Archive of Our Own

Klaus had always thought of himself as an informant of sorts. A stoolie, a tattletale, a tipster in more ways than one. A rat, yeah, and a snitch. Point was, if he got paid, then his mouth was wide open for his benefactor. That was how the streets worked. At least the streets that Klaus liked to stick by, anyway. The fun streets! They paid in secrets and sex as much as they did cold hard cash. 

It was these finally tuned instincts that helped him sniff out Diego, who was being, as the French said, really fucking suspicious. 

Whistling a quite cheery doodly doo as he strolled through the Commision HQ on his own little side quest, Klaus had come to a stop outside of the Infinite Switchboard room. He’d caught sight of Diego’s voluptuous ass sticking straight into the air like a mole on a pole, and invited himself into the little soirée. 

“Diego, my beloved!” He twirled into the room, hands clasped over his bosom. When he’d turned British, he didn’t know. “However art thou?” 

“Fuck off, Klaus,” he muttered. He didn’t even look up from where he was tip-tapping away on the keys, which was quite rude. Come on, Diego, update your AO3 some other time! Time was a’wasting. 

He stuck out his lip. “My, that’s quite rude, young fellow.” He slid into one of the wheeled chairs that lined the walls alongside the desk. “Why don’t you pop a squat on my knee and tell Santa Klaus why he shouldn’t shove coal up your tight asshole this Christmas?” 

Diego flipped him the bird, which Klaus did not like. He’d had enough of birds, thank you. First there was that peacock that really did not enjoy his new nickname, then there was that nonverbal parakeet he’d tried to get a refund on. Oh, and the Sparrows, but only one of them had really been avian-themed. 

Huh, should Klaus have armed himself with a parasol or two back in the good old days? He almost laughed as he wondered if Dad would have liked him more if he’d stayed on brand. 

Klaus tapped a finger on his lips, methodically. “This wouldn’t have anything to do with Sprout’s newfound existence, would it?” 

When Diego had found out that his buddy, Zest, once again was as alive and well as a three-foot-eleven man could be, Klaus could’ve sworn there’d been a twinkle in his brother’s eyes. He’d immediately started to interrogate the poor schmuck, which had been as entertaining as it’d been boring. Diego truly was a man of contradictions. 

He gave a shrug that was clearly meant to come off as more nonchalant than it actually was. It translated poorly, making Diego look twitchy as the guys in rehab coming down from their most recent hit. 

“Herb gave good info. It’s up to me to follow up on his intel, since, well.” He gave Klaus a once-over. Klaus picked his nose with his pinkie finger – the most regal digit of them all. “It’s not like anyone else gets shit done around here.” 

“Say that three times and Five’ll be summoned in a cloud of caffeinated aroma to go for your kneecaps.” 

He rolled his eyes and turned back to the whatchamacallit. “You’re about as helpful as I expected you to be. Thanks for being consistent.” 

“No prob, Bob.” Klaus leaned in, squinting at a scrawny blond fellow sprinting through a snow-laden field. “Who’s that handsome devil?” 

“Luther. Or Pete Davidson.” He shot the screen a withering look. “The ISB’s not easy to use. Definitely not for the faint of heart.” 

Klaus blinked. “I’m pretty sure if Herb’s heart could faint, it would’ve passed out and away long ago.” 

Diego waved him off. He yanked out a cord that looked pretty dang important and reinserted it in the exact same place, which somehow made the image on the screen change to a huge mansion not unlike dear old Dad’s. Diego’s lip curled, and he gave the side of the doohickey a slap until it changed again. 

“So, uh, what’s the plan here, De-ay-to-the-go? Find the best porn in the multiverse?” 

“Out.” 

“Wait, no!” he whined. “I’m listening. Scout’s honor!” 

“When we were kids, you periodically scammed any Girl Scout who knocked on our door by telling them you had leukemia and your dying wish was a box of Thin Mints.” 

“Huh. That was kind of fucked up of me.” He sat back, stroking his chin wisely. “I should’ve said I had AIDs.” 

“How is that better?” 

“I’m gay. That’s reparations for the Lavender Scare, I think.” 

“I can’t believe you know what that is.” 

“And I can’t believe that you are being homophobic.” 

Diego opened his mouth, then closed it. He visibly took a deep breath. Aww, was that character development Klaus was sensing? Diego turned to rummage through a drawer until he pulled out a notepad and pen, which he handed to Klaus. 

“Fine, you want to be helpful?” 

“I never once said that,” Klaus whispered, eyes wide at the thought of the incoming responsibility. Ew. 

He continued, all but uninterrupted, “Write down everything that would make you happy.” 

That – was a wide range. A shocking amount of freedom from Diego, who once forced Klaus to sit in a step-by-step instructional lecture on how to piss in a bottle. Spoiler alert, you used your dick. 

What would make Klaus happy? Drugs. Booze. Mind-blowing sex from a certain man in a uniform. That man in a uniform, even without the sex. Without the uniform, preferably. Just the man, and him, and maybe a cheap bottle of dollar store wine to pass between the two of them as they stayed up late whispering into each other’s ears, just in case anyone was listening in. 

His heart gave a squeeze. He wondered how easy it would feel to be one-dimensional. It sounded nice. He wouldn’t have to worry about all that crushed him from the outside in, every horrible thing that he could slip into. There’d be no inside or up or complexity, just left, which everyone knew was built up of a handful of rights and wrongs. 

He cleared his throat. Softly, he said, “Tom Felton sitting on my face. That would make me absolutely ecstatic. Orgasmic, if you will.” 

Diego cuffed him on the back of his head. “Be serious or be gone, Klaus.” 

“Why?” he groaned, and it wasn’t even a fun groan. 

“Weren’t you paying attention to what Herbie said?” 

“You’re so funny, bro-bro.” 

“Ugh. Well, thanks to Allison’s little meltdown at the end of the world, this timeline’s made up of whatever we want. It follows Allison’s wishes first, ‘cause she pushed the button or something, then Viktor’s, then ours. We find out what the timeline has to satisfy us, we find a way home.” 

“Even I’m having trouble following that logic, which is a bad, bad sign.” 

“Didn’t ask!” Diego said brightly, and glared in that way that either he or Five had picked up from one another. Actually, come to think of it, maybe that was an OG Ally look. “Listen, all you need to know is that the ISB’s looking through every timeline imaginable, and it’s gonna find us a way home. Permanently, this time.” 

He lowered his voice at the end, sounding just about as badass as that emo kid with a sore throat who thought he was literally Batman, for real for real. 

Klaus leaned forward. He caught his eyes sparkling in the reflection of the screen. “Diego. You’re saying that this machine will show us anything? Any form of any person of any time?” 

He quirked a lip. “Yeah, man.” 

He raised a reverental hand, cupping Diego’s face with his own innocent hands. “I’m gonna see which version of me has the biggest dick.” 

“You fucking clown.” 

By now, Allison knew well that the more squirrelly Five looked, the more he was onto something. She watched through narrow eyes as he paced the conference room, coffee practically untouched. That little rat had a lead, and that just wouldn’t do. She’d cut too many losses to trip at the finish line right when everything was perfect and just days from being set in stone. 

“What’s wrong, Five?” she said. Her tone was dry in that way it always was now, which probably had to do with the pack of cigarettes she’d taken to going through on a daily basis. “Kars 4 Kids kicked you out ‘cause you can’t hold a tune?” 

He shot her a look. That didn’t mean he was onto her. He would’ve been a prick even if she’d knelt at his feet, tears in her eyes, and thanked him for all the merciful bullshit he’d dragged them through. “This has gotten out of control, Allison. We’re not just talking about one world or even one timeline anymore.” 

He waved an erratic hand. The motion was so similar to something that Claire might’ve done that she couldn’t breathe for a second. She tried anyway. Her baby was home, safe, but she wouldn’t be for long if the others’ had their way. 

They wanted to take everything away from her. Her kid, her life, her happiness. She’d spent so long living in a pressed cardboard world, and now that she finally had something real, they were there to destroy it. Typical. Viktor, Five, Luther – none of them wanted her to be happy. It was on her to humbly carry her burden while they hoisted their own onto the innocent. 

