puts him down, half expecting him to jump away. He doesn’t, instead he holds onto her pants leg and looks away, his cheeks and ears red.

Vanya hums back her own greeting, Allison continuing through the entryway up the stairs with a small nod and smile at Five.

Five rubs his eyes, trying to chase away the oncoming lethargy. It was the middle of the day, not the time to be sleeping. Besides, Vanya was back. He wanted to stay with her and if he fell asleep he wouldn’t be able to do that.

Now that Allison was gone he wanted to be picked up again.

Though he doubted Vanya would say no, the thought of asking made him feel ridiculous. It was such a childish request, he didn’t want to voice that he was thinking it at all.

Instead he lifted his arms up, making grabby hands at her and whining quietly to get her attention. It didn’t even occur to him that this way would seem infinitely more childish until he’d actually done it and by that point it was too late.

Vanya lifted him back up without a word and started walking towards the kitchen

“Are you hungry?” she asks gently, her hand rubbing circles on Five’s back soothingly.

“No” he replies, fighting to keep his eyes open. He didn’t want to go to sleep, he wanted to stay awake with Vanya.

Vanya hums in acknowledgement, walking into the kitchen and sitting him at the table so that he’s facing the door.

She moves around the kitchen, pulling out ingredients to make herself a sandwich. Five watches her absently, her drifting closed and then snapping back open.

She sets his cup down in front of him with a gentle smile and sits beside him to eat

“What’s on that?” Five asks, sipping slowly on the apple juice

“Banana and honey” Vanya replies. Five wasn’t in any place to judge her on odd combinations of food but it sounded disgusting. He wrinkles his nose a little and Vanya laughs.

“How was rehearsal?” he asked quietly, words muffled by the spout of his cup

“It was fine up until allison called me saying they couldn’t find you” Vanya says. Five has the courtesy to look sheepish.

“ ‘m sorry” he mumbles

“It’s ok Five but you can’t do that ok?”

He nods tiredly and Vanya doesn’t think he actually understands but isn’t willing to push it at the moment, not when he looks like he’s about to fall asleep with his head on the table.

“Where’d you go?” she asks softly.

“To a park”

“Yeah? Was it nice?”

Five hums, digging into his pocket and producing a pebble

“Got you a rock” he says, putting it on the table in front of Vanya. It was dark grey and smooth, bits of damp soil still clinging to the surface of it. “It’s special”

He doesn’t tell her why it’s special, Vanya doesn’t ask

“Thank you Five, i love it” she says, pocketing the rock and running her hand through Five’s hair gently.

Five doesn’t fall asleep at the table, which was surprising in itself.

“Come on, you should lay down” Vanya says, gently lifting Five out of the chair. He opens his eyes again instantly, shaking his head

“I’m not tired” he lies. His eyes are bloodshot and Vanya had watched him spend the past 3 minutes stifling yawns.

“Five, i’m not even going to pretend i believe that” Vanya says

“I don’t want to sleep” stubborn determination mixes in with his tired voice and Vanya sighs. This wasn’t a battle she was going to win.

“Fine, how about we watch a movie then?” she suggest. With the way Five was going, he’d be asleep before the opening credits had finished rolling.

“What movie?” Vanya thinks for a moment, Five wouldn’t care either way what movie it was.

“UP” she decides

“The disney movie?” Five asks, judgement clear in his voice

“it’s a good movie” Vanya defends

“Klaus and Diego cried last time we watched it”

Vanya was aware of that, she had been there.

“it was sad”

“It was ridiculous”

“Well i want to watch it”

“Fine” Five mumbles, resting his head against her shoulder with his eyes only half open.

There was no way he’d stay awake past the opening scene.

Chapter Text

Five, as it turns out, was adamant on staying awake.

He was pressed into Vanya’s side, his eyes half closed and knees pulled to his chest. His shoes had been kicked off and he’d taken off the sweater he was wearing.

He was still awake when the credits rolled, despite Vanya’s best efforts to coerce him into sleep.

“You need to take a nap”  she says, and Five looks at her with blatant disgust

“I’m not a toddler Vanya, i don’t need to take a nap” he says, punctuating it with a yawn

“Well then you need to eat lunch”

“I’m not hungry”

“Well then you need to take a nap”

Five scowls, apparently realising what Vanya was doing

“Those aren’t the only two options” he says, crossing his arms and pouting

“Right now they are, you take a nap or you eat some lunch.” Vanya says, standing up and stretching.

“If i eat lunch i won’t have to take a nap?” Five asks. Vanya has a feeling about where this was going.

“For now” she says cautiously, maybe it’ll be enough to convince Five to choose one.

“But i’ll still have to take a nap” Vanya watches the gears turn in Five’s head and sighs. He wasn’t going to choose.

“Eventually”

“Then neither” Five says, smiling like he’d won their game.

