Archive of Our Own ^beta

Five couldn’t believe his fucking luck. He couldn’t believe how significantly screwed he was, and how everything fell to shit without him running the show for ten — fucking — seconds.

He’d broken a rib. Or two. (He wasn’t really in the mood to count.)

How had it happened?

Some jackass had pushed him out a window. He was bruised, banged up, bloodied; but the ribs, the fucking ribs were the big problem here. He was lying on the pavement in an alley, trying to breathe through the pain, looking up at the bright blue sky and white clouds that seemed to mock him. He wanted to crush them in his fists.

The window guy was gone, but probably not for long. Yet another asshole from the Commission.

I told you this would happen, he berated himself.

But of course… “I didn’t listen.”

The words came out along with wheezing gasps of pain.

He tried to sit up, but that absolutely refused to work. Five had collapsed back down, head banging against the cement. Great, another injury to add to this whole debacle.

“You try to stop the apocalypse…” he muttered.

Five knew what he had to do, and hated doing it, but he rolled onto his uninjured side, biting his lip to hold in a scream. Skin split, blood spilled. And it took all his willpower to not bang his fist on the ground.

His family was in shambles, the world was ending, the Commission was full of a bunch of assholes that needed to know when enough was enough, and god, he was in so much fucking pain.

“Guess the world just wants to end,” he went on, heaving himself up, using his arms as much as possible. Unable to use all his strength, he shuddered.

Oh, quit it, he told himself.

Yeah, like that’ll work.

Five picked himself up off the ground and headed for the abandoned diner he and his siblings were holed up in. Oh, and just perfect. Night was falling.

Five could use that to his advantage. That Commission ass-wipe could still be after him and Five could lose them now that it was growing dark. They could also use it to sneak up on him.

Five gave a darkly amused smile. Ha, they’d have to keep up first.

With no one around, he jumped. And then he ended up twenty feet away, and now he was jumping again, farther, and farther each time. He wanted to run, wanted to do something, but the pain was too much.

Vision going black, just as he was too exhausted to jump, he collapsed outside the diner, and thought he heard his family rushing out to him.

About fucking time.

Five didn’t care what was going on. His right lung wasn’t getting enough air, and it was about damn time someone paid for that.

So he punched the first person he could even before he opened his eyes.

And then when he did open his eyes, he saw Luther collapsing back from him, and the others had jumped away. His sweater vest was off, and his tie and shirt were hanging open. Glaring, doing his best to hide the agony he was in, he violently pulled his shirt closed.

“Touch me again and I’ll staple your tongue to the roof of your mouth,” he shot at Luther.

And then he got off the counter they’d placed him on, shoved stools aside, and nearly fell, stumbling on the tiled floor. Klaus came forward, and Five grabbed onto his fur-lined coat to hold himself up. It pulled Klaus down, and his brother started complaining.

“Hey, this is my best coat! Five! Ow, ow, ow!”

“Baby,” Five muttered, shoving him away once he came to himself… well, as much as he could. Black spots still swirled in his vision, and everything seemed to be tilting. Was it just his imagination or was his right lung going to pop?

“Hey, I was just trying to help,” Luther said.

“Help this.”

Five flipped him off, and everyone groaned, and he heard smatterings of “Of course.”

“Five, what the hell happened?” Diego.

“Oh, wouldn’t Knife Boy like to know?”

Diego put his hands on his shoulders and started pushing Five back to the counter. Five wanted to fight, but realized it wasn’t in him.

“Yeah, he does.”

“Just let us help you,” Allison said.

“Or what,” he snapped, even as he accepted Diego’s help and leaned against the counter, right arm tucked against his side to protect his ribs, “you gonna rumor me?”

“You know I could.”

Five tilted his head in acceptance of this and gave her just the smallest hint of a smile.

Things were shit. Things were always shit, but Allison had a good head on her shoulders.

Vanya finally approached from the other side of the room, and his once-raging breaths calmed as he laid eyes on her. All the urge to fight and ridicule left him, and she said calmly, a request, “Just lie down. We have to check he damage.”

“Two broken ribs,” he told her matter-of-factly. “And I was pushed out a two-story window.” He used his power to make it so he was sitting on the counter, his family only looking slightly shocked from his change of position on the physical plane. Good, so they did have more than two brain cells to rub together, but he wasn’t sure three brain cells a piece was going to cut it. “Think I didn’t break my neck ‘cause I jumped. Changed the fall by enough feet to save me.”

“Who did it?” Diego demanded.

Klaus gave a nervous giggle, and then said, hands spread wide, “You want to know who did it? Who cares! If there’s someone after us, trying to kill a—a kid—”

“Not a kid,” Five argued.

“—we have to get out of here! We’re all in danger.”

“Fine, then leave, Ghostbusters.”