They’d grown up together – slapped Band-Aids on their knees together, snuck out for doughnuts together – and she wanted to slit all of their throats if only to keep what was hers safe. 

“Oh?” she said, and coolly raised an eyebrow. 

Five ran a hand through his hair. “This universe cherry-picked everything that it wanted from all other universes. Doing so created connections with one another – Allison, if this timeline goes, it all goes.” 

“So make sure it doesn’t go.” 

That was his thing, wasn’t it? Saving the world got him off. It was the addiction clinging to Klaus’s sticky palms, the self-importance Viktor carted around like a boulder. It didn’t matter who got burned, Five kept dousing accelerant on the flames just so he could keep warm. 

Fucking pig. 

“Easier said than done,” he snarled. She just about slapped him, but held back. She wasn’t Allison the wild card right now, two seconds away from snapping. She was playing the part of the worried mother who’d do anything to keep her daughter safe, even kill her. Especially, kill her. 

Allison was a really great actor. 

She let her expression break, just a little. Pressed her fingers to her lips like she was visibly holding back words, or maybe because she was about to be sick. Audience’s choice; it was up for interpretation. She blinked hard, and croaked, “Five, Claire lives in this universe. She’s in every universe, and from what you’ve said, all of her is in danger.” Allison squared her shoulders. “How can I help?” 

He didn’t believe her for a second. She knew he didn’t. Fool him once, win an Oscar. Fool him twice, win the life she deserved. But fool him three times? It didn’t happen. She’d shattered something with that handshake in Dad’s suite, and kept smashing when he took her place in hell. Five would never actually trust her again, and honestly? She didn’t really care. 

Five didn’t think she was shit. But Luther and Viktor, who’d been floating by the doorway, did. Doe-eyed and impressionable, they practically ate the non-apology out of her hand, and she could practically see them softening in front of her. 

That was what mattered. 

Lila popped up beside her, blue wisps introducing her entrance in a way that made her stomach turn at the thought of her childhood. “Hello!” She clapped her hands together, not unlike Claire’s kindergarten teacher during Parent’s Night. “Just thought I’d give you all a head’s up that Diego’s around five seconds away from flattening Klaus’s genitals with the Infinite Switchboard.” 

Behind her, Viktor sighed. Allison wondered what he’d sound like with a clarinet sticking out of his throat. 

“Anyway, I’m off to see the show! Ben’s got popcorn and taking bets if you’re all interested. Toodles!” 

And then she was gone. Why she’d chosen to mimic Five’s power, Allison didn’t really know. Maybe she was hoping for a way to squirm out of the impending implosion if it didn’t all go well. Maybe she was aware of the blood that’d fixed itself to all of their powers, and Five’s was the most familiar. Maybe she was just a lazy bitch. 

Lila would make a really terrible mother, Allison decided. 

“Infinite Switchboard,” Five mused softly. He took a swig of his coffee that Allison was absolutely certain scorched his esophagus, and then blinked away. 

“Three guesses to where he went,” Luther said, “and the first two don’t count.” 

She resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “Well, looks like we’re taking the boring way.” She turned to the Viktor and Luther of them. They stood next to each other, perfectly at ease in their collective presence. She remembered the days where they’d hated each other more than they hated her. They’d tasted sweet. “Where’s the elevator?”

When they got to the Infinite Switchboard, Klaus was screeching. This wasn’t a surprising development, and neither were Lila’s boisterous cheers nor Diego’s very manly grunts. No, what threw Allison just a bit off was the fact that Douchebag Ben had also thrown himself into the mix, and he was losing a two-way fight like an absolute champ. 

“Fuck off, Benerino, I want to see my junk!” 

“Grab a briefcase and go on a peep show, Baba Yaga!” 

“Both of you, quit it. I’m conducting a serious investigation!” 

“Yeah, and that’s why you looked up your lady cop friend, huh?” 

A new challenger entered the ring: 

“Diego, dear? What the fuck is he talking about?” 

Allison pinched the bridge of her nose as Lila threw quite the impressive haymaker. “This is so stupid.” 

Viktor tilted his head, frowning. “I don’t know. We can see, like, any universe on that thing. Just imagine it.” He got this far-away look in his eyes that made Allison want to shake him like a rag doll. “Getting to watch as you never made every mistake you ever made. Knowing what you could’ve done differently and what you shouldn’t have. It’s peace of mind.” 

“It’s a waste of time,” Five cut in. Ah, there it was. The fun-killer, present as the harbinger of shitty news. He crossed his arms. “They’re gonna be fighting each other for at least another ten minutes, and once they’re done, we’ll lose another hour on whatever the victor decides to look at. It’s idiotic.” 

Even though she’d all but agreed with him just a minute ago, Allison frowned. “Really? You’re telling me that you wouldn’t want a peak at what could’ve been?” He was just that holier than thou, wasn’t he? 

Five snorted. “I spent forty-five years wondering how things could’ve gone, yet I’m still here. I still did the things I did, and no amount of wishful thinking is going to change that.” 

She bit back the insult brewing on her tongue. Fine. Five wanted to pretend he was better than them all? Go ahead. But she’d known her brother as long as he’d known her, and she recognized his bullshit face better than anyone else. He was lying. 

It would be such a shame if they spent so much time wrapped up in the Infinite Switchboard that the Annihilation came and went with nothing more than a few dead bastards. And it definitely wouldn’t be fun at all. 

“Alright, Five,” Allison said with a bitter smile. “Put your money where your mouth is, then.” Between one blink and the next, she dove for the keyboard of the machine. She was elbowed by the mass of limbs for her trouble, but it wasn’t all that difficult to input her requests while the rest of the dumbasses were wrapped up in each other. 

Every screen in the room lit up with Five’s face, pubescent and laden with baby fat. Allison just had time to pat herself on the back for her quick thinking when sparks burst out of the side of the machine. Klaus went down with a shriek that was as embellished as it was genuine. She flinched, and opened her mouth to say something, but everything got all shaky, and it was all she could do not to burst at the seams as the room crumbled away.

When Diego opened his eyes, he instantly knew he wasn’t in the Commision HQ anymore. Or, if he was, then he was in a really weird department. 

He was in an apartment, not unlike the dirt cheap holes in walls he used to beat up two-bit robbers back in his glory days. In all honesty, there wasn’t much else to say about it. It was as standard as they all were, a hopefully temporary stage in life while the homeowner attempted to save a few pennies by living in a dump like this. 

He scanned for details anyway, like he’d been trained to do. The instinct made him shudder, but it’d saved his ass more than a few times, so he gave into the urge without much protest. 

Something was cooking on the stove, fragrant even from the living room. A stack of copy paper and miscellaneous markers were strewn across the carpet in front of the television. The screen itself was playing some sort of kiddie cartoon on it. Little kids lived here, but an adult was present. There was no way children young enough as Diego suspected them to be had been left in charge of dinner. 

His suspicions were confirmed when a dark blur came streaking down the hallway, clearly paying no mind to their downstairs neighbors. He watched as they leaped onto the brightly patterned couch, striking a pose that reminded him a bit of Klaus in his Y2K days. 

“Sun is shining in the sky!” they shouted, though they might’ve just been trying and failing to sing. Their voice was crackly with puberty, and they made up for any lack in musical talent with sheer volume. Again, asshole to the neighbors. “There ain’t a cloud in the sky, it’s stopped raining. Everybody something something in the play – it’s a beautiful new day!” They pumped a fist into the air, on-beat with the rhythm. “Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah!" 

There was a groan from a mound of what Diego had assumed to be pillows from the other end of the couch. He almost jumped when a dark-haired head popped out from underneath one of the blankets. “Rowan, I’m in my post-finals coma. Take a lap outside or something.” 

The guy that must’ve been Rowan jumped into the air, gave a kick that definitely looked awesome to them and no one else, and landed on the ground. Sheesh, at this point, Diego might just evict them himself. “Running down the avenue, see how the sun shines bright in the city – something something once was pity. Mr. Blue Sky’s living he-e-e-e-re today, hey!” 