Five needed to take a nap. He was tired and Vanya was just lucky that Five got clingy when he was tired instead of angry like most toddlers. She could probably use that to her advantage somehow.

“Five come here” she says, holding her hand out for him to take. He does, almost unthinkingly. Usually Five was smarter than that.

Vanya lifts him up easily, holding him sideways and swaying gently. He squirms and pushes against her chest trying to get away

“Vanya! Put me down” he cries and Vanya shakes her head, swaying him as she walks towards her room.

“Nope, it’s nap time” she says, Five squirms again and Vanya has to adjust him so he won’t fall while she’s on the stairs “hey be careful, i don’t want to drop you”

“Maybe i want you to drop me” he says, kicking his legs out haplessly. Klaus is watching them from where he’s sitting on the banister, Vanya can even see Ben’s faint outline.

Five doesn’t seem to notice him, more focused on unsuccessfully escaping Vanya’s hold.

She kicks her door open with her foot and drops Five on the bed unceremoniously, before kicking her shoes off and flopping down beside him.

“What are you doing?” he asks, watching her with curiosity in his wide eyes. He looks so cute and Vanya has to muffle her laughter in the comforter.

“It’s naptime, we’re going to take a nap” she says once she’s stopped giggling, taking off her sweater and throwing it blindly across the room. She lifts up the comforter and wriggles under it.

“You don’t need to take a nap though” Five says

“So you admit that you do need to take a nap” Vanya counters and Five pouts

“I didn’t say i needed a nap”

“Well i want to take a nap” Vanya says, though it’s muffled as she pulls the comforter to her chin and closes her eyes “come nap with me and then you can eat lunch and we’ll do whatever you want once we’re both awake” she says

Five blinks at Vanya, already under the covers and prepared to go to sleep. If he took a nap with Vanya he’d still be with her, it wouldn’t matter if he was sleeping because she would be sleeping too.

Slowly, he slides under the covers beside her.

Slowly, his eyes drift closed.

Slowly, he falls into a dreamless sleep, wrapped in Vanya’s arms.

It wasn’t the ideal time to strike, The Handler can acknowledge that much. It would have been much easier to scoop Five up from the park and be done with it but her curiosity had gotten the better of her.

Though, knowing just how deep his little attachment to his siblings ran would definitely help her in the long run. She’d learnt not to underestimate that families ridiculous love for one another.

He looked positively adorable like this, curled in on himself with his sisters arms loosely holding him close to her, a thumb stuck in his mouth carelessly. He looked angelic in his sleep.

The Handler was a little stunned at the sight.

Ruthless, calculating, logical Five; who had managed to evade the commission and outwit even her best agents numerous times, was sucking his thumb at nap time curled into his perceived mothers embrace, looking every bit an adorable toddler.

It was amusing to her in so many ways.

Five must hate it like this, if his discomfort at being 13 was anything to go by. She could only imagine his outrage at being so small and vulnerable, at having to take a nap with his mommy.

She could only imagine his outrage when she had him back at the commission and held this particular moment above his head, her irrefutable proof that he was nothing more than a little boy who had no hope of escape.

Before she could do that, before she could take out her petty revenge and complete her task, she actually needed to get him back. That seemed to be shaping into a problem.

While it wouldn’t be hard to take Five in his current state, it was the sister that worried The Handler. Vanya Hargreeves had the power to destroy the world at her fingertips, The Handler was under no illusion that she would win that fight.

It wasn’t the ideal time to strike and The Handler was a patient woman but she was running out of time and out of options. After all, even she had to answer to someone.

She needed to act.

Five woke up to someone touching his face. Tracing gentle patterns across his cheeks with cool fingers. At first he thinks it’s Vanya, before his mind fully comes back to reality and he realises that Vanya was asleep beside him.

He sits up with a start, smacking the hand away from him forcefully. Best case scenario, it was one of his siblings.

The universe was cruel and sadistic.

The Handler stood over the bed, red lipstick and black ensemble. She tsked at Five, her hand looming near his face.

Five froze.

Chapter Text

“That wasn’t very polite” she says, retracting her hand. Five doesn’t respond, glare trained on her.

She laughs

“Isn’t that cute” she hums, bopping Five on the nose. He glares harder.

He had no weapons. He needed to wake up Vanya. The Handler seems to realise what his plan is. The purple of Vanya’s bed sheets becomes overly saturated and the sounds of the birds outside stopping.

“Now Five, i understand that your mind is probably incredibly out of sorts right now, so i’m going to explain this to you, very very clearly” she says condescendingly. Five gnarls his teeth.

“I’m going to take you back to the commission, we are going to examine you, we are going to kill you. Do you understand?”

Five wants to hit her. He wants to stab her in the neck and wipe that patronising smile off of her face. He can’t do any of those things right now.

He has no weapon, no form of defense or escape. She had the upper hand.

He needs to buy himself some time.