It shouldn’t have been a surprise, but it really was, as Klaus started to sing the Ghostbusters theme, swirling around, flowery skirt flowing about his legs. Five resisted rolling his eyes at his brother’s fashion taste. With a coat like that he would’ve picked a solid a-line to—

Five stopped his train of thought. In what fucking world did that matter?

Certainly not this one that was meant for doomsday.

Luther and Diego approached, looking like they wanted to push him back so they could “tend to him.” Yeah, like two monkeys trying to peel a banana while missing their thumbs.

He shot his gaze at the two of them, saying, “I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not.”

“Oh, you want to try me?” Five challenged Luther.

He jumped so that he was behind his massive ape of a brother and then kicked him right in the knees, hard, sending him collapsing. Five was back on the counter, grinning even before Luther finished falling.

“Now shut up, and listen up,” he told his family. “There are people that don’t want us to save this shithole we call Earth. I say we find the son of a bitch they work for and take ‘em out.”

Diego nodded, already having taken out a knife from god knew where and fingering it.

“Now you’re talking.”

Five held out a hand, watching as his siblings helped Luther up, and then actually began to listen to him.

At least their ears worked. As for what was in between them? Questionable.

“Slow down there, B movie Batman. Look, the Commission has a Board of Directors that stays hidden, off the grid, underground, in all places, and at all. Times. Maybe the Handler’s working with them—”

Klaus raised his hand. “Who’s the Handler?”

“My boss, dumbshit. And maybe she’s not. But I know she’s part of it, and lucky for you assholes, I know where she’ll be in fifty-six minutes.”

“Fifty-six minutes!” Luther and Allison exclaimed.

“What, so we’re going to find her, and—and what?” Vanya asked.

Five jumped into the kitchen, and came back out with a pancake he’d rolled up. He took a massive bite of it as he jumped back, and then looked around for the coffee machine. Pain was temporary. The way the world swayed around him was temporary.

The apocalypse was forever.

Either he licked his wounds like a thirteen-year old who didn’t know what was going on, or he acted like the fifty-eight-year old assassin he was. And he was the best.

“Typically I like to kill people who have me pushed out windows,” Five answered as the coffee machine started brewing.

“We can’t just kill someone,” Allison argued.

“Oh yeah? And you haven’t?”

Allison didn’t argue, and seemed to notice the lack of an insulting nickname. Her face turned into a disapproving glare, but she stayed quiet.

“So, Diego, I’ll need your knives, Klaus, your coat, and uh… Vanya, one of the buttons on your shirt.”

“Excuse me?” all his siblings echoed at the same time.

But Five ignored them, continuing to eat his pancake, and watching the coffee, as his plan came to mind.

Of course, he told himself, this version of her thinks we’re chums, pals, two of the four friggin’ Horsemen.

That just means she won’t see it coming.

Don’t be ridiculous. The Handler prepares for everything. If a stampede of rhinos started trampling through the city she wouldn’t even be the least bit shocked.

Five finished up his pancake, and turned to the rest of them, hands in his pockets. “I have a plan.”

“Care to fill us in?” Vanya asked.

Five smiled, took the entire coffee pot, and began to walk around the counter.

“No.”

Arguments filled the air, and he shouted, “Every time I try to fill you in on something, you all screw it up! You want to do that again? Enough screw ups, and bang, that’s it. No more world, no more life. No more delicious black coffee I’d sell one of your right hands for.” As a joke, he added to Luther. “You don’t need yours, do you?”

His brother drew back on pure instinct.

Not caring if the steaming coffee was too hot, Five started to chug. And oh god, it was good. But the fog weighing him down, clouding the reality around him, wasn’t leaving. If coffee couldn’t help him, then this injury was worse than he thought.

Five finished the pot, tossed it aside, some coffee dripping off his chin, smiling maniacally to hide the pain from his family, and slammed back against the wall by the glass double-doors. But he couldn’t keep it up, and he started sliding down to the floor, his chest rising and falling while agonizing soreness pounded through his body. Frowning, the world spun, and next thing Five knew, Diego was in front of him, a hand gently against his injured ribs.

“Five, we’re your family. And you’re hurt. Let us help.”

“You’re just saying that because you want to come along and throw your pretty little knives at people.”

Diego tilted his head. “Yeah, maybe that’s true. But my dumbshit little brother—”

“Older,” Five argued.

“—got himself pretty banged up, and I can’t let him go into a fight like that.”

“Fine, V for Vendetta. I’ll let you all play doctor.”

Klaus sighed in relief. “Oh, thank god, because I do not want another one of my siblings to haunt me as a ghost, and you’d be worse than Ben, no doubt about it. Shut up, Ben! Ha, ha, ha, no you shut up! Oh, I’m childish? I’m childish?! Who’s the one who—?”

Five lost track of the apparent argument with their dead sibling, and he let himself drift off as Diego helped him up and over to the counter.

They were a mess. All of them.

But they were Five’s mess.