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It’s five weeks after Five vanished when they fail to save the boy. There’s probably some bitter sort of irony in it or maybe it’s just Allison’s brain doing some sort of pattern finding.
He was the son of one of their father’s business partners, a couple of years older than them, Dad had instilled in them how important it would be for them not to mess this up.
But it’s just what they do.
It had been a mess from the start, honestly. Allison could have told Dad that.
The paint in the ugly picture of Five Dad had commissioned wasn’t even dry yet and none of them had really gotten over it yet.
And obviously they weren’t used to a member less in their team. Hadn’t adjusted yet.
Maybe they would have gotten more time to mourn and get used to Five being gone if he hadn’t been the son of Dad’s business partner.
But he had been.
And they had been unprepared and chaotic, Diego had been angry, Klaus had been absent, Ben had been hesitant to even try anything relating to his powers, Luther had tried his best but Allison was pretty sure he’d barely been sleeping since Five was gone and she herself had been distracted.
Everything had happened too fast but one of the kidnappers freaked out and the son of Dad’s business partner had been left in a puddle of his own blood. Luther had been with him first trying to give CPR to stop the bleeding and shield him all at the same time but all that he had achieved was getting the blood all over him and having a bullet brush his arm.
Now he’s in Dad’s office getting scolded for their failure. He didn’t even get to take a shower or have one bite of dinner after chewing them all out collectively Dad had ordered him to follow him and Luther had done so, eyes cast at the ground.
When Allison goes to her room from the shower she leans against the door to their father’s office for a moment to hear what’s going on inside.
“… the embarrassment you caused for the academy! You caused me! I doubt there will be any way for me to save the professional relationship with his father now!”
There’s some quiet mumbling from Luther. Probably an apology or some attempt to explain what happened, Allison’s heart breaks a little, Luther’s usually far from quiet.
Sure, Dad’s lecture come with being Number One and Luther also uses his position as the leader for his advantage often enough that he should be able to shoulder the consequences too but… it’s not fair. None of this is really his fault.
Luther had arguably been the most prepared, tried his hardest, even in the plane he’d been reading the victim’s report cards (whatever he thought those were supposed to help) and before that he’d been continuously talking about what he’d read about how to de-escalate a kidnapping situation.
None of that helped though. The boy was still dead.
It’s much later that Allison actually hears the door to their father’s office open and Luther’s steps padding down the hall, towards the showers.
Right he’d still had his bloodied mission suit on when Dad started his tirade.
Allison sighs. Poor Luther, he’s hurt on top of that and probably extremely hungry.
Well, she can at least help with that.
Vanya isn’t the only sister in the house who can make sandwiches for a brother and Allison actually knows hers will be eaten.
She sneaks to the kitchen, keeping her eyes open for Vanya’s dumb sandwiches, she’d stepped into one just last week and it’s more than annoying.
She’ll make a BLT, a pb&j and a cucumber sandwich for Luther she decides, knowing one measly sandwich alone isn’t going to cut it with her brother’s seeming insatiable appetite. She isn’t sure if three are going to be much better but it would at least help until the next morning, Allison hopes, it’s kind of boring making sandwiches and now her fingers are sticky.
She takes the plate upstairs when she hears the shower turn off.
Luther’s sitting on his bed when she opens his door, struggling to put on his pajama shirt.
His hair was damp and she could see the bruises around his rips as well as his bandaged arm, his eyes also looked watery and red rimmed.
“Allison!” Luther exclaims when he noticed her trying to hurry with the shirt, not that it was doing much. “Can’t you knock?”
“I assumed you’d have some excuse for me as to why you couldn’t let me in,” she says and shrugs and enters the room balancing the plate with one hand like Mom did sometimes when precenting them with meals when they were sick. “Anyways, brought you some sandwiches. I know you didn’t have dinner. I don’t even think you had lunch.”
She puts the plate on Luther’s desk.
“I’m not hungry,” Luther argues eyeing the sandwiches finally having gotten his injured arm into the shirt.
