Chapter Text
I have to do this. I have to try and save my family. Flashes of his dead siblings appeared in Five's mind and he tried to rid himself of the unpleasant images. He had to at least try and save his siblings; he couldn't let the apocalypse, the Commission, win. It was a difficult decision to make, to flee. The Commision held so much power over everything, over Five. And there was so much, so many tiny little things that could go even slightly wrong and therefore catastrophically mess up everything.
Short stabs of pain echoed in Five's brain- this was a fairly major indication that something was going wrong. At least something was happening. For years he had been trying to get back to his time; however his powers had stubbornly refused to work and so he had been forced to accept that he had trapped himself in an apocalypse until The Handler approached him. Since joining the Commission, Five had been biding his time, waiting to escape.
Being trapped in the hellscape that was post-apocalypse earth had jaded him, no longer was he a self absorbed child who was desperate to oppose his father on something, anything. He was now a bitter old man who desperately wanted to oppose the commission on the matter of the apocalypse. An apocalypse that resulted in the death of his entire family. And so Five had tried to use his powers, despite how futile he believed it to be,- since he had guessed the briefcases were heavily monitored he was forced to rely on his powers.
He just hadn't expected it to work.
But something was wrong this time. It was not like when he was a child and he could travel through space like sliding on ice. It hurt badly. Five's brain might as well have been self-destructing for all the use it was in this moment, incapable of coherent thought and causing him large amounts of pain. Instead of sliding across ice, Five was being shoved through a shredder.
Five opened his eyes. He was lying in an alley and had finally regained consciousness. He stood up with more ease than expected and looked around. It certainly appeared that he was in a more modern New York but something Five couldn't quite place felt slightly odd. Looking down at his shoes, he noticed they were the ones he used to wear as part of his Umbrella Academy uniform. Having thought this, Five realised he was wearing the uniform. In fact he felt considerably shorter than usual...
Shit. Shit. Shit. The universe could go to hell.
Despite this minor setback, Five was determined to warn his siblings about the impending doom that faced them. He tried to wear a calmer exterior than he he felt inside whilst he walked through the streets of New York. It was different than how he remembered it but that was a long time ago. Five choked back a sob. No need to be emotional just because he had repressed his emotions for many, many years and had just now regained his teenage form. No.
Five hurried through the pedestrian-filled streets and dodged cars as he crossed the roads. At last he arrives at where the Hargreeves home... was. It wasn't there. Instead a skyscraper towered down at Five. It was ultra-modern and a giant 'A' was fixed to the top. More importantly, it was not what he had expected. Perhaps they had completely changed up the place since he had left? Five clung to this thought, desperately hoping it was true, despite already being concerned about how it had felt so unnatural to use his powers.
Eventually, Five decided to sneak inside the building. It was, initially, not too arduous a task, as there was a congregation of people standing around it and a steady stream of people entering and exiting the building. Five became one with the crowd and slipped inside the doors.
A garish sign proclaimed: Welcome to the Avengers' Tower. Everything about it confused Five but he could not afford time to dwell on the sign. He scanned the security systems. It seemed that there was a system of passes that allowed access to certain areas. Five used his powers to freely pass the security barriers and he then tried to look as inconspicuous as possible when he again passed through into the emergency stairwell leaving a rapidly fading trail of blue light behind him. So far no alarms had been sounded and no one had shown up to escort him off the premises. It could certainly be going a lot worse. Five searched around for any security cameras that could be tracking his movements but he failed to spot any. This was concerning, since aside from this the place seemed to have a fairly effective security system.
If he had already been seen, Five didn't have much time. So he went up the stairs taking frequent shortcuts through space-time, relieved to find it was working and his brain didn't feel like it was being stabbed numerous times. He failed to see the security cameras watching him through the vents, tracking Five's every movement. Five decided to aim for the top floor for that was surely where the secrets of this place were being kept. At some point the security increased between levels and Five had to jump through doors with increasingly complex locks, which fortunately did not affect his ability to pass through them. After a very long time Five reached the top floor. He stared at the door which would lead into whatever was inside. Making a split-second decision, Five chose to try and play his intrusion off nonchalantly, if there were any other people in there, so he stuffed one hand in a pocket and pushed the door open, sauntering inside.
Multiple pairs of eyes were staring at him. Well shit. Five thought about attempting to flee but someone was already blocking the door. They were looking at him with both curiosity and concern. That was all of the information Five managed to process before he collapsed to the floor, courtesy of the tranquilliser he had been injected with.