Chapter Text
She finds him in the alley, just like the last time, the steady clicking of her heels on the ground rising in volume until she stands in front of him, setting the briefcase on the ground.
"Long time no see, Number Five," she greets him sweetly, an amused tilt to her voice. "Miss me?"
The responding scowl is more than telling. “What, are you here to gloat?”
The Handler rolls her eyes in mock exaggeration. "Oh, don't be like that. It’s not my fault someone couldn’t meet a simple deadline.”
Five glares, too tired to argue, too tired to play her games anymore. “Whatever,” he says, looking away.
He shifts in place, his fingers itching to reach for his powers and pull himself through the slits in time and space, somewhere away from her and the stench of her intoxicatingly sweet perfume. "What do you want?" he asks distractedly, voice carefully devoid of emotion.
"Well, I would like to propose a deal."
Five scoffs immediately. "No, you're not," he says. "I'm not interested."
"Oh please. We can help each other, Number Five."
"I don't recall many of our previous deals ending all that well for you," he points out, thinking back to his last time at the Commission, to the heat of the explosion on his face as he warped out of there, letting it burn as he stumbled through time, back to his siblings.
The Handler laughs and he fights a grimace, the sound grating on his nerves, sending a spark of irritation through his veins. "Trust me, this one is very different."
"Oh, really?" He pushes his hands into the pockets of his shorts, following her with his eyes when she steps closer, towering over him in her red stilettos, oddly intimidating despite her seemingly harmless appearance.
"I'm confident that we'll reach a satisfactory agreement this time," she informs him cheerfully.
“Why? Why bother?” he can’t help but ask with a sick sense of curiosity. “You’ve got what you wanted. I killed the Board, the Commission is yours. What else could you possibly want?”
She cocks her head to the side, that infuriating smile not coming off her face.
“Let’s say that I decided to take pity on you.”
Now that is something he finds hard to believe.
“See, Five,” she continues, moving closer, her voice deceivingly conversational. “You and I know that you are both out of time and out of options. And as amusing as it is watching you squirm, it simply loses its charm after a while.”
She's behind him now and he cranes his neck to get a better look, observing her through the corner of his eye, watchful, as if expecting a sudden attack from behind, a knife twisting into his back with practiced ease, as effective as it is deadly.
He knows better than to trust her. He always did.
The Handler rests her hands on his shoulders from behind, long fingernails digging into his skin painfully as she holds him in a steel-like grip, her hot breath ghosting over his cheek as she leans in closer in an almost-kiss. He tilts his head just slightly out of reach.
“I’ll send your siblings back to 2019. I’ll provide the briefcase, one from my own private set as the head of the Commission. No time limit this time.”
“I highly doubt that,” he snorts humorlessly, his tone dismissive, because he refuses to entertain the offer even for a second. Her deals always came with a price, the kind of price he can’t afford paying. “Besides, maybe you forgot, but there’s not much to go back to in 2019.”
“Oh, no. No need to worry about that, silly,” she hurries to assure him. “No apocalypse. No Harold Jenkins. I’ll personally ensure that they are safe and well and that the moon will remain untouched.”
Five’s eyes narrow. “It’s not like you to get personally involved. Unless you have some kind of agenda, of course.”
He can almost hear her pout. “Oh Five, you hurt me. You know that I’m anything but inefficient.”
Five remains silent for a long moment, working his jaw soundlessly, aware that he’s slowly running out of options, the nuclear apocalypse right around the corner, ready to happen unless he does something about that.
“I distinctly remember us making a very similar deal, not so long ago. In fact, I’m fairly sure it was only a day or two ago,” he comments sarcastically, moving his head just enough to catch her eyes. “What changed?”
She shrugs, a smile still plastered on her face. “You’re not wrong. But, in my haste to take my rightful place as the head of the Commission, I realized that we still had some unfinished business. It’s only fair to help out the old friend.”
He eyes her thoughtfully, trying to figure out what’s her angle here, what is the endgame that she’s aiming for.