“Those aren’t even the words,” the coach potato groaned. They had a tinge of an accent, and so did Rowan. Irish, maybe, or Scottish. He’d never been good at telling the two apart, and that was before he even got to dialects. Ugh. 

Neither of them had said a word to his appearance. He hadn’t bothered hiding, figuring he’d just, like, threaten to stab them if they tried anything, but it was like he wasn’t even there. He opened his mouth, but when he worked his jaw, nothing came out. 

“Hey! There! Mr. Blue! We’re so pleased to be with you. Look around, see what you do. Everybody smiles at you!” 

Rowan galloped around the room, flailing their arms around like they were in a one-person conga line. They were twirling around so fast that Diego couldn’t get a good look at their face, but he definitely caught sight when they stumbled over a Dora the Explorer doll and fell flat on their ass. 

“Loser!” 

They stuck out a tongue, swiping the impressive fringe on their face away. Diego’s heart stopped. “Well, this loser just got a 91 on his Pre-Calc final, so eat it.” He threw his head back and shout-sang, “We-e-e-e are the champions, my friends!” 

Holy shit, that was Five, and he looked like a fucking weeb. 

Diego was vividly reminded of scene culture as he stared at the slightly-off version of his youngest older brother. Admittedly, it could’ve been a lot worse. The kid’s hair was dyed the same shade as the Five Diego knew and tolerated now, and some of his jewelry actually could’ve been regarded as cool, if it wasn’t clearly cheap plastic. He looked like the same not-age Five was now, just way more cringe. 

But fucking hell, Diego couldn’t help howling with laughter as his normally stuck-up asshole of a brother sped around the apartment, beaming like there was no tomorrow. He looked like an idiot. An idiot having the time of his life, but an idiot anyway. Oh, he was going to tease the hell out of Five for this. 

“At times like this,” said the other, slightly older kid, dryly, “I hate that I even have to call you my brother.” 

Diego’s chuckle died in his throat. Brother? Five – Five had siblings? No, he didn’t. He only had his Team Zero family, and whatever the hell the Sparrows were. That kid, the one with the pretentious accent who was laughing at Five the same way Diego always did, they weren’t his family. Diego was his family. 

Five said something back about having the cooler share of their combined DNA right as the world came to a shuddery stop. Diego glared at the two kids as they vanished into nothing, following soon after.

Diego woke up angry. This wasn’t unusual, though lately he’d been doing a pretty good job at avoiding this feeling as soon as he cracked his eyes open. Well, relapses happened. If anyone knew that, it was Klaus, who – 

Oh. Shit. Klaus was holding Five in a bridal carry, swinging him too and fro as Five screeched like a feral cat and went for the eyes. 

“You sweet baby!” Klaus cooed. “You were so excited. An A on your Pre-Calc final, that’s our little man!” 

Five growled, “I have a wife!” 

“Is she taking Geometry next semester?” 

“She knows quantum physics, you cause for lobotomy!” 

Klaus squealed, excited, and then squealed again when Five landed a kick in the nards. That one was more out of pain. They both went down in a heap. 

“Not a fucking word,” Five grumbled. His brow was furrowed, arms crossed, and if Diego didn’t know any better, he’d think that Five was embarrassed. Ha! Serves him right. Fucking – Fucking sibling-haver. What an asshole. 

Diego was so good at managing his emotions. 

“What was that?” Viktor said quietly, and Diego almost jumped. Shit, he’d forgotten Viktor was there. He was so good at blending in with the background until everything caught on fire and everyone remembered, oh, that was why they didn’t ignore Viktor anymore. Also because, you know. Childhood trauma. 

“My best guess? A timeline where Dad didn’t adopt me.” Something flashed across Five’s face. It was gone in a blink, but for that heartbeat when it was visible, Five almost looked uncomfortable. “I can’t think of any other reason why I’d have a – different sibling.” 

Luther tilted his head, like a big ol’ puppy. The moment he realized how to emotionally manipulate other people and not just himself, it was all over for them. “Why wouldn’t Dad adopt you?” 

Five shot him that look, that annoyed one that meant that he had to be smarter than everyone else, as usual. Prick. “Maybe he’s dead in that timeline. Maybe he picked up Lila instead of me. Maybe I don’t have powers. Who knows, Luther? It’s the damn multiverse, literally anything is possible.” 

Ben curled a lip. “Yeah, well, as much as I’d love a look into some weeb’s life, I have better things to do.” He made for the door out of the ISB room. “Thanks for ruining sci-fi, Brellies.” 

Oh, come on. He had to know that the nickname was as lame as Luther’s everything, right? Diego opened his mouth to fire a truly impressive insult, Birdie, when a trembling returned, and he had his hands on his knives even as everything fell away.

Oh. Viktor blinked down at Five – or, Rowan, he corrected – sitting cross-legged next to two younger children that looked close enough to him that it made his heart hurt a bit. Viktor had never been good with kids until Dallas, so he didn’t have a great benchmark for their development, but he supposed that they both looked around the same age as Harlan’d been before he’d ruined him. 

“Rowan,” the girl whined. She had the same wavy locks framing her face as Five did, though hers were a touch lighter. She stuck out her bottom lip, pouting, and Viktor was more certain than not that she was hamming up her reaction for sympathy points. It was a classic Klaus move that he’d watched crash and burn almost periodically as a kid. “I wanna be Kim Possible!” 

“Nuh-uh!” She was shoved by a boy that could’ve been her copy. He had the same blue, blue eyes and frankly adorable accent that barely peeked through in his choppier words. He was a hair shorter than her, and Viktor could see that being a cause for conflict. “Cassidy said last time that I could be Kim Possible!” 

Rowan quirked a lip, hiding the motion behind a PB&J he took a small bite out of. “Is that true, Cass?” 

Cassidy crossed her arms, furrowing her itty bitty brows. The motion was so similar to the one that Five had just done a minute ago that Viktor felt his knees knocking together. He took a seat next to Rowan. “Maybe.” 

“Then I think it’s Desmond’s turn to be Kim, yeah? It’s only fair.” 

“But Kim Possible’s the coolest! I don’t wanna be Ron, he’s so lame.” 

“Hey, Ron’s cool too. He’s got those, uh, monkey powers right?” 

Desmond shot Rowan a look that was pure Five annoyance, knowing that you were smarter than everyone else in the room by a mile. “Ron can’t even use a grappling hook,” he said slowly, like Rowan was stupid. 

Viktor gave an ugly snort, half-held behind his hand. Kids had such strong opinions. 

He hadn’t. At least, not that he remembered. Everything was always just fine when he was younger, and if it wasn’t, he was supposed to take a pill every hour on the hour until it was. He wondered how he never overdosed. Had that even been a concern for Dad, or had the only bastard just figured that if he took too much, at least that’d be one less problem for him to deal with? 

Viktor found his nails digging into his arms. He took a breath, remembering what his therapist had told him. That therapist had been a bit of an asshole, to be honest, always telling him that it was normal to feel like an outsider in his own body, to flinch when sounds crashed against each other in the precisely wrong way. Still, she’d had a degree, so that had to mean something, right? 

“Tell you what,” Rowan said, and he had a playful lilt to his voice that sounded so foreign to him. The only time he’d ever heard Five speak like that, it was clearly a ploy to get what he wanted. “How about Kim Possible and Shego are up against…” he trailed off, then pulled out two plastic toys from a bag, “the Shredder and the Kraang!” 

“Yes!” 

“I wanna do that!” 

“But you gotta do the voices.” 

“Mhm, yeah!” 

Rowan shook his head softly, but he obliged, dancing the two figurines around as he deepened his voice like Diego did when he wanted to sound tough. Which was always, actually. Maybe he could see a laryngologist. “I’m the Shredder, and I’m gonna mutate the whole cheerleading team unless someone stops me, mwa-ha-ha!” 