“Yes”

Ben follows Vanya when she takes Five into her room, Klaus yelling out that he was a traitor as he abandons him on the banister.

Ben watches Vanya climb into the bed and close her eyes and he watches Five follow her lead. He watches as their breathing evens out and their faces smooth as they sleep and he smiles.

Then he watches as The Handler shows up in a flash of blue wearing a pristine black dress and sadistic smile. He watches her run her hand down Five’s face.

He yells at Vanya, hoping to wake her up. It doesn’t work.

He runs, shouting as loud as he can for Klaus

“Klaus!” he skids to a stop in front of his brother, startling Klaus into falling off the banister and onto the floor

“Jesus Ben, what the hell?”

“You need to get the others!”

“Why?” Klaus groans, pushing himself back up to sand

“Creepy lady! Vanya’s room! About to kill Five!”

Klaus runs too, shouting for the others on his way to Five’s room.

By the time they get back, it’s empty.

Five wouldn’t say he was going with The Handler willingly, though he certainly wasn’t putting up much of a fight as they traveled to the commission building.

He had to be smart about this.

They weren’t going to kill him straight away, The Handler had said so herself. They were going to examine him, which brought him a different kind of discomfort.

They weren’t going to kill him though, that meant he had time.

If he used that time right, he’d be able to escape.

The walls were shaking, paintings and decorations shuddered violently as Vanya paced around the living room floor.

“Who took him?” she asked. Her voice was barely above a whisper, laced with the promise of a violent death. Klaus would be scared if he didn’t know that anger wasn’t directed at him.

“Ben said it was The Handler” Klaus repeated “showed up, touched his face all creepy and Ben came to get the rest of us, when we got there you were awake and Five was gone”

Far off in the distant, they heard something shatter. Hopefully it wasn’t anything too valuable.

“How did she take him? I was in the room” the wind pounded against the windows and Allison put her hand on Vanya’s shoulder in an attempt at comfort.

“She can pause time, make everything around her stop. Maybe she did that” Luther mumbles, biting his thumb.

Vanya let out a shuddering breath, the house rattled in time.

“we need to find him” she whispers “how do we find him?”

They look between each other, none of them knew.

“We have to find him” her eyes tinge blue and a window shatters. The glass sprays over the floor. Vanya closes her eyes, the others watch her count her breathing until the howling of the wind calmed and the house stopped quaking.

“I might know a way” Diego says.

The commission building hadn’t changed very much since the last time Five had been there. People milled around, making small talk like what they did was a standard office job rather than some headache inducing sci-fi bullshit.

Everyone they passed seemed to have their eyes on Five. Or maybe it was The Handlers iron grip on his wrist as she tugged him along, smiling fakely at those who greeted her.

Five was pulled along through the office, down a familiar hallway and into a familiar room,

Nothing about The Handlers office had changed. Everything in the same place right down to the candy jar on her desk.

She closed the door and locked it. Five didn’t like that she locked it.

She walked behind her desk, her heels clicking loudly in the silence of the room. Five didn’t like this.

She sat down, gesturing for Five to sit as well. Five really didn’t like this

Diego drove. Vanya’s nails digging bloodied crescent moons into her palms the whole time in an effort to control the anger and anxiety coiling in her stomach.

“It’ll be ok” he told her, not taking his eyes off of the road. She wanted to believe him.

Five was strong, Five was smart and Vanya had no doubts that he would be fighting, kicking and screaming. She was still worried. That might not be enough this time.

Five was strong and he was smart but he wasn’t invincible.

“He’ll be ok” she whispered to herself. The trees swayed in the violent wind outside.

“The drug we injected you with, it was purely experimental” The Handler starts, smiling at him sweetly. As if this was a pleasant conversation. Five had to bite the inside of his cheek to stop his lip from trembling. He wanted to go home.

“We don’t know the effects of it any more than you do, so we’ll be keeping you alive for the time being to determine what they are and if it will be useful to continue manufacturing. Make no mistake though, once that has been determined, you will be killed” she pushed the candy jar towards him

“Would you like one?”

Five really wanted to go home.

The bell chimed as they walked in, the diner was empty aside from the worker behind the counter. Vanya stepped forward.

“Hazel? We’re Five’s siblings. We need your help”

Chapter Text

The Handler was watching him intently. Waiting for him to take one of the candies.

Five hates this. He hates being in a room alone with her, he hates that he’s so scared, he hates that he can feel the tears building behind his eyes as he takes a shuddering breath.

He wants Vanya. He wants Diego, Allison, Klaus, Ben, Luther. He wants someone here with him, so he didn’t have to do this alone.

The Handler had been an unsettling presence even when Five had been able to match her blow for blow.  Now it was increased tenfold. They both knew that she had the upper hand.

Five was outmatched and alone.

He hates this.

The Handler hums with concern, walking towards him slowly and kneeling to his height.

She grasps his chin, tilting his head up to face her.