“After all, it’s your siblings’ fault that you didn’t make the deadline. As you know, I believe in second chances.”
He doesn’t know. What he does know, however, is that she’s always liked to rub her success in other people’s faces, brag and gloat, watch the whole world fall at her feet in fearful adoration.
He wonders if this is what it is. If she merely misses having him on her leash, hold him close, an untamable monster tamed and sitting obediently at her side.
“What’s the catch this time?” He asks finally.
The Handler flashes him a sharp smile. “See, Number Five, this is why you are my favourite. You know how to play this game,” she purrs into his ear, nuzzling against his cheek. Five stifles the urge to shudder.
He rolls his eyes. “Just get to the point,” he says tiredly.
“Patience,” she caresses his cheek from behind, cold fingers brushing against his pale skin in mock affection, deceptively gentle, disgust curling under his skin. “Patience is a virtue.”
“Maybe you haven’t noticed, but I have more urgent matters to worry about than virtues.”
“Well, then you should be happy, Number Five, because thanks to my generous offer you will no longer have to worry about such things. In fact, you won’t have to worry too much about, well, much of anything, really. I’m afraid you’ll be a bit, ah, occupied with other things. And it’s not like there’ll be anyone to judge you either way.”
Suspicion starts to swirl in his stomach, churning uncomfortably, all of his senses screaming at him in newborn panic, sensing the upcoming trap. “What does that mean?” he demands, curling his hands into fists at his sides tight enough for his knuckles to whiten.
“Oh, it’s simple really,” she says nonchalantly, as if they were discussing the weather, and flicks his nose playfully. “You see, as much as it pains me to admit it, it seems that I made a mistake when I first approached you and saved you from a lifetime of being alone, Number Five. I thought I could tame you, but, as I already told you, you turned out to be a great disappointment to me.” Her gaze hardens, the grip on his shoulders tightening, bordering on painful. “You know me well, Five. You know I do not tolerate mistakes.”
“What are you saying?” he asks faintly, even though he can already see where it’s going, can sense the threat hidden between the words, recognizes the cold glint of her eyes as she leans in closer, her lips stretching in a sickening smile.
“I’m sending you back to where you belong, Number Five. Back to where we first met.”
Back to the apocalypse , hangs in the air between them, unsaid and yet clear as day.
Five’s eyes widen.
It feels like his breath has been knocked out of his chest and for a moment all he can do is stand here, stuck in her faux embrace, those cold unfeeling eyes boring into his skin as she observes him carefully, a predator focused solely on its prey, helpless and stuck and completely at her mercy as he tries to process the full implications of her proposal.
“Why are you doing this?” he asks eventually, struggling to keep his voice carefully calm and firm, pushing the flare of terror in his chest at the back of his mind. He refuses to give her the satisfaction of seeing him squirm, forcing his trembling hands to still and digging his nails deep into the skin of his palms until they leave bloody crescent-shaped marks, the temporary pain helping to ground him before his thoughts could spiral out of control, taking him back to that devoid of life wasteland. “Why not just kill me?”
She hums, leaning against his back, her breasts pressing against his shoulder blades and her claws-like hands running up and down the length of his arms, a near caress. He can’t help but tense in this illusion of a gentle touch, hands curling into fists at his sides. His heart pounds between his ribs helplessly, heartbeat loud in his ears.
She leans in, so close that Five can feel her hot breath on his neck, bloody red lips brushing against the pale skin. “That would be simply too easy, darling,” she whispers into his ear, so quiet he has to strain to hear her. “And besides, there are things worse than death, wouldn’t you agree?”
He almost laughs, the bitter sound bubbling in his throat and threatening to escape past his lips. He keeps them pressed stubbornly tight, his head heavy with swarming thoughts as he struggles to calm down enough to think, swallowing down the rushing sense of panic that lurks at the edges of his mind, his chest tight with growing terror.
She’s not wrong.
There are things worse than death. Far worse.