“Sure you’re not,” Allison says and steps up to him to button the pajama shirt up for him. “Just take one, come on, you deserve that at least after what Dad put you through just now.”
“Dad didn’t put me through anything I didn’t deserve,” Luther mutters. “And it’s not gonna hurt me if I don’t eat for one day.”
“To me it sounded more like Dad was blaming this whole thing on you. Which you definitely do not deserve, Luther.”
“You shouldn’t eavesdrop,” Luther says.
“Well you shouldn’t blame yourself and also you have to eat! Mom always says it’s important to keep our strength up because we’re growing and…”
“Yes, I know what Mom says! But that’s her job!”
Allison looks at Luther raising an eyebrow. “Come on, just eat, okay? You got nothing to punish yourself over.”
Luther huffs but he does take the BLT off the sad little stack and Allison is willing to count it as a win.
“You know what happened isn’t your fault, right?” she starts.
“Allison…” Luther says with a warning tone.
“No, Luther! It isn’t your fault it all went wrong, you did your best to be prepared.”
“Well, evidentially my best was not enough.”
“But that’s not your fault! We all were there! Why’s Dad only punishing over it?”
“Because I’m Number One, Allison,” Luther tells her sternly.
“Oh come on,” Allison said and rolls her eyes. “You might be number one but you’re not the only member of the academy. You’re not any more part of missions than us!”
“That’s not what I’m saying.”
“What else are you saying then?” Allison asks. “Because that’s what it sounds like to me!”
“I’m not…” Luther makes a face like he’s in pain. “Look, Dad gave me the job to look after you guys and make sure that missions run smoothly, you know? And I failed that! I failed! And because I failed that boy died so it’s like…” Luther is talking himself into a frenzy now gesturing so wildly with his sandwich in hand that Allison is scared he’s going to end up splattering the contents all over the wall. “It’s like I killed him myself. So it’s perfectly fine when Dad punishes me! It’s my fault!”
“Luther…” Allison sighs deeply. “Calm down, okay?”
She wants to clip back, tell him that he is being ridiculous that he can’t seriously believe that but Luther’s gotten so emotional.
She needs to get him to calm down first before she can confront him with reality.
She pulls him to his bed. “Come, sit down…”
Luther shakes his head. “We’re not supposed to eat in bed,” he tells her and rubs at his eyes furiously with his free hand.
At last he moves his desk chair sitting down there, looking over the notebooks, maps, books and homework that was spread all over it.
Allison realizes now that usually Luther’s room is a lot less messy. He’s the one who uses the cleaning time to actually clean instead of using it as additional free time and hoping Mom’s gonna pick up most of what’s left over later like the rest of them do.
Five’s loss is really hitting them all hard.
“Sorry about this,” Luther mumbles into his sandwich. “About all of this. I shouldn’t… I should control myself better.”
Allison sighs and looks at him.
“Just. Calm down a little, try to eat, okay?” she orders.
“Okay.”
Allison’s glad to see him actually eating now, he’s calmed down enough now she hopes.
She slips down from his bed and sat down on the floor next to his desk.
“You can’t say it’s your fault that he died, Luther,” Allison tells him. “You didn’t kidnap him, you didn’t do anything to him.”
“Hm…” Luther makes. “Dad said I can’t be that distracted though. He knows I’ve been distracted.”
“You know that’s all of us though, right?” Allison tells him. “We just lost Five. Of course we’re going to be distracted.”
Luther makes a face. “Lost sounds like he’s dead… he can still come back.”
“Lu…” Allison starts but stops herself. “Yes, I guess he can still come back. Either way. We’re going to be distracted, without Five, right?”
“Sure, but look that doesn’t mean we can lack in our work,” Luther tells her and takes another bite from his sandwich.
“Well…” Allison breathes out. “Well, maybe Dad shouldn’t be sending us on missions right now.”
Luther turns towards her like she just suggested that the moon may actually be made out of cheese after all.
“What are you talking about?” he asks. “Who else should deal with this stuff?”
