Chapter Text
Five was not scared of Diego.
That was not something that should need to be said. If he was feeling charitable, he could admit Diego's combat skills were intimidating enough for your average person, but Five was anything but average. Diego's strategic skills left something to be desired. His intellect was best left unexamined.
In short, he was in no way a threat to Five.
It would make no sense for Five to be scared of him.
So what if his hands shook being in the same room. So what if his heart rate picked up when Diego looked his way. So what if his chest pinched up and it got hard to breathe if he even thought about using his powers anywhere near Diego.
Lingering symptoms of his crash through spacetime, that was all, just like the ache in his bones and the itching like ants crawling over his skin. That didn't freak him out, either, didn't always make him paranoid that his own double was nearby, didn't make him wonder what unexpected potentials the other him might have delved out of these powers.
There were no unexplored depths to his powers, and he was not afraid of Diego, and he was fine.
Denial is the first stage, a voice in his head said, and it sounded like Delores and Luther and Klaus all at once, and he hated it.
"You've been avoiding me," a voice outside his head said, and it made his shoulders go rigid, and he hated that even more.
Diego leaned in the doorway of Five's room. Five didn't look up from his writing -- he'd conceded to using notebooks for idle calculations instead of walls, even though writing so small made his fingers cramp. He'd lost track of this equation awhile ago, he realized, the variables and constants slipping away from him, but the math kept him grounded. It had kept him grounded for decades. If he waited for his stupid gray matter to heal before he did any math he'd actually go crazy instead.
"What gave you that idea?" His voice was steady and sharp. He scribbled out the last three steps.
"The... fact that you've been avoiding me?" Diego said.
"Brilliant answer."
"You gonna tell me you're not?"
"If I do, will you leave me alone? Kinda busy here." He was just writing nonsense at this point, but Diego didn't know that.
"Not until I get an answer."
"Well, Diego, try knocking a couple braincells together and you might realize why someone wouldn't want to spend time with you after you nearly killed a third of the current Hargreeves." Good, yes, deflect his concern towards the others, this certainly was not personal.
Diego was quiet for a second. Five wanted to be happy about that, but he wasn't. He was trying to get Diego mad, because Diego mad was familiar territory, they'd snipe a few insults and one of them would storm off and it wouldn't look like 'avoidance'. Diego quiet was not Diego mad.
"You haven't been avoiding Vanya." His voice was too soft. Dammit, Diego was not supposed to be soft, he was all rough edges and shallow impulses and hair-trigger temper. Five didn't know how to deal with Diego soft.
Ugh, this was a guilt thing, wasn't it? Five was not here to assuage anyone's guilt, especially someone who hadn't actually done anything to be guilty over.
"I like her better than you."
"Or Klaus."
Five didn't answer. He stubbornly kept writing. He was nothing if not stubborn, and if Diego wanted a battle of wills, that was one weapon Five still had no qualms wielding.
Diego tried a different tactic. "How do you feel?"
Five finally looked up. The subconjunctival hemorrhages still left bloody red starbursts in his sclera, contrasting nicely with his usual sarcastic smile. "Peachy. You?" His fingers tightened on the marker to try and hide their trembling.
He was NOT scared of Diego.
Diego stared steadily back at him with an expression Five couldn't read, and dammit, that wasn't helping. "Joint pain?"
Five's smile tightened. "Reminds me of my old body."
"How's the breathing?"
"I think I remember how."
"Still itches, doesn't it?"
"Is there a point to this line of questioning, Diego, or are you just listing symptoms?"
Diego finally looked away, casting his dark eyes toward the floor. "Look, Five, I just-- you were fighting the other me. You disappeared. You reappeared with... with major internal injuries. And you've been avoiding me ever since. I might not be the family math whiz, but I can put two and two together. Or, Two and Five, anyway."
Five did not dignify that half-hearted joke with a laugh. The breath of air through his nose was not a laugh. A derisive snort for Diego's line of 'logic', maybe. He returned to scribbling nonsense variables, his lines shaking.
"How did he hurt you?"
Five's hands itched to pull open a rift and phase away. His heart thudded in his ears, his mouth going dry. His free hand pressed to his chest and he hoped Diego was too busy studying the floorboards to notice.
"His face hurt my fist," Five snapped. "Would you like a demonstration?"
Diego was quiet again, and Five had the hope that he'd maybe, for once, take a fucking hint and leave. Five was fine.
Finally, Diego sighed and turned away, to Five's palpable relief.
"You know, Five," he said, suddenly. "I don't get you. You've gone through literal hell to keep us all safe, but you still won't trust us."
Now he was trying to turn the guilt back on Five. It wasn't going to work.