Viktor pulled his legs close to his chest until he could rest his chin on his knees. He felt a little smile grow as he watched the kids play pretend. Desmond performed messy cartwheels while Cassidy threw handfuls of air Rowan’s way. They both cheered when he fell to the ground with a theatrical yelp, then softly whispered if they could do that again, but with Spider-Man’s help this time. 

Viktor didn’t ever remember playing like this with Five. Everything before the pills was a blur, and everything after? Well, there was nothing after. Just Viktor in a box, either in the basement or in the closet he’d called a bedroom. Maybe Five used to be goofy like this with the others. He would never know unless he asked. 

He didn’t think he wanted to ask. 

He tried to set his hand on Rowan’s shoulder, but it passed through like a breeze. A wave of almost tangible unease hit him, and when he opened his eyes, the kids were gone.

He kept his mouth shut at first. Let Ben and Lila rib Five for being such a good big brother, what a champ! Ignored the teasing nicknames Klaus tried on. Didn’t say a word when Allison let slip a barb about what Five would be like as an uncle, if Claire made it out of the end of everything. 

Viktor let himself become invisible as he studied the Infinite Switchboard. He’d asked Herb about the machine. It was how Diego had known that he was the bomb in the 60’s apocalypse. Maybe it could make sure that he wasn’t the bomb again. Herb had been very forthcoming with information, explaining the ISB best he could, but he hadn’t said anything about being sucked into it, about being a ghost in a timeline they never knew existed. 

The Infinite Switchboard was a glorified baby monitor. It was a tv screen with a particularly fancy remote. At least, it was supposed to be. It wasn’t now, and Viktor didn’t think anyone else had realized. 

Viktor reached out for the keyboard Allison had clicked away on, but as soon as his fingertips met the keys, everything went away again.

At first, Luther thought that something had changed. Maybe they’d taken a peek into another universe now, and there was reason enough for the others to quit teasing Five for a version of himself that wasn’t him. To tell the truth, he’d considered sticking up for the little old man, but thought better of it. If they were making fun of him, then they weren’t making fun of Luther. Sorry big brother, but survival of the fittest had carried him through life pretty well thus far. 

Survival of the fittest had also isolated him from his siblings in an attempt to wrench any affection available from his father’s iron grasp. It’d led him to lock up Viktor when he’d needed him most and turn away Five at Jack’s bar in Dallas. 

Luther swallowed. Anyway. Weird shitty new place without that Rowan kid. At least, that was what he thought at first. 

He was in some generic office building towering high over the other complexes nearby. There were lines and lines of cubicles running every which way through the floor. When he’d opened his eyes, he’d been standing right in front of a skinny fellow around his age with bright red hair. 

When Luther meant red, he meant red. Fire hydrant, stop sign, ho-ho-ho Merry Christmas red. Not ginger, red. 

It looked good, he had to admit. Gelled just so, making the guy’s eyes pop whenever the light caught the contrast. What’s more, it actually made him stand out in the mass of button-ups and coffee cups that was corporate culture. Not that Luther knew much about that, aside from what the first season of Suits had taught him. 

“I don’t care that he’s the fourth most-capped player or some shit,” the redhead was arguing with someone who must’ve been his coworker, “you’re categorically mad if you think that Parisse is a more valuable player than O’Driscoll. You’ve seen his 2009 drop goal, yeah? You’ve seen it?” 

“Fuck off, MacNamara,” said his coworker, though she had a little grin hidden behind her coffee cup. “You’re just saying that ‘cause he’s Irish too and they’ll exile you from the motherland if you don’t back him up.” 

“Yeah, and you’re backing Parisse because of your love of calzones.” 

She scoffed and gave him a good-natured swat to the arm before ambling away. As she did, he shot her a smug little smirk, and Luther vividly remembered the way Old Man Five had smiled all the while he convinced Luther to kill off Old Young Five. 

Holy shit, that was still Rowan. And he’d – dyed his hair? Alright, that was a choice. 

Luther studied him, even as a man clearly in charge hurried by and barked at Rowan to send in his report on the Lions’ successful try rate for last year. He was in his early to mid-twenties, about as old as Luther had been when he’d been monkey-fied. Why he’d made that note, he didn’t really know. 

He still had the same tell-tale dimples. The same lankiness to his limbs, the same fidgety anxiety that clung to every move he made. He rushed along like someone would shoot him in the head if he was even half a minute late on his report. Five had never acted like that when they were kids, even when Dad raised his voice, telling him to hurry up. He’d always been brave like that. Or disrespectful. Either or, to be honest. 

Luther sat down on the floor and watched Rowan frantically type away about stats and conversions and wallabies, until he didn’t anymore.

“I have to admit,” Lila said, snaking an arm around Five’s shoulders for a half-hug, “I’d thought I’d sooner see you tattoo your toesies before you’d dye your hair. Especially such an obnoxious shade!” 

“I could say the same about you,” he said dryly, and Lila flicked him in the forehead. He had a tightness to his posture that concerned Luther, just a bit. Truth be told, he was a little worried by whatever was going on in the old man’s head. He didn’t know if he was mad as a bull, happy as a clam, or something in-between. What was the halfway point between a bull and a clam? A seahorse, maybe? 

“Can’t believe you went ginger,” Ben scoffed, like his hair hadn’t been the stuff of nightmares when they’d first met. He leaned on the side of the Infinite Switchboard, examining his nail beds like intangibly viewing an alternate timeline had diseased him. Prick. 

Allison rolled her eyes, the way she always did nowadays. Luther wondered what her teenager self would think if she caught sight of the Allison he knew today. “Please. If that’s ginger, then Rowan’s a proud Scot.” 

“Five’s a leprechaun,” Klaus whispered softly, almost reverently. “It all makes sense now.” 

“Up yours, Casper.” 

“Five?” Viktor cut in. He was leaning over one of the Infinite Switchboard’s panels, hands held mid-air like he was afraid to touch anything. “How do you turn this thing off?” 

“I’m sure it’ll run out of juice sooner or later,” Allison said. 

Diego frowned. “Didn’t seem like it was.” 

Luther watched as Five shoved Lila off of him, peering at the Infinite Switchboard with the slightest crease to his brow. The expression reminded him of that time he’d caught him scribbling sine functions and antiderivatives on the walls of his childhood bedroom. That hadn’t been a good time for any of them, what with the threat of total destruction hanging over them for the first time. Not that the second, third, or fourth times were that much better. 

“What did they do to this thing?” Five mumbled. He started to tug a thick cord out of the wall, but pulled away with a yelp when a shower of sparks burst from one of the smaller screens. “Shit!” 

Only Luther and Diego really caught the brunt of the miniature explosion. It honestly took Luther a few moments to realize that he was in pain. With the monkey serum, he’d had a sort of limited invulnerability to him. Just a few apocalypses ago, he would’ve been able to withstand the electricity without anything more than a bit of hesitation. 

Someone asked if they were okay, but by then, a swooping feeling had returned to Luther’s gut. He was becoming intimately familiar with it, and didn’t do much but grit his teeth when everything shattered yet again.

Ben did his damn best to smash apart the crusty ass apartment he reappeared in. It didn’t work. His movements were precise, so perfect that Pogo himself would’ve been impressed, but none of them landed. They just sailed through the furniture and walls alike, as if he was a ghost. 

The thought made his stomach turn. The Umbrella Academy knew him as a ghost, didn’t they? Klaus, at least. He wondered if that other version of him had let his palms slip through solids and feel the same aching disappointment in his gut. 

He wondered if Jennifer – 

“Fuck!” he growled. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of Rowan sitting only a few inches away from the dinky TV in the living room. He stomped over to the kid and tried to punt him over state lines like a pigskin football, but no dice. Little asshole. Couldn’t do shit these days. “You little fucking turd! You – clown-nosed, cherry-popping, walking red flag!” 

Rowan just continued to sit criss-cross applesauce, rocking a bit from the left to the right as a spiky-haired character on the screen flipped by. He was beaming, dimples on full display, like an absolute idiot. 