He’s lost part of himself back there, back in the apocalypse, some part of himself that he’ll never get back, years upon years of nothing but surviving, pushing through fueled only by his stubbornness and this fickle, naive fantasy that he would come back and save them, save his family, no matter how many bridges he has to burn to get there, no matter how little of his sanity will be left. Nothing was off limits as long as there was hope that he could save them and she knew, she must have known the extent of his desperation, must have smelt it on him, because Five never was that good of a liar, the “but what about my family?” always at the very tip of his tongue, a constantly distracting voice at the back of his mind reminding him what his true objective was, sounding suspiciously like Dolores whenever he could feel his grip on reality slip, even if she was miles and years away.
The Handler could drag him back to the Commission, turn him back into one of her faithful minions, have her perfect little killing machine at her side at all times, obedient and collared, just the way she’s always liked it.
But it’s more complicated than that, isn’t it?
They have history.
I rescued you from a lifetime of being alone , her words echo in his head, bitter and scathing, the memory of her face twisted in a grimace, the barrel of the gun pointed right between his eyes flash in his head and he closes his eyes, his breath stuttering in his chest pitifully.
She’s trying to make a point, he knows.
She knows being forced to work for the Commission would kill him, but that’s not enough, it would never be enough for what he’s done to her. No, she wants him to suffer. She wants him to lose everything until there’s nothing left, not even his pride. She wants to strip him off of what little humanity he has left until all there is is a hollow husk of what used to be a person, of what used to be one of her most treasured possessions. She wants him to remember how it felt, to be alone, for all these years, how it felt to not belong anywhere, stranded in the middle of a wasteland until she came to found him, feeding him with false promises and hope of the future beyond the ash and rubble of the apocalypse. In the end, she wants him to know that it was all for nothing, that the apocalypse is where he was meant to be, where he was meant to die .
And she wants him to give it up willingly.
Oh, it would be oh-so-easy to simply drag him back there, to tear it all away from him just when it’s finally within his reach, and she would enjoy every second, he doesn’t doubt that even for a second.
This naive little dream of his, the hope that he would finally belong, be part of a family, it was just never meant to be. He was hers to play with and she now she finally no longer had any use for him, one betrayal after another proving that their little play time came at too high of a cost, her perfect little assassin too deadly to be kept around, like a wild dog that could turn back on its owner at any second and bite, deep and hard.
She went that one step further, though.
When he opens his eyes she’s standing right before him, the saccharine sweet smile plastered on her face and a satisfied glint in her eyes, the look of someone who has him exactly where she wants him to be, stuck in a carefully set up trap and there to stay.
“How will I know that you kept your part of the deal?” he asks, crossing his arms over his chest almost defensively. “How will I know that my family is really safe?”
The Handler rolls her eyes and waves her perfectly manicured hand. “Always so distrustful,” she tuts disapprovingly. “Would it kill you to relax for a bit, Five?”
He barks a short laugh. The Handler smiles.
“I’ll give you a day,” she informs him graciously.
Five blinks, surprised.
“A day?” he echoes, hands clenching and unclenching as his brain goes into the overdrive mode.
“Mhm! You get a day to go back there with them, make sure everything’s fine, say your goodbyes and then bye-bye,” she mimics the gesture, looking way too pleased with herself, “to 2019 and back to the apocalypse.”
Five narrows his eyes.
“If the apocalypse in 2019 has been averted then how is there an apocalypse for me to go back to?”
“Oh Five, don’t worry your pretty head about it,” she chastises, ruffling his hair in a way that could be almost motherly if it didn’t reek of insincerity.
He wants her hands off him. But he also knows that indulging her is a small price to pay if he can bargain for his family’s safety. She’s never hesitated to take advantage of that one weakness of his, acutely aware of how far he was willing to go and how much he was willing to sacrifice to keep his siblings out of harm's way. She would exploit it mercilessly, Five nothing more than a puppet in her hands, obedient little soldier, her personal herald of the apocalypse. It was always a game between them, a familiar pull and push, the Handler never failing to test his boundaries, playing to see how far she can take it until he snaps, until she has him bleeding all over the tiles of her office, finally broken beyond repair.