“Oh dear, you seem upset” she hums. Five tries to pull his face away, her grip tightens, holding him in place.

“You must be quite frightened” she croons, wiping away the stray tear that had fallen from the corner of his eye gently “all alone without your mommy, no one to protect you”

Five spits at her.

He refuses to cry, to be any more vulnerable than he already is, in front of her.

The Handler straightens, looking at him disapprovingly,

“Five, that was very rude” she tsks, chastising him like he’s a child. “I don’t think you had a very good nap, maybe you need another one” she hums contemplatively, sitting behind her desk and looking at Five.

His alarm must have shown on his face.

“That’s right. I was there for your little nap. You were the picture of cuteness truly. Did you know that you suck your thumb?” she asks, smiling at him sharply.

Five feels mortification crawling across his skin.

“I read that sucking your thumb was bad for your little teeth, it might make them crooked when you get bigger” she continues tapping away at the typewriter in front of her, glancing at Five

“maybe I should get you a pacifier, it would be much better for you I promise” she teases, grinning at him widely. Five snarls at her.

“Now, now. None of that. I’m only considering your best interests, no need to throw a tantrum sweetie” the endearment grates on Five’s ears. It makes him want to spit and scratch and scream at her.

She stands, smoothing out her skirt and walking over to Five. she grasps his wrist in her hand

“Well then, i suppose it’s time we move on. We have some tests to run after all”

Five had only been in the commission building twice in his lifetime, so it didn’t surprise him that he didn’t know where The Handler was leading him. It still put him on edge.

They passed fewer people the further down they went. The lights blinked oddly and the walls were completely bare. It was unsettling.

He tightened his hand into a fist and The Handler glanced at him, smiling sweetly.

“Oh don’t worry, we’re only going to do a routine check up for the moment. See how much you weigh, how tall you are, those kind of things. A fairly standard doctor's visit really” she smiles at him, mockingly “you can hold my hand if you get nervous sweetie, I won’t mind”

Five glares at her and tries to pull his wrist away. He knows it won’t work but he proves his point.

The Handler nudges Five into the room, closing the door behind her. It did look like a fairly normal doctors office, not that Five had much to base it off of.

There was a woman there, in a 40’s nurse get up smiling sweetly at him

“Five, this is Linda. She’ll be doing your check up today”  The Handler says, artificial sweetness in her tone “maybe if you’re a good boy and behave yourself you’ll get a lollipop”

“I do have plenty of Lollipops” Linda says. She wasn’t teasing as far as Five could tell, she might just genuinely think that Five was a child. “Could you sit on the bench for me honey?”

When Five doesn’t comply with her request The Handler lifts him up, dropping him on the plastic bed and pinches his cheek, hard enough for it to hurt.

“Don’t be scared sweetie, it’s just a doctor's visit” she says, sadistic smile on her face as she turns to Linda, letting go of his cheek “he’s a little shy around new people, you know how kids are”

Five wasn’t shy. Linda smiled and nodded, taking the stethoscope from around her neck

“I’m going to check your heartbeat, is that ok?” she says, not to give him a choice. It was just a warning.

Five nodded his head stiffly.

The check up went much like that.

Linda would tell him what she was going to do, any time he didn’t comply The Handler would pinch his cheek and chuckle about how darling it was that he was so nervous.

In the end, Linda handed him a bright red lollipop with a sweet smile on her face.

Five took it, only to have The Handler take it from him.

“Oh don’t worry sweetie, i’m just saving it until after you’ve had your lunch” she says, smiling in amusement at his scowl. “Well come on, you must be very hungry”

They were back in The Handlers office, with a glaring new addition to the room.

A wooden high chair, sat near The Handlers desk chair.

“Do you like it?” she asks, grinning “it’s vintage, i picked it up the last time i was in the 50’s, i thought it was adorable”

Five scowled. He wasn’t going to sit in that thing.

“Oh don’t be like that Five. it’s for your own benefit, after all we don’t want you getting your adorable little outfit all messy” she teases, leaning down and picking him up, resting him on her hip.

He kicks out, struggling to get away from her.

“Oh dear, maybe you do need another nap.” she says, her hand resting on Five’s cheek as she tsks.

Five kicks out again.

He doesn’t stand much of a chance, it’s barely even a fight before he’s in the chair with the wooden table preventing him from getting out.

“Well don’t you look darling” The Handler says, running her hand through his hair.

Five hits it away. She’s not allowed to do that.

The Handler turns away, skirt swishing and satisfied grin still on her face. Five can’t see what she’s doing, not that he cares much as he tries to push the table out enough for him to climb down.

He stops when she turns back around, a plastic bowl of yoghurt in her hand.

“You’ve been awfully quiet Five” she muses setting the bowl down in front of him “surely you have questions? Threats to make? People to beg for?”

She sits in her chair, one leg crossed over the other and eyes on Five.