“You think you’re better than me, huh? Just because you get to grow up and move on from this shit ass apartment. You’re not stuck here.” Ben tried to smack the kid upside the head. It didn’t work, obviously. He hadn’t really expected it to. “Well, jokes on you. My shoe closet is bigger than your entire fucking apartment complex.” 

Next to the spiky-haired guy was a lime green elephant, which was thrown off a roof as the other character sprinted by. There was a little mask slapped across its features, uncomfortably similar to the Sparrow mask from way back when. What use came from a mask when Dad broadcasted their secret identities on Channel 6 news, he didn’t really know. 

“You like heroes, huh?” The kid couldn’t even hear him. This was so fucking stupid. The fact that it was so goddamn dumb only made him angrier. “I’m a hero. I’m a fucking hero! They created a show after us in the early 2010s, you know? Just like that one. And – And we won the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize and we were Times Person of the Year in 2006. Beat that!” 

He threw himself in front of Rowan, blocking the television with a body that wasn’t really there. “Stop ignoring me! I’m right here. I’m still here, I – ” 

“Rowan, back up from the television before you rot your eyes out!” 

He swallowed his screams with a shudder. Turning to the new voice, he all but flinched at the sight of a very short, very bloody woman waving around a butcher knife with clear annoyance. 

He wasn’t scared of the knife. That’d be stupid. He was a superhero, and he’d been disarming assailants ever since Jayme learned that his peanut allergy was the reason why the robot didn’t carry Uncrustables in the house. 

But Ben – had a thing for moms. 

Oh, fuck, that made him sound like he wanted to bang MILFs! Well, he didn’t not want to bang MILFs. They’d have to be hot to even qualify for the MILF title, and Ben wasn’t about to turn down a hot single ready to mingle. 

He pinched the bridge of his nose. This was why all the Umbrellas thought he was an asshole. 

Maybe they were right. 

Anyway, mom thing. He didn’t know what it was about it. Maybe it was his lack of any clear maternal figure as a child, sans Pogo at best. Maybe it was all the women with children he’d grown up saving. Maybe, as usual, it was because of Jennifer. She’d just started her second trimester when it all went down. 

Point was, no matter the reason, Ben had a hard time being around moms and acting like – well, a dick. One sharp look from them and his mouth snapped shut. He was just along for the ride, sheepishly ducking his head if he came up in conversation. He didn’t want to disappoint them, not like he consistently disappointed Dad just for existing wrong. 

“Mam,” Rowan wheedled, but dutifully inched away from the screen. “It’s the apprentice arc! Slade’s blackmailing Robin, it’s beyond grand!” 

The woman tutted, hands on her hips. “All those superhero shows you watch, I swear to the Lord, they’re turning your brain to mush. You want to know what a real hero does? Helps his mam with the dishes, folds the laundry, doesn’t spent all day on the couch!” 

“I’m on the floor,” Rowan muttered. It wasn’t quiet enough. Ben chuckled as the woman cuffed him in the back of his head. He yelped, but Ben could easily tell that the expression was exaggerated. It reminded him of the way he and Marcus used to playfight, before Ben learned to go for the jugular. 

“You’re going to help me with dinner once that show’s over, you hear?” 

“Fine.” 

“What was that?” 

“Yes, Oul Dear, I’ll help out.” 

“There it is.” 

Rowan turned back to the television. He didn’t see the little smile his mom had as she looked down at him, shaking her head softly before heading to the kitchen. Ben did, though. He saw lots of things. He was the tactician, miles of miles of padded plans in his pocket, ready for the slightest hint at their use. He noticed everything, because it was really quite easy to take notes when everyone else was ignoring you. 

He leaned closer to the screen, trying to see what was so great about this apprentice shark or whatever, when everything cut out like an old record.

The Umbrellas were already screaming their tits off when Ben opened his eyes. There were twin beacons of cobalt wisps that swirled around the small room as both Five and Lila tried to blink. It was unsuccessful, as were most of the Umbrellas’ plans. Diego clearly hadn’t learned his lesson and had taken to yanking out every cord to the Switchboard, ignoring the bite-sized explosions that went off in his wake. 

Klaus was shrieking like a siren, and not the sexy kind, which really couldn’t have been helpful to the sickly-looking Viktor. The harbinger of the apocalypse had his hands clasped over his ears, flinching as the volume steadily rose. Most pathetic of all of them was Luther, who was pulling at the door out with all of his not-so-apeish might. 

“This is sad,” Allison muttered. The monster in his gut twisted in agreement. Her fingers twitched like she was itching for a hit. One of addiction or one of violence, he didn’t know. 

There was a sudden stillness that caught his attention. Huh. Five relaxed his fists, quitting his miserable attempt at escaping in the blink of an eye. He just stood there, so motionless Ben almost thought he wasn’t breathing, as his siblings descended into chaos. He blinked fast all of a sudden, with his eyes and not his powers. 

He looked like a kid. Like the same kid Ben had seen cheering about his math test and playing with his siblings. Ben used to look like that, except not, since he’d been covered head to toe in blood since the day he realized how unignorable it made him. 

He swallowed. When the other dumbasses had been squabbling over the Switchboard so they could save the universe or indulge in their voyeuristic tendencies or whatever, he’d been fighting to see a glimpse at the version of him that made the Umbrellas so eager to want him to improve. What did that other Ben have that he didn’t? 

Despite that, he was so, so selfishly glad that he wasn’t in Five’s shoes. He didn’t think he’d be able to take it, getting so close to what could’ve been and then being yanked back to all he had now. 

Someone swore, and it didn’t take a genius to figure out what happened next.

Rowan was old enough to pass for any university student, powering through the bullshit that was collaborative theses with nothing but a Keurig and a dream. And probably weed, honestly. 

He jogged through a semi-suburban neighborhood, less picturesque than that of a postcard but homey enough that a young adult and his dog could pass by without an odd look. His dog – holy shit, it was fucking ugly. Face that looked like the mutt had run into a glass window, matted fur sticking in every direction, and short enough to easily be tripped over. 

It was adorable, and Five wanted it. 

He wanted a lot of stuff, actually. A quiet afternoon in the coffee shop Rowan had just sped by, spent nursing a mug and discussing the Reimann hypothesis with Delores. To see his siblings goofing around yet still knowing that they were safe from major harm. A second chance at the life he’d let slip through his fingers when he was oh so young. 

Rowan had all of that. All he needed to do was take a quick break in the coffee shop, call up his siblings and ask how they were doing, just keep on not fucking everything up. 

Every step he took beat Five in all the ways that mattered. It was easy for him. He’d won without even really trying. 

“You don’t have my siblings,” he whispered to a man that didn’t know he existed. “You’re ordinary. You haven’t done anything.” 

Right before they came across a crosswalk, the dog paused, lifting up a paw. It looked up at Rowan with big, round eyes, and Rowan sighed. He scooped the dog up into his arms. The dog happily licked at his face as he carried it forward. He had a small grin on, even as a driver in a passing car flipped him off. 

“You’re ordinary,” Five repeated, even though he knew how mad Viktor would get at him for throwing around that word like that. It sounded hollow, even to him, and he’d seen empty skulls shatter underneath his ax like broken eggshells.

He wasn’t jealous. He hadn’t done everything he’d done to be jealous over a one-dimensional, extraneous alternate of himself. He loved his siblings more than the soldier loved the barrel pressed against his temple. He had killed for them, he would kill for them, and that was that. He was happy with the life he’d finally carved out-in-beside for him. 

“I’m not looking for happy,” he’d told the Handler, and she hadn’t believed him. He had believed himself, even as he knew that the words were fake. He was so very good at lying to himself. He’d had almost half a century of practice. 

Delores was as much of a lie as she was the truth. She was everything, from the fears he didn’t dare let himself voice to the comfort he’d burned off of himself in exchange for his rightful place in hell. He loved her as much as he loved himself, though that never felt like enough. 

You’re spiraling, dear, she whispered, but she couldn’t, because she wasn’t here. He’d left her in that department store and she’d gone up in flames with the rest of everything because he’d thought he’d fixed it. 