He was merely a tool in her hands, ready to do with him as she pleased, bending and shifting and turning him into someone he could no longer recognize, the perfect little assassin dancing to the tune she played, both of them aware of how it will inevitably end.
And he danced, danced to this wretched melody, danced until he could no longer feel his legs and then past that, not daring to stop because that would mean defeat and it has always been that one thing he couldn't afford, not until he knew his family was safe, safe from the ash and the burning, acrid smell of rotten bodies. The image of their corpses is imprinted beneath his eyelids, always there, chasing the dreams away, following him wherever and whenever he went, hopelessly real. He remembers the ash on their bodies, Klaus's half-open eyes, hollow and cold and unseeing, staring into his before Five could no longer handle it, could no longer deal with the unsaid how could you , and moved to close them. He spent hours that quickly blended into days by their side, unsure what to do with himself, unable to just leave them there all alone for too long, even though he knew it didn't matter, decay slowly claiming their bodies, turning them slowly into something unrecognizable, something he could no longer associate with his siblings. He ended up digging shallow graves, trying to push the thoughts of how it felt awfully like accepting that it was really real aside, focusing all of his energy on the task at hand until he could feel his arms ache with the strain, sweat rolling down his back under his Umbrella Academy uniform.
And then it was done, his knees finally refusing to hold his weight any longer, and he could feel his knees hitting the ground, soundless, violent sobs rolling through his small body as hot tears spilled over his cheeks, burning into his skin and leaving a wet trail.
“So?” The Handler’s voice, loud and impatient, brings him back to reality and he blinks rapidly, willing the images of his dead siblings away and swallowing thickly around the bile lodged in his throat. “Do we have a deal, Number Five?”
She reaches her hand, gaze expectant, and he feels more trapped than ever before.
He disappears in a flash of blue light, not bothering with an answer.
-
The orange hue of the setting sun spills over the evening sky and Five is pacing, his legs leading him on his own, from one corner of the room to the other and then back, over and over again.
He is out of options.
Worse, he is aware that he is out of options. And so is the Handler.
First the Board of Directors, then Dad and finally the encounter with his own older-younger self, he’s running into a dead end after dead end, all while the apocalypse is panting on his neck, looming over him in a never-ending threat. It’s bigger than himself and he’s so, so tired, running from something that seems to be inevitable.
So he has no other choice but to try to reason with himself.
He doesn’t have the luxury of putting his pride first, he can’t think about what is best for him, it’s never been.
Everything he’s done, everything he went through, it was for his family. And the truth, no matter how much it stings, is fairly simple.
He isn't a part of their lives. He hasn't been for over seventeen years.
...
It hurts.
There’s this ugly, bleeding wound somewhere in his chest, a hole that he doesn’t seem to be able to patch up, one that refuses to heal, gaping wide and there for everyone to see. He’s spent over forty years chasing the impossible, chasing the fantasy only to be forced to face the harsh reality and realize that there’s nothing left for him other than the blood on his hands and regrets, so many regrets that he could drown in them, pulled to the bottom by the weight of all the mistakes that he’s made.
In the end, Five only has himself to blame.
There's no point in dwelling, but he can't help it, his mind refusing to still even for a brief moment, calculations and theories running through his brain with a dizzying speed, urging him to think of something else, reminding that there might be other options and he's simply too blind, too distracted to realize what they are. And the Handler knows, of course she knows, she’s been tracking him for years, committing all of his little tells and mistakes and regrets to memory, a perfect arsenal of ammunition against him. They did always try to outdo each other, see which one of them will emerge victorious once everything is said and done. But while for her it was nothing more than a game, a power play for her own amusement, for him it was a matter of survival.
And, while he hates to admit that, he doesn’t really have a choice but accept her deal. The perfect answer isn’t going to manifest itself for him and he’s running out of time, always running out of time. It’s risky and stupid, but it’s the only option he has, he’s turned it in his head so many times, looking for that perfect solution that doesn’t seem to exist.