“How many people in the commission know?” he asks. He hates it, hates the childish voice and the glee it brings The Handler when she hears it.

“Only me, the recently departed agent who did this to you, and the small team that concocted the drug” she answers “i was under orders to keep this whole situation on the downlow” she says, smiling at Five

“I’m going to tell you a secret” she says, standing up and putting a hand on his cheek, stroking her thumb absently

“the commission likes you. You’re clever, resourceful, brave. The perfect weapon really. That’s why they chose you to test this new drug on. If it works properly, we’ll be able to mold you into the perfect soldier and if it doesn’t, you won’t be able to put up much of a fight when we kill you”

“What do you mean mold me?” The Handler hums, sitting back down and crossing her ankles

“Well, surely you’ve noticed you have rather childish tendencies now?” she asks “the drug is supposed to cause the slow degradation of the mind, your memories will disappear eventually. I mean you should already have a few rather gaping blank spots”

He doesn’t. Five can remember everything just fine.

He could use that to his advantage.

Chapter Text

Hazel looked different. His hair was greyer, more wrinkles lined his face but he was still undoubtedly Hazel.

“You need my help?” he asks, his bewilderment clear as he stepped out from behind the counter “what for?”

“The Handler took Five, we need to know where she might take him” Vanya says, Diego watches the mugs stacked on the counter rattle, sliding his hand into Vanya’s to calm her down.

Hazel nodded, flipping the closed sign on the door and sighed, long and heavy.

“The Handler would probably take him back to the commission if she hasn’t killed him already” he says, looking between Vanya and Diego “that is a very big if” he says. The mug shatters

“Jesus christ!” he jumps, Vanya counts her breathing.

“We need to know where the building is” Diego says, stepping forward. Hazel sighs again.

“I wish i could tell you but i don’t know” he says, apologetic “I was a field agent, i’ve never been near that building outside of my recruitment and even then I only saw the inside”

Another mug shatters.

“Please stop doing that” he pleads.

“I can’t help it right now” Vanya mumbles, eyes still closed with her fists clenched. Hazel looked sympathetic at least. He tears off a piece of paper from his pad, scribbling something down and handing it to Diego.

“That’s the address of a retired office worker, i can’t promise you they’ll comply but they will know where the building is”

“Thank you” Diego says, pulling Vanya out of the diner along with him.

“Five, you need to eat your lunch” The Handler says, tapping away on her typewriter. Five hadn’t even picked up the spoon yet.

Not that she actually cared. Five not eating doesn’t concern her, she was happy to just leave him in the highchair while she went about her work and waited for the R&D team to come to her but an opportunity was presenting itself to her.

Teasing Five was always fun, a petty way to take out her frustration with all the issues he had caused. He seemed to dislike the mock affection she had been showing him the most.

He didn’t like the babying, which The Handler could understand. This whole situation must be so very humiliating for him. After all, someone of his caliber wouldn’t usually be sitting in a highchair, being chastised for not eating their yoghurt.

She swivels on her chair, earning a slight widening of his eyes giving away his surprise at her movements. She pulls the chair closer to him, smiling sickly sweet at him.

He looks scared. How cute.

He was so very expressive nowadays, The Handler wouldn’t lie and say she wasn’t enjoying it.

She picks up the spoon in the yoghurt, holding it to Five’s mouth

“If you won’t feed yourself, i’m going to assume it’s because your incapable and do it for you” she says, holding the spoon to his mouth “open wide sweetie”

His eyes flash with indignance and hatred, his jaw clamped shut. Now that simply won’t do.

“Five, if you don’t eat your lunch, i’m going to have to punish you” she says slowly. Fear flashes in his eyes briefly and The Handler tries to suppress her joy.

“Now, i’m not particularly well versed in punishing toddlers but I know enough. I’m thinking a spanking?”

His mouth opens. She spoons the yoghurt into his mouth.

She hadn’t been serious about spanking him, it was just another jab, but he had believed she would without any hesitation. How interesting.

“Good boy” she praised, using the spoon to wipe away the yoghurt on the corner of his mouth. His face burns red and he looks away from her. How cute.

The house was quaint, it had neatly trimmed rose bushes out the front and a white picket fence.

Vanya was the one to knock on the door, Allison had replaced Diego. The others were all down the street, prepared to intervene if it got ugly.

A woman opened the door, she was in her early 60’s. She blinked at the warily.

“Can i help you?” she asks

“You used to work for an organisation called the commission. We’d like to talk to you about that” Allison says.

Five hated yoghurt.

He allowed The Handler to spoon more into his mouth.

He ate in silence, glaring at her with as much intensity as he could muster. Whatever heat it held was negated whenever the spoon was lifted to his mouth and he complied with her request.

If he played along, acted like he was forgetting things, played into what The Handler wanted to happen, he’d be able to get away.