He considered, sometimes, telling Viktor that he’d killed his wife along with the rest of humanity. He never followed through. He heard the jokes the others made about her, behind his back and to his face alike. They didn’t understand that she wasn’t just malleable plastic in the shape of an angel. She was the very best parts of himself, what little remained anyway. There was a reason why he’d left her in the apocalypse when he’d taken the Handler’s offer and hand. He hadn’t wanted the blood to stain her favorite top. 

The others thought he was heartless, that they’d lucked out by being his choice favorites placed above everything else in the timeline. That wasn’t completely untrue. He’d seen the way Rowan had looked at his siblings. It was the same way he looked at his Team Zero family, as stupid as the nickname was. 

He had to wonder – if he’d been born a MacNamara instead of a Hargreeves, what lengths would he have gone to in order to protect those kids playing Kim Possible and teasing him for being a dork? 

It wasn’t unusual for an adult child soldier to twist their hands within their enemies’ guts and pull out dripping entrails, but what about kids who’d grown up with a mom that gently teased instead of a dad who drugged up his kids for daring to have a personality? Was Five destined to be a killer no matter the circumstances, or had Rowan escaped the fate Five was doomed to be subjected to? 

Five was the fuck-up, no doubt, but how much of that was his fault and how much was Reginald’s? Nurture versus nature. 

“You’ve always been a killer,” she’d said, and oh how she’d believe it. “I just pointed you in a direction.” 

The first time Allison rumored a man to shoot himself with his own rifle, she’d cried in Luther’s arms for a whole day. Then once the sun went down, Dad yanked her away and told her to do it again. Five remembered, clear as day, just how soaked in blood Ben would get by the end of every mission. The tremble to Luther’s hands, the way Diego silently worked his jaw, Klaus’s unnerving giggles at the sight of what should not be seen – they were all killers. 

Five was just the one who’d enjoyed it. He’d felt proud of it, same way he felt proud when he landed a joke or understood a reference everyone else easily did. 

“Five,” someone said, and they rested their hand on his shoulder. It vanished in a heartbeat, along with everything else.

Lila had to admit, she wasn’t totally hating this. Getting to watch someone that looked just like Five make a complete and utter fool of himself? Priceless, and the cherry on top was Five’s own reaction to his idiocy. He looked like he’d seen a ghost, shaky and pale as the next white boy. Maybe Christmas had come early this year! 

When she realized that she was in the apartment again, she popped a squat on the sofa and settled in for a show. 

Rowan was very young. Single digits, a year three at best. He laid flat on his stomach, feet idly kicking in the air, as he filled out a coloring book. Ooh, it had bears on it! Lila loved bears, she’d once skinned one and made quite the hat out of it. He hummed a little tune to himself as he carefully shaded in one of the beast’s stomachs with a pink marker. 

Beside him was the older sibling Lila hadn’t caughten the name of. They were on their back, hands crossed and resting on their chest. They had the same furrowed brow Five had worn right before the ISB had started up again. Hmm, it really was alarming to see the little shit so perfectly mirrored in another form. Maybe his whole family were murderers, that’d surely make sense. It’d explain the blood running down his mum’s arms earlier. 

“Rowan?” said the kid. The name was spoken softly, like the quietness of the atmosphere was deliberate. 

Rowan didn’t look up from his artwork. “Mm?” 

“The kids who punched you – are they in your class?” 

“Mhm.” 

They shut their eyes tightly with a tired sigh. It was another Five expression Lila recognized. That was the one he broadcasted when he was about to do something he clearly didn’t want to do; ally himself with her, trust Reginald, actually consider his siblings’ suggestions. Oddly enough, the arrogance that usually tinted that look when Five wore it wasn’t present. 

“Did they say anything to you?” 

“When they were hitting me?” 

“Yeah. When they were hitting you.” 

“They did.” 

“What did they say?” 

The marker stilled for a moment. “That I’m a know-it-all leprechaun snitch, and I’m not as smart as I think I am.” The coloring started up again. 

Lila frowned. The sentiment was correct for Five, of course, but – that was a kid. Just a few years younger than Stan, hardly older than her when Mum had swooped in. Lila was a lot of things and she would do a lot of things, if it came down to it, but she’d never… 

She remembered the orphanage she’d slaughtered because Mum told her that they’d been drowning devil babies. Babies that could have been special, like her. 

She would have. She had. 

“Oh.” 

“Yeah. Are they right?” 

The kid turned, lying on their side. They faced away from Rowan. Lila shifted so she could catch the pained expression on their face. “No. They’re wrong.” 

“Okay. Thanks, Cael.” 

Cael. Lila’s stomach turned. In 2008, Mum had sent her to Boston and had her put a grey capsule in a margarita glass meant for a Cael celebrating their 21st birthday. Given the kid’s clear few years over Rowan, the math added up. 

Did that make the two of them even? Five had killed her parents, in return, Lila had killed his older sibling. Maybe, probably, definitely. The better question was if the assassination was purely based on revenge or not. The Handler had been a very angry woman, and everyone knew that Five’s real power was his ability to indisputably piss off anyone. 

“Rowan?” Cael said again, and Lila wondered if they’d looked this scared when the toxin had made its way to their heart. 

“Yeah?” 

“I need you to do me a favor.” 

“Okay.” 

They twisted again. This time, they were facing Rowan. Cael reached out a hand to rest on Rowan’s, bringing the coloring to a stop. Rowan tilted his head Cael’s way, and they took a shuddery breath. 

Lila was not supposed to be listening to this conversation. She did anyway. 

“I need you to be a little more quiet in class, okay, buddy?” 

He wrinkled his nose in that unfiltered way kids did everything. “Why?” 

Cael picked up a green marker. They began to draw shapes onto Rowan’s skin; a star, a smiley face, a triangle. If they traced out an umbrella, Lila was going to perform a bloody exorcism. “Think about it like you’re a super spy. You go to school to gather information and use it in ways to help people.” 

“Like a hero?” 

“Like a special hero.” 

“I’m special?” 

“Yeah. So special that if the other heroes find out about you, your cover will be blown.” They added a little crossing x on Rowan’s wrist. “So you need to be careful. No one can know how smart you really are.” 

“I – have to pretend to be dumb?” 

“Not dumb. Just quiet.” Something flitted across their face, like a bug. “If everyone else realized how smart you are, they’ll get mad. They might hurt you again.” 

“Because I’m special?” 

“Because you’re special. Like I said, you’re a super spy. You can go undercover as someone who doesn’t know as much as you do. You’ll be underestimated. No one will have a reason to hurt you. You’ll still be the smartest person in the room, but no one else will know it. Not really.” 

Rowan frowned. “I don’t wanna go undercover. I like being smart.” 

“That’s why it’s a favor. It’s something you don’t really wanna do…” Cael sucked in a breath. They couldn’t have been older than eleven. Lila had stuck a beretta up a rapist’s asshole and fired when she was eleven. “But it’ll make me really happy if you do it.” 

He sighed. Five was never this malleable. He was also a good fifty years older than the kid doodling hearts in the margins of his coloring book. “Okay,” he mumbled, though he didn’t look very happy about it. Little kids never looked happy when they were eating their vegetables, but they did so anyway because it was good for them. 

Lila didn’t know if that was good for Five or not. 

She’d seen firsthand how much shit Five got into because he couldn’t keep his big, fat mouth shut. He was presumptuous as the next motherfucker, and could really benefit from being taken down a peg or two. But – that was a kid. A little kid, all squishy and impressionable. Things stuck to them like gum on soles. 

When she was around Rowan’s age, Mum had told her that she needed to stop her incessant chattering before one of the field agents put a bullet in her skull. 

Lila wanted to be a better mum than Mum had been. She was going to be. She knew she would. 

Staring down at the kid littered with scrapes from being too smart, she wondered how easy it’d be to slip into the same patterns that’d been carved out for her through change and stagnance alike.