The Handler tricked him once, twice, too many times too count, but as it is, she’s his only hope and all he can do is hope that his grudge against him will be enough to distract her from his siblings, letting them live, safe in their timeline as promised.
A day is more than enough for him to ensure that they’re okay, he doesn’t have the luxury of being picky.
Five freezes mid-step, eyes wide and wild.
Should he leave a letter? Should he… explain?
He dismisses the thought almost immediately, despite the doubt still lingering at the back of his mind, a familiar tug of guilt settling deep in his gut.
Five knows they wouldn’t understand.
He’s spent more than a lifetime feeling guilty, sleepless nights curled on top of a rubble, his stomach turning and twisting in hunger and anger and something else entirely as he lied there wide awake, with no other choice but to stare at the starless sky and ash twirling in the air, wondering if his siblings assumed that he abandoned them when he left that day that changed everything, left them at their father’s mercy. It hurts more than any betrayal, knowing that they might have hated him for it, unaware of the fact that he would have given everything -- anything! -- to come back to them.
Five deserves that anger, he’s not going to deny that.
In that selfish moment he didn’t bother to think about what would happen to them, relishing in the high of this one rebellious act that he was about to commit, excitement and adrenaline buzzing in his veins as he faced Reginald’s gaze with a steel of his own and then ran, leaving the life he knew behind.
He still had his powers.
Five frowns, halting to a sudden stop.
His powers are unreliable, he knows that better than anyone. The Handler wouldn’t throw him into the apocalypse knowing that he has means to come back. Unless this was her plan all along, strand him in the apocalypse and then trick him into trying to escape, thus breaking their agreement, leaving his siblings vulnerable to whatever plan she could use to punish him for his betrayal--
Five shakes his head. It’s counterproductive. He’s getting ahead of himself, again, the anxiety rooted deep in his chest growing with every moment he spends overthinking this. He takes a steadying breath and vaguely wonders if he’s imagining it, or if he’s really trembling, his body finally giving up on him after the strain from all the stress and injuries finally gets a chance to catch up with him.
“Focus,” he mutters to himself, migraine blooming in his temples, the familiar throbbing behind his eyes. “Focus, goddammit.”
There is more to the Handler’s offer. He knows that for a fact.
He's missing something. What is it that he’s missing?
The Handler knew all that mattered to him was his siblings' safety, she knew she could condemn him to whatever fate, whatever punishment she deemed fit, and he would take it, he would take it as long as it meant his family could get to grow old and happy. No, he must be missing something, he must because otherwise it would be almost too good to be true, a small price to pay for his family's protection.
Except… Maybe it isn't.
Sometimes, it was all too easy to trick himself into thinking that he could put his past aside, his starved mind clutching desperately at any chance to push the memories at the back of his mind, because he’s fine, he’s really, really fine , all things considered.
Would it really be that bad?
Five remember the apocalypse.
He remembers when his own breath was too loud and yet not loud enough, the silence almost deafening, broken only by the sound of the distant fires and the sound of his footsteps as he tried to navigate his way through the ruins of what used to be his home, Five the only speck of humanity among all the destruction and death. He remembers the heavy coat of ash as far as the eye could see, remembers waking up in pitch black darkness, calling out the names of his siblings in vain, remembers the wall that collapsed on him one day, pinning him to the ground, the howl of the wind on winter nights. He remembers Dolores and her soft, gentle voice whispering his name softly and asking if he’s alright, remembers the infection and hunger and loneliness, aching and infinite, the one thing he could always count on.
He remembers the days when even Dolores was distant and unreachable, her warmth and wisdom not enough to the kind of comfort he needed, a lost little boy, forgotten among the ruins of human civilization.
Five closes his eyes.
He hates it, hates it with every fiber of his being, but he also knows that ultimately it doesn’t matter.
It’s like the Handler said. They can help each other.
All he wants is to keep his family safe. All she wants is to make it clear, once and for all, that as long as she’s alive, the safety of his family is purely dependent on her mercy. Or lack thereof.
It’s a game of power and control and it’s on.
He takes a deep breath and then exhales slowly, bracing himself for what’s to come.