The Handler smiled at him when the yoghurt was finished

“There we go! All done” she says, putting to bowl to the side and lifting Five out of the chair “you were such a good boy sweetie” she says, kissing his forehead. FIve recoils.

He pushes back against her, earning a sharp slap to his thigh

“No Five, no pushing. That’s very mean” she scolds. Five goes still in her arms.

“I think the first thing we’ll have to do is teach you some proper manner, since I suppose Reginald didn’t bother with such things” she hums and Five trains his face into an expression of confusion.

“Who’s Reginald?” he asks quietly, forcing as much irritation and confusion into his voice as he could. He knew exactly who Reginald was. The Handler looked delighted.

“Oh, no one important sweetie” she says, carrying him out of her office.

The Handler watches Five’s face morph into one of confusion at the mention of his father.

“Who’s Reginald?” he asks, in his darling little voice. Oh, this was wonderful. He sounded so very frustrated that he didn’t know who she was talking about. That meant the injection was working.

“Oh, no one important sweetie” she watches him cringe at the endearment as she carries him out of her office. She needed to stretch her legs and she would be absolutely delighted to show off how adorable little Five was to the rest of the office.

The woman let them inside with shaky hands, mumbling quietly to herself.

Allison scanned the walls of her home as she lead them to the kitchen, promising tea for them.

Ornate picture frames lined the walls, pictures of a smiling children with the woman, of the woman and a man smiling and wrapped in each others arms on their wedding day, a child's school photos.

“My granddaughter” the woman supplies for Allison, when she notices her lingering gaze.

“She’s looks very sweet” Allison replies, trailing after Vanya to the kitchen.

The woman takes a shaky breath as she prepares the kettle.

“Do you work for the commission?” she asks, eyeing them with suspicion.

“No” allison answers “they took our brother, we’d like to get him back”

The woman laughs, joylessly

“How am i supposed to help? I wasn’t a field agent”

“We need to know where the building is” Vanya says, eyes silently pleading with the woman.

The woman shakes her head

“No, no. i can’t tell you that” she says

“Please, ma’am they are going to kill our brother if you don’t. He’s only a kid” Allison says, eyeing Vanya. The wind whips through the room and the woman closes the window forcefully.

“No, i’m sorry, i am. But i can’t tell you where the commission is”

Allison sighs.

She had hoped it wouldn’t come to this.

“I heard a rumour.”

Chapter Text

The Handler wanted to say that she was being completely professional about Five’s little predicament but that simply wouldn’t be the truth. She was taking great joy in teasing and poking at him.

A sadistic part of her wanted to see him cry.

She’s sure it would be the cutest thing, Five’s pretty eyes glassy with tears rolling down his rosy cheeks. An even more sadistic part of her wanted everyone to see it.

She wanted them all to see strong, proud, legendary Five, blubbering and crying, clinging to her skirt for comfort.

And well, she had the power to do that.

No one said her job did not come without its perks.

The office communal area was bustling with activity. The Handler watched Five, eyes darting around the room in panic with his fists clenched tightly.

This was going to be easy.

Five glanced around the room.

There were so many people. Five felt his stomach roll. He didn’t like having so many people around him but this could work to his advantage, if he could just get The Handler to put him down.

She carried him to the coffee machine, swaying as she made her coffee, her skirt swishing around her as she hummed.

“I would offer you one but I don’t think giving small children caffeine is recommended” she says.

A man comes up to them with a smile on his face, wearing a slightly ill fitting brown suit with greased back black hair.

“Oh hello Kevin” The Handler greets “say hello to Kevin, Five” she instructs. Five scowls and The Handler whacks him gently on the thigh, leaving it there as an unspoken warning.

“Hello” he mumbles, glaring at The Handler. Kevin smiles at him, going about making his coffee as The Handler takes her coffee.

“You know, i really didn’t expect you to be the shy type” she muses, sitting on one of the free leather sofas with Five held in her lap “though i suppose that’s to be expected. Most children are shy the first time they’re separated from their parents”

She hums, taking a sip of her coffee slowly.

“I am sorry you didn’t get to say goodbye, if i had given you that chance i never would have been able to get you here” she says. Five was getting back to them, he didn’t need to say goodbye.

Her words rang in his mind anyway. He wanted Vanya to be here, to take him away and make The Handler stop touching him.

He missed Vanya. And he missed Allison and Diego. He missed Klaus and Luther and Ben and Mom.

The tears came to his eyes unwillingly and he cursed internally, swiping at his eyes quickly and hoping The Handler hadn’t noticed. She had.

“Oh sweetie, it’s ok” she says, holding his hand away from his face. She watches the tears fall onto his cheeks with sympathy. “It’ll all be ok, you’ll see. In a few days, you won’t even remember them”

She cups his cheek, smiling at him softly.

Five sucks in a shuddering breath, hiccuping and trying to push her hand away. The other employees are staring at him

“Oh, poor dear” The Handler sighs, standing up and lifting him onto her hip gently “come on, let’s get back to my office. I’ll make it all better, i promise”

No. if they left now, Five would miss his window.