She planted her lips onto Diego’s as soon as her eyes met his. It was a chaste kiss, very unlike that of the blockbusters’, but it more than did the trick. He instantly shut up, which was a nice bonus to any of their kisses, and relaxed his grip on the knives at his belt. 

She pulled him closer, whispering into his ear, “Five’s going to absolutely lose his shit.” 

Lila thought of the hours she’d spent craning to catch another glimpse at her mother burying a dozen rounds into her frame. The nauseating anger she’d felt at realizing the one good lesson her mother had taught her was nothing more than smoke escaping a busted briefcase. She hadn’t been able to take it, and that had been at the sight of a single moment rewritten before her very eyes. 

Five was witnessing an entire life he’d been cheated out of. His reaction was bound to be more explosive than Lila’s and that was fucking saying something. An apocalypse, surely. That was how they’d gotten Viktor. That was how the world always ended: when the extraordinary dared to act human. 

Diego blinked at her, dense as the rock-hard abs that had played no small part in tricking her to fall for him. “What?” 

“He’s – ”

Allison nearly choked at the sight of half a dozen knee-high kids running around, screaming and squealing and laughing the way that beautiful parasites always did. Not her Claire, though. Claire had never been a fussy child, even when the tantrums had started to edge on spoiled. A quick word from Allison was always enough to quiet her angel, and only rarely had that word been tinctured with a Rumor. 

Red-haired Rowan was almost as old as she was. He had a plate of raw burgers in each hand, dodging this way and that to avoid the stampede of prepubescence as he headed for a grill. It was manned by a muscular woman with cropped hair, cooing at a chubby baby in another woman’s arms. 

“Cass,” Rowan said, and nodded to the plates. She was quick to take the load off of him and transfer the meat to the grill. It sizzled over the flame, and Allison wondered how it was that she could smell the meal but pass through everything she attempted to make contact with. “Thanks. Did Cael tell you – ”

“To prep their hippy dippy chickpea patty? Don’t worry, I’m on it.” She smiled sharply. At this point, Allison didn’t even flinch at the Five-ish gesture. “And I’ll only burn one side of it, ‘cause I’m such a great sister.” 

Her accent was lighter than Rowan’s, who admittedly barely had one to begin with. Kids who learned another language at a young age were more likely to speak like natives, after a while. When had they made the switch? 

“Uncle Rowan!” a kid shrieked as they ran by. At that, Allison did actually wince. She reached up to massage her temples as the walking headache looped circles around Rowan’s legs. “My dad says that you can do four flips in a row on the trampoline!” 

“That I can,” Rowan said with a smirk. 

“Show us! Show us, show us, please.” 

He shook his head, chuckling as he did so, but the brat was damn insistent. Soon enough, all the other ankle-biters in the area had crowded around Rowan. They demanded to see the flip. To his credit, Rowan held out for a good while. That was impressive; kids were relentless once they latched onto something they thought that they really wanted. 

Eventually, though, a fellow adult slung his arm around Rowan’s shoulders and led him to the trampoline, beaming all the way. He shoved Rowan toward the ladder. Rowan sighed and began the climb, shooting a very discreet middle finger at the other man. 

The trick was – well, boring. It was just as the kid had said; four flips on a trampoline. Wow. So cool. 

Allison had blown out people’s brains with nothing but her voice and some well-enacted creativity. When the mood fancied him, Klaus could bring forth the souls of the damned and innocent alike. Viktor was a particularly special bitch who could condense sound into a life-ending, world-ending, family-ending shower of sparks. It took quite a lot to intrigue her, and some twirling on bending rubber wasn’t going to do that for her. 

The kids disagreed. They screamed their damn heads off at the sight, hooting and hollering like they had seats to a fucking circus. 

The untainted, childish awe made her think of Claire. The wonder in her eyes whenever Allison had told her tales of Spaceboy and the Umbrella Academy was unlike anything else in the world. It made her equal parts happy and disgusted, but then again, so did most things these days. 

“You don’t belong at a barbeque,” Allison grit out before it all went away.

This was what she had wanted. Unadulterated chaos reigning supreme as everyone scrambled for a way out. Time was running out, sand slipping through the hourglass before their very eyes, and there was nothing to do about it. It was times like these when a hastily crafted plan came together that she was supposed to be happy. 

She wasn’t. Happy. She wasn’t happy at all. 

If anything, she felt kind of nauseous. 

As everyone scrambled around like newly decapitated chickens, she took quick, shallow breaths. She licked her lips, testing the weight of a Rumor on her tongue. 

I heard a Rumor that the Infinite Switchboard shut down. 

I heard a Rumor that Herb is at the other side of the door in need of help. 

I heard a Rumor that I was at my daughter’s side and everything was going to be okay. 

In the end, she said none of this. She just pictured the worlds where she had, and wondered if anyone in those timelines were peering down at her. How beautiful was a trainwreck from the aerial view? 

At the other end of the room, Five was up to about as much as she was: jack shit. He was just standing there like a sack of nothing, blinking over and over again in the non-supernatural way. Huh, so he wasn’t bounding from one wall to the other, frothing at the mouth because they didn’t have fucking time for this? Way to be consistent, Old Man. 

Five slapped a hand over his mouth and doubled over like he was about to be sick. 

The part of Allison that responded to a kid in need like a moth to a flame took a half-step forward, but that was all she got to before – 

Well. It was obvious what happened after the before. It was what always happened, every time, no matter the apocalypse that’d deigned to plague them: time caught up.

It was quite interesting to be the ghost for once. 

Klaus had spent a lot of time amongst the intangible and intolerable, but being the spooky spoof for once wasn’t all that bad. It wasn’t something he was looking forward to when he inevitably kicked the bucket, but hey. It wasn’t not like smoking shrooms at a public park! So Klaus would take what he could get. 

He drifted through the apartment, hands fluttering at his sides. It was dark out, with only a dim light reliant on illuminating the kitchen Cael and Rowan sat at. Ooh, aesthetic. He approved, just as he’d approved when little Number Three had sidled up to him and asked where a good date spot would be. 

He took a seat next to Rowan, who was pouring over a stack of scribbled papers like his life depended on it. Aww, maybe he’d graduated from Pre-Calc to Calc! What a dreamer, that kid. 

“Des needs a new backpack,” Rowan said quietly. It was clearly late out. Perfect for night owls. Klaus had always been a night owl over an only bird, though he had gobbled up his fair share of worms over the years. Yum, yum, yum! “We spilled milk in it when we got groceries for Mam’s birthday last month.” 

Cael swore under their breath. They yanked the papers away from Rowan and crossed something out. “Okay. Okay, if we take in the plastic bottles to the recycling plant, we should be able to make that.” 

Rowan shifted in his seat. In that moment, he reminded Klaus so much of baby Ben that it made his chest hurt a little bit. Ben had been so unsure in those first few days of new-fangled haunting. He’d agreed to just about anything Klaus suggested. Of course, that was before Klaus demonstrated how close he was willing to skirt the lines before being pulled back by the jaws of life themselves. 

“I – wanted to join the school band,” he said, and Klaus smiled softly. Fucking nerd. 

Cael didn’t even look up from their writing. “Can’t. Instruments are expensive.” 

“I know, but they have this program where you rent one instead, and it’s way cheaper, and I was thinking about using my birthday money for that. Plus, if I’m well-rounded like that I have a better chance at getting scholarships.” 

Klaus sighed. He understood what was happening. 

It’d been tough, going from a rich, almost pampered child to the grimy guy on the streets. Don’t get him wrong, it wasn’t like his youth was filled with sunshines and rainbows, but he’d never had to wonder where his next meal was coming from or if the power would stay on another week. He’d left that security behind when he’d set out on his own. There were days when his newfound freedom was almost as intoxicating as the drugs, and then there were days when he just wanted the pain in his stomach to quit. 

Once, he’d gotten higher than the fucking moon and had donated all of his savings to a homeless youth organization by the library. He’d had to use the five-fingered discount at the dollar store for a while to earn it all back, but it’d felt good to – well, help kids be a little less like him. 

“Can’t,” Cael said again, short and clipped. 