Diego started walking again.
Shit, okay, fine, yes it was.
"There's another Five here," Five said. He wasn't about to say anything about Diego's powers, or his own, if he could help it, but he could at least let his brother in on a secondary concern. Maybe it would distract him from his inappropriate guilt.
Diego stopped. His hand went to his shoulder sheath.
Five rolled his eyes. "Not here, idiot. This timeline."
"Right." Diego put his hands in his pockets as he turned back. His hands being out of sight made Five feel a little better, at least. He wasn't using them if they were out of sight. "We went over this while you were out. If some of us exist, probably all of us do."
Five shrugged. It gave him an excuse to look away. "I know he's directly involved with the Raptors."
"How do you know that?"
"Because the other you fought like he's fought a jumper before."
Diego turned that over. "So... they're enemies?"
"Or, more likely, they trained together. You guys would--" His voice broke. He forced himself to clear his throat and finish the sentence. "You guys would fight the same way if I hadn't disappeared." Diego would fight the same way.
He needed to stop drawing parallels or he was never going to get over this.
Diego took the information much more seriously than he expected. "Have you told the others?"
"What, a half-formed theory? No."
"If you don't, I will."
"That's hardly necessary."
Diego was already heading downstairs. Five cursed and tossed his notebook aside. His joints did not appreciate the sudden movement, but they could suck it up. Physical pain was nothing compared to dealing with a goddamn 'family meeting'.
"Dammit, Diego, this is why I don't tell you things!"
"No, you don't tell anybody anything, you just leave us stumbling around in the dark while you try to handle everything yourself, until you finally collapse and screw us over."
Okay, now that was a low blow. He'd only done that during the first apocalypse, and he'd learned his lesson. It was the rest of them being the pain in the ass the second time around.
Five managed to catch up to Diego in the hallway, sweeping around to stand between him and the living-room doorway. "I am fine, I am not about to collapse, and you are the one making a big production out of nothing right now." He could feel eyes on him from the living room and knew they'd already attracted sibling attention.
"Then why are you still hiding shit?"
Five tried to ignore the cold sweat that broke out as he stared Diego down. "Hiding what?"
"How about how the hell you got barotrauma in a landlocked fight? Or why you didn't teleport just now? If you're so 'fine' then why are you afraid of me?"
There it was. Diego swallowed hard, looked like he'd like to take the words back, but it was too late for that.
"Afraid? Of you?" Five took a step forward, his voice shaking, and he could pretend it was in rage. "You listen to me you braindead neanderthal, if I was going to be afraid of any of my siblings, it certainly would not be the meathead adrenaline junkie wanna-be Batm--"
Diego's hand moved in his periphery.
Suddenly Five was in the living room, tripping over his own feet in his haste to get the hell away, and oh god, had he jumped, he wasn't even sure, he had to have, the other Diego was smiling with his hand upraised and Five had fallen right into his trap and he was about to be unmade again, the world lurched under him as it prepared to unravel--
Five promptly was sick on the nearest patch of floor.
Of course everyone else was in the living room, and he became quickly aware of their overlapping voices, of the gentle touch on his back. Vanya's worried face bobbed in his vision among a haze of black spots.
"What did you do?" he heard Luther demand.
Diego slowly lowered his hand, doing a remarkable impression of a kicked puppy. "I don't know."
Allison appeared with a cool wet cloth. Five snatched it and swiped the sweat off his forehead.
"I'm not scared of you," Five insisted.
"Five," Diego said gently, "you just had a panic attack and threw up because I moved too fast." There was no implied 'I told you so' to his voice, and that just made Five angrier.
"I am not. Scared. Of you. It wouldn't make sense to be scared of you. You didn't do anything. It was the other you that redirected my jump!"
Things went quiet. Five felt the fleeting urge to rewind, take the admission back, and just the idea made him almost vomit again.
Okay. So maybe he wasn't fine.
Five's shoulders slumped, the fight draining out of him. "He changed my trajectory," he admitted in a croaky near-whisper that was still too loud in the too-quiet room. "Screwed the whole thing up. I wound up... nowhere. And it hurt. Like you cannot imagine. And you know, that's not even the worst part?" He laughed joylessly. "The worst part is that I was going to time-jump, just, just a second before, to help Lucia, and I-- all I can think is what would have happened if I had. If I'd gotten stuck again, alone, and sick, and powerless. I can't do that again."
No one spoke. Vanya's hand rubbed his back.
The silence grated on his raw nerves. "Is that enough of an answer, Diego?" Five growled.
No reply. Five looked up.
Diego was gone.
He hated how relieved that made him feel.