He had to try and he had to try now. There were a few agents milling around, he’d seen them. They would have their weapons on them, that would be his chance to escape.

Five curls his hands into fists, pushing and pulling at the universe around him.

He jumps.

He lands by one of the agents, pulling their gun from it’s hollister and jumping again, before any of them can react.

He lands in the hallway, with the dinky lights and bare walls.

It’s silent save from the buzz of electricity.

Then the sirens start wailing.

Five runs down the hall, skidding past the doctor's office and down another empty hallway. He had a few minutes, there was no chance The Handler knew where he disappeared to, so he had a few minutes to recharge enough to make the jump out of here.

The hallway only had one door, at the very end.

“experimental weaponry” was printed on the door. That was helpful.

They had the address and the woman had no recollection of them ever being there.

The tires screech loudly, Klaus was driving, if only because he had little to no regard for road safety laws and would get them there the fastest.

The wind outside was violent, trees bent so far they almost break. Vanya’s eyes glowing a faint blue whenever she opened them.

They were going to get Five back.

The room was dark and empty, save for the glow of computer screens.

Five would find the file on whatever drug he’d been injected with and then he’d jump out of the commission.

Whoever had been in there had left there computers on, probably in their rush to evacuate once the sirens had started.

All Five had to do was find the correct thing to search.

That wasn’t hard either. The Handler had told him he was the first test subject. His name would be in the log.

It was the first result.

Cabinet-19 drawer-E : Experimental injection #005-1

Five moved quickly, shutting off the computer and counting the cabinets until he made it to the correct one. He opened the drawer, sifting through the files quickly.

The door creaked open as soon as he’d found it.

The tell tale sound of The Handlers heels click and Five holds his breath.

“Five, i know you're in here” she calls, a lilt in her voice. Five shuffles around the cabinets as he hears her coming closer. He hears a gun click. A shot is fired, narrowly missing him.

He can’t jump again yet. He won’t be able to make it.

Instead, he runs.

When they arrive at the commission, people are filling out the doors.

Vanya is out of the car before Klaus has even pulled to a stop, pushing through the crowd to try and get inside.

Klaus laughs

“Who wants to bet our dear little Five is the reason for the mass hysterics?” he asks

Five is at a disadvantage.

The only reason he hasn’t been caught yet is The Handlers warranted confidence that she doesn’t need to run to keep up with him.

He doesn’t even know how many bullets the gun he has clenched tightly in his hand has in it, or if he’ll be able to shoot it properly.

He turns another corner, bolting down the set of stairs he finds. The Handler is out of sight but Five doubt that means she’s very far behind him.

He pushes open whatever door isn’t locked. Weaving through rooms he’d never seen before and hoping he’d end up somewhere useful, like a weapons vault.

“Five, we both know you can’t escape this” The Handler calls, a heavy sigh of annoyance following. Five turns another corner.

He’s at the top of the stairs to the exit.

The Handler is right across from him, gun trained on him with a disappointed look in her eyes.

“Five, if you give up now i won’t kill you” she says “but that spanking i mentioned earlier is certainly on the table now”

Five grits his teeth.

“Fuck you” he spits.

A shot echoes through the building.

A gunshot sounds and the people outside scream.

Vanya pushes through the crowd, the others right behind her.

Chapter Text

Five hissed, clutching his arm and letting his gun clatter to the floor. The bullet had grazed him, leaving searing pain flaring in his arm.

The Handler tsked at him, lowering her gun and walking towards him.

“Now see, that could have been avoided if you had just stopped having a tantrum and listened to me” she says, kneeling in front of him and running a finger along the side of his face, catching the tears that dripped from his eyes.

“Oh, there’s no need to cry sweetie. I’ll have you all patched up in no time and then we can discuss the punishment for your behaviour”

He spat at her, grinning when she recoils in disgust. She slaps him, hard across the face, sending his head reeling to the side.

The door swings open, slamming loudly.

The foundations of the building quake and rattle, the glass of the windows shattering with a loud crash.

The Handler stands up abruptly, gun aimed and firing 3 shots.

The sound rings in Five’s ears.

His vision blurs, fading in and out of focus.

He hears the blood rushing in his ears rather than the fighting that is going on around him but he feels the ground trembling and shaking. Can see the shattered glass on the floor rising.

Vanya was here.

Vanya slammed the door open, her eyes flaring blue and the world bending itself to match her anger.

The windows shattered as the door slammed and The Handler stood from where she was, standing over Five.

Vanya watches The Handler aim her gun, her siblings surge forward.

The gun fires and Vanya uses the sound of the shot, sending a pulse of energy at The Handler, knocking her back into the wall. Away from Five.

Vanya runs, weaving through Allison and Luther to make it to Five first. She ignores the fighting as her siblings get shot out, focus zeroed in on Five.

