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Five had never wanted a name. He thought that the whole process his siblings went through was stupid. His name was Number Five. Shortened it was just Five. He had no time for silly things like being named. He had always been called Five, and it would be inefficient to switch it up now and be forced to get used to it slowly. His name was borne out of a need for practicality, and Five could respect that, even if he hated his father for it.
Even as a child Five had always been practical. He grew up living in a mansion with no one but his siblings, a robot, and a monkey for company. He was trained daily because he had superpowers and he was supposed to protect and rescue civilians. There was no time for having fun, or for personal interests, like names.
When you named something you grew attached to it. When you grew attached to something, they became a weakness. In his life weaknesses weren’t accepted. So Five kept his distance from his siblings using sharp barbs and brags about how much better he was than them, lest he get attached.
Then they decided they wanted names, and kept trying to convince him to get one, futility might he add. But when they gave up, they asked him to use their new names instead of their numbers. Five agreed. They were all gonna call each other those names, it would be confusing otherwise. It was for practicality of course. When Vanya asked him to listen to her play he agreed. She was fairly good at it, and besides background music helped him to think. When Ben asked to read with him he said yes, purely because it was always good to get second opinions on theories and another pair of eyes to look at equations.
Even when Allison asked him to come play with him, he still only agreed for practicality. After all, he was only human, and humans were supposed to keep some sort of contact with others to keep themselves healthy and happy. If Klaus crept into his room to sleep in his bed, well he couldn’t turn him away, purely because the team needed to be at their best. But only for those reasons.
Five didn’t have attachments. Their dad demanded that they do their job with precision and Five couldn't do that if he cared. So he kept his mouth shut when Vanya was excluded from their seven. He didn’t say a word when he woke up because Klaus was being dragged out of their house in the middle of the night, when Luther was sobbing in his room alone, or when Ben refused to speak to anyone.
If something inside him ached at each of these incidents, well then that was nobody's business but his own.
Five was fine. He was used to this way of living, and he saw nothing wrong with it. A life of practicality is a life everyone should strive for. But Five couldn’t help but feel frustrated. Angry and trapped. Five wanted to figure out how to spacial jump with more than one person he could take the others. Purely for the powers their numbers carried.
Five could take them all from Reginald. The man wasn’t as practical as Five thought. Training didn’t make them stronger, it broke down all of his siblings. Once this idea of leaving was in his head, Five stuck to it. He trained more and more. He worked to master his spacial jumps and narrowing down a specific location. But when Five sat and thought on that plan it wasn’t practical.
Reginald Hargreeves was a billionaire. Money can buy anything, including the whereabouts of runaway children. If they left this house, who’s to say Reginald would drag them right back? That wouldn’t do. There would be no point in that plan if that was the case. He was stuck between a rock and a hard place.
Then Five learned about something. It had been an accident, but he had managed during training to jump three minutes into the future. Reginald said it was spectacular. Five was inclined to agree. This was the start of an entirely new, extremely practical plan. If Five could figure out the workings of time travel, who’s to say he couldn’t take his sibling into a new time period? Reginald wouldn’t be able to find them in the present if they weren’t there.
All Five had to do was figure out time travel. So Five began to study. He put as much of his time and effort into figuring out the science behind time travel as he could, and when he was ready he barged into Reginald's office and asked for his permission to practice and hone this new ability. He said no.
He claimed that FIve wasn’t ready yet, and that it was dangerous, then told him to get out of his office.
Five was upset. How could he say no? Usually he pushed them to their limits, regardless of whether or not they were ready. He had never cared about the dangers of their powers in the past, so why start now? It donned on Five while he was in his room, books strewn around him. Reginald must have realized what he was planning. Or he at least had an idea of it. He was purposely trying to stop Five from taking the others and leaving.
It spurred FIve on to try more, opting out of anything his siblings asked of him to study. This would be better in the long run, because then he and the team could get out and practice their powers safer, and they would be better. He could do this, he was certain. He just needed a chance.
He didn't stop hassling Reginald, demanding a chance to practice. There was no place to practice without him monitoring, so Five had no choice but to ask for permission. But Reginald was firm in his stance, much to Five’s frustration.
This all came to a head at breakfast one day. They had an argument and Five had left. He didn’t think he had ever felt this free. It was new, it was amazing! He felt his power starting to surge and so he jumped, and there he was! He did it, he was in the future! So he kept going. Then he stopped.
He had landed in a wasteland. There was nobody around him, and he was all alone. He ran back to the house. He was in the future, but where was everybody else. He felt a sickening feeling in his stomach as he made it to the mansion. The academy stood in ruins, a ghost of what it once was. But Five kept looking. There had to be something, anything.
Then he saw them. Adults buried in rubble covered in dust and grime. On each of their wrists they had a tattoo. An umbrella. He could make out features that looked like the ones he had seen for years. Older and covered in grime, but those bodies were undoubtedly his siblings. His family.
Something bubbled up and he felt like he couldn’t breathe. He didn’t know what was happening to him. Vaguely he knew he had to calm down, but he couldn’t. His siblings were lying there dead . Five didn’t know when he grew attached but he had, and now he felt like his heart was tearing itself out of his chest. Something bad had happened and he hadn’t been there, he hadn't helped them.
Five needed to figure out how to go back. Five needed to save them god dammit! Why didn’t his powers understand that! He needed to be with them, he couldn't let them die! He would figure it out. He would save every single one of them. He had to.
Five got up. He had to be practical about this. He couldn’t save them if he didn’t have his emotions under control. He let his grief run through him, then stopped it.
“Let’s go Delores. We have work to do.”