Rowan set down his pen. It hit the wood of the table much louder than it should have been. “Why not? We can get the money for it?” 

“If you have time for a band, you have time to get a job. Don’t spend money we don’t have yet.” 

“It’s not just a band!” 

They shushed him, a glare as silencing as the sound. “Be quiet. You know that Mam just pulled a double.” 

“No, I won’t. You’re not even listening to me!” 

“I mean it, Rowan. Shut up.” 

His eyes flashed. “I will when you give me a reason that isn’t straight bullshit.” 

Klaus was harshly reminded of a time when he’d sat at the dinner table and rolled his eyes as Five argued with Dad over things he was too young to know. The conversation had ended with the beginning of their family’s disintegration. It was just like Viktor had written in his book; Five’s disappearance had etched a foreboding chip into the facade that was the Umbrella Academy, and Ben’s death had taken a sledgehammer to what was left. 

Five made bad decisions. Klaus really, really hoped that Rowan didn’t do the same. History was cruel for repeating like this so often. 

With a huff that was so familiar it hurt, Cael pushed away the papers. When they spoke, their voice was sharp and cutting. “Last chance, idiot. Drop it and go back to being a kid.” 

“I haven’t been a kid since we got evicted from our last apartment.” 

Something crumpled. They deflated. All that elder bravado they’d been displaying vanished between one heartbeat and the next, just as Five had. They swallowed, fingers pressed over their lips like something was just about to burst out. 

“Eoghan did a DNA test. He’s not your dad.” 

Huh. Whatever Klaus had been expecting, that wasn’t it. Who the fuck was that? 

By the looks of it, Rowan shared his sentiments. He blinked, something confusing passing over his face. “I – What?” 

“He checked your bloodwork or some shit, I don’t know.” Their hands got to straightening the papers. The action wasn’t necessary, or maybe it was. Klaus would never be Cael, so he would never really know. “It didn’t match. He’s not your dad, so – You know.” 

“I don’t.” 

“He doesn’t have to pay child support.” 

He sat back against his chair. Klaus shifted closer, even though no one but him could tell. He wondered what the others were doing, stuck between frames as scenes played before them that they never should have known existed. What about Five? At some point, this had shifted from embarrassing to uncomfortable. He was more than a little worried that his favorite older brother wasn’t going to handle this greatly. 

“So you’re not – ” 

Cael cut him off. “The two of us are half-siblings. Like we’ve always been to Cassidy and Desmond.” 

“Why?” 

They sighed. “Because guys have never liked to settle down with Mam for more than one night. Because women with bastards aren’t appealing. Because that’s how biology works, Rowan. Don’t be stupid.” 

He flinched, such a small motion that Klaus almost didn’t catch it. Such a small motion for such a small guy. It was fitting, almost. He felt sick. “I’m not stupid,” he mumbled. 

“I…” they trailed off. The papers in front of them were stacked neatly, and Klaus was a monster for ever finding this struggle amusing, and Rowan was rubbing his eyes like he was trying to hold back the tears clearly brewing. “I was serious about the job thing. Eoghan’s checks are going to stop coming in at the end of the month. We need the money, if you can handle it.” 

“Who’s my dad?” 

“Rowan.” 

“Cael, please.” 

Klaus knew that there was no answer. In all the digging he’d done into finding Mama Rachel, he’d tried and tried to see if there was anyone else in the picture. The search had come up empty. A pair of XX chromosomes were all any of them had to show for a background. Five-slash-Rowan was no exception. 

“I don’t know.” 

Klaus risked a peek at Rowan. He had one hand to his throat and the other to his mouth, both pressed tightly against his own skin. He rocked back and forth in his seat, just a bit. It scared Klaus how scared the kid looked, because that was Five. Five with his not so nice words and his prickly exterior and that terrifying insistence that he would burn down the world to keep his family warm. Five wasn’t sad like that. 

Cael slid next to Rowan. They hooked an arm around him and pulled him close, and Klaus managed to pick up on the inarguable sound of someone crying before he could hear nothing else.

Five wasn’t supposed to be aborted gasps and a trembling frame, panic as clear as the moon that Viktor shot down in the final act that led to his decades-long suffering. Klaus knew that, and so did the others. Five was gritted teeth, fists balled and trembling and useful in ways that they never could be, because it hurt too much to really utilize the training Dad had forced down their throats. 

Five was supposed to be precise rage, and yet he stood as pale as that same goddamn moon before all of them. 

In a sharp contrast to the fuckery they’d gleefully engaged in before, Klaus and his siblings and his not-quite-but-sort-of-siblings were still. Quiet, even, as if they’d picked up on something from Cael and Rowan’s midnight discussion. Klaus watched Five and Allison watched Five and so did Viktor and Diego and even Lila and Luther and Ben, but Five didn’t watch back. He just blinked dully at the ground, fingers idly twitching at his sides. 

Klaus wanted someone to say something. He didn’t want that someone to be him. 

It was Viktor who broke the silence, because of course it was. It was Viktor. He’d cried when they’d stepped on ants and cried when Five had never popped back up for dessert and cried now, tears trailing down his cheeks. “I’m sorry,” he said, but that was it. 

That was all it could be, before nothing was anymore.

The air felt tight against Luther’s chest in a way it hadn’t been for a very long time. He was in a plane, but he knew deep in his bones that atmospheric pressure wasn’t to blame for the unease strapped to his skin. The plane wasn’t even in the air yet, driving forward on the runway in clear preparation for what was to come. 

An itty bitty Rowan sat down in one seat, chattering to a slightly older Cael in a language Luther didn’t know. He couldn’t have been more than six, tops, yet his mouth opened and closed so fast that he could have won a world record. The siblings peered at a book set between the two of them, with words in English and another language stamped onto the cover. 

“Mam!” Rowan shouted. The noise was far too loud for the plane. A handful of adults glared at him, one even pointedly tugging on a pair of headphones. Beside Rowan, a very pregnant woman nodded, hand propping up her chin as she fought off sleep. “We – are going to Boston. Today!” 

The words were stilted, just as Luther’s were when he tried to respond to Diego’s lightning fast Spanish with a few curses of his own. Still, Luther knew that before long, the kid was going to be fluent. He was Five, of course he would be. 

His mom mumbled something back that Luther didn’t understand, and Rowan squealed, kicking his feet back and forth like a kid on their way to Disneyland. 

Luther had never been on a plane. Dad said that they were sky tombs and that Luther could get anywhere on a boat or a train. He was actually looking forward to the flight, but of course it didn’t last much longer.

“Five, take deep breaths,” Viktor was saying. Luther instinctively took a step toward him, arms wide in the best shield he could muster with what he had. Across the room, Allison’s eyes flashed. Oh right, she used to be his first priority. Well, then maybe she shouldn’t have fucking assaulted him. “I know that a lot is happening right now, but trust me, staying calm is the best option.” 

Five didn’t say a word. His only reaction was a slight tick to his jaw. If his superpowers had been laser eyes, he easily would have burned a hole into the ground by now. Even without the optical addition, it looked like he was attempting the feat anyway. 

Luther had spent most of his life bottling up his emotions. The crazy, heart-pounding feelings he’d once upon a time held for Allison, the fear and disgust towards his father he’d tried to mistake for love. It was all the same: wrong, wrong, wrong. More time than not had been dedicated to not truly being hit by the full scope of his own heart. 

Five looked like the embodiment of all that smothering. 

He looked like a bomb seconds away from going off. Had Viktor looked like that too, or had he just blown up without another word?

Rowan sat in a coffee shop Ben wanted to visit so bad it hurt. He was in a chair that looked like a fucking dream. Ben made a grab he knew wouldn’t work for the drink he sipped. He shouted like a maniac at the muffin he picked at, and cursed when he noticed another young adult sitting next to Rowan. 

The other adult sobbed, and Rowan set a hand on their shoulder. He said something soft and human and real in ways Ben had never, ever been. The other person nodded, and something heavy on their shoulders disappeared. 

Ben’s childhood had been plastic in the face