She ignores the yelling and the shouting and all the anger until she has Five in her arms, curled into her chest with his eyes half lidded. Blood stains her hand.

Five’s blood.

She turns her head to the fighting, in time to watch Allison roundhouse kick The Handler in the face. The gun was still held in The Handler’s hand, pristine manicured fingers on the trigger.

The Handler has a thin line of blood coming from her mouth.

She had shot Five. she had taken and hurt Five.

Vanya felt the anger boil over, everything becoming quieter around her, except for the sound of Five’s shallow breathing.

It got louder. Louder. Louder. Louder.

Vanya felt the ground shaking, watched the shattered glass rise and fly towards The Handler. Embedding every tiny shard into her body, ripping and tearing at her skin.

She doesn’t hear The Handler scream.

Just Five’s breathing. Louder and louder and louder.

Diego kicks The Handler once she’s down, just for good measure. Klaus spits on her.

Vanya listens to Five’s breathing. The sounds of the world coming back to her slowly.

“Is she dead?” she hears Luther asks. Vanya knows she is.

“Yes” Allison confirms, no sympathy in her tone, just a cold satisfaction

“Good” Luther says, anger so very clear. Not anger at Vanya, for killing the woman. At The Handler.

Good. She deserved to be dead.

Five wakes up in pain, with someone's hand in his own.

He doesn’t open his eyes right away, trying to bring back the memories of what happened.

The Handler had shot him. The bullet had grazed him arm. Vanya had shown up. Then it was blank. That would be when he lost consciousness.

He blinks his eyes open, groaning at the bright light that assaulted his vision. The hand in his twitched, a cool palm pressed against his forehead.

“Five?” it was Vanya, Five smiled. “’m so glad you’re awake” she whispers.

She has tears in her eyes, her hair is a mess and she looks so tired.

“Are you ok?” he asks, his voice quiet and creaking

She laughs wetly. Her hand running through his hair. A tear slips down her cheek

“Five you got shot, why are you asking me if i’m ok?” she asks incredulously. Five shrugs, raising his hand to wipe her cheek.

“You look sad” he mumbles and Vanya smiles at him, hugging him gently but tightly. Five hugs her too, silently hoping he doesn’t have to let go.

“I love you Five” she whispers into his hair, kissing his head “i love you so much”

Five nods into her shoulder

“I love you too” he mumbles.

They stay like that for a while.

Until Allison comes in, smiling gently at Five and Vanya pulls away, wiping her eyes.

“Hey Five, how’re you feeling?” she asks. Five shrugs. Allison looks worried and tired.

He holds his arms out to her, ignoring the slight pain in his arm.

Allison comes to him slowly, wrapping her arms around him and kissing his cheek

“I’m glad your ok” she says. She doesn’t hug him for as long as Vanya but she smiles at him and pats his hand before she sits back. “Mom said it’s just a graze, it should heal in a few weeks but it’s definitely going to scar”

Five nods. They all had their fair share of scars, what was another one to add to the collection?

“How long was i out for?” he asks. Allison glances towards the clock. It was 4 AM.

“Most of the night, Vanya has been here the whole time”  Five turns to Vanya

“You didn’t sleep?”

She shrugs

“I dozed” Five mock glared at her

“And you made me take a nap” he grumbles. Vanya laughs, her hands running through his hair again.

Allison smiles at them

“Are you ready to head upstairs? Mom finished the analysis and she compared it to that file you stole” she says, standing and brushing imaginary dirt off of her pants.

“Yeah” Five says, pushing the covers off and holding his arms out at Vanya

“Carry me” he demands. Vanya rolls her eyes at him, lifting him onto her hip without a word. Allison laughs lightly.

The others are all in the living room, including mom.

None of them looked like they had slept.

“Hey buddy” Diego greets when they walk into the room.

“You all look like shit” Five says. Luther looks a little scandalised at his language and Klaus laughs.

“Nice to know that getting shot hasn’t changed you at all” he says, rocking back on his heels and grinning.

“I’ve been shot before” Five says. Klaus comes over and kisses him on the cheek

“Mwah!”

Five makes a show of rubbing it off and Klaus holds a hand over his heart with an exaggerated pout.

“How are you feeling?” Luther asks

“Like i got shot” Five says, mom has stood up now and walked over to him. He reaches out for her, Vanya passing him with to her without question.

Mom smiles at him

“Hello Five”

He kisses her cheek quickly, reaching back for Vanya within the same instance. Vanya takes him back and Mom is smiling brightly.

“Awwww, that was so sweet” Klaus says and Five glares at him.

“Allison said you read the file i took from the commission?” Five inquires, Mom’s smile drops.

“Yes, i did” she says

“And?”

She sighs, which Five knows means bad news.

“As far as i can see, there isn’t a solution to it’s effects”

Five groans.

The universe, really, truly, absolutely hated him.