“Like… the police, maybe?” Allison suggests. “Whoever did it before we started doing missions.”
Luther looks at her frowning. “But… Allison… he was the son of Dad’s business friend, maybe he didn’t want the police being involved.”
Allison sighs. “Just because he’s Dad’s business’ partners friend doesn’t mean Dad’s kids gotta save him.”
“Well we didn’t save him, so,” Luther mumbles.
Allison sighs.
This isn’t getting them anywhere they’re talking in circles.
Like always when Allison brings up that Dad might have made a mistake or could be wrong about something, Luther gets frustrating to talk to, stubborn.
Maybe it’s time to change tactics.
“Well, either way it’s not just your fault anyway,” Allison tells him. “Like I already told you, the rest of us were there too, we could have tried better too.”
“Well, I should have prepared better for this,” he says stubbornly.
“And Diego shouldn’t have tried to outdo you the whole time and Klaus shouldn’t have been so distracted and Ben shouldn’t have hesitated killing those assholes until the last moment possible,” she doesn’t mention where she herself might have gone wrong. “But Luther, none of that’s your fault either. You can’t control other people, Luther. You can’t control others. That’s my power.”
“Maybe you should be Number One then,” Luther muttered.
Allison sighs. “Not what I was trying to say, you know rumoring the others would also not have been good.”
“I know…” Luther shrugs. “I dunno… it’s just sad. He was a good boy. He had straight As and he played the piano and… he seemed like he would’ve been going places.” He frowns cocking his head to the side thinking about what he just said. “Not… that it would be any less sad if it wasn’t like that. He was just too young to die.”
Allison nods. “You’re right. It is really sad.”
Luther makes a face. “I’m just… why can’t things go right! Things haven’t been going right for so long… things used to be going right.”
Allison isn’t sure if that’s actually true but she doesn’t want to make Luther feel bad. “I don’t know maybe they’ll go back to being better.”
“Hopefully…”
They’re quiet for a while after that Luther finishes his sandwich.
“What’s your punishment anyway?” Allison asks finally.
Luther looks down sheepishly. “Well for one it was no dinner…”
“Oops,” Allison says and grins.
This actually puts a smile on Luther’s face for once.
“Other than that tomorrow I’ll probably be lifting on the junkyard, put in some extra training, you know?”
“Hm,” Allison makes. She knows Luther dislikes the junkyard. He always comes back exhausted with bloodied hands, he also told her that it smelled bad. “Is your arm gonna be able to take that? Looks like it hurts.”
“I guess,” Luther says. “Mom patched me up, okay,” he tells her. “Dad wouldn’t send me there if I wasn’t okay to go.”
Allison doesn’t argue that Dad has already sent them on a mission without making sure they’re ready first.
“I’ll be okay,” Luther assures her. “It’s fine.”
“I could try to rumor Dad for you.”
Luther shakes his head. “Don’t, that’ll just make everything more complicated, you know.”
Allison sighs.
“Thanks for this though,” Luther holds up his sandwich. “I really didn’t think I’d be able to sleep with how loud my stomach was growling.”
Allison smiles though he’s probably just trying to make her feel better.
“Do you think you’ll be able to sleep now?” she asks.
Luther shrugs. “Always hard after bad missions right?”
“Right,” Allison says and bites her lips. Of course she knows, she herself has spent a few nights awake in her bed and heard one or all of her brothers in their rooms. Sometimes Luther puts on a quiet record and all of them know they’re not alone.
She could ask him if he wants to be rumored to sleep… but he probably believes he deserves bad sleep right now.
She watches Luther finishes the rest of his sandwiches.
“I’ll take the plate back downstairs,” she tells him.
“Okay,” Luther gets up. “Better go to bed, I guess.”
“Yes,” Allison says and then turns around one last time. “Hey Luther? I heard a rumor you’ll fall asleep the second your head hits the pillow and that you won’t have any nightmares.”
She isn’t sure how well this will work but she hopes that it will. For her brother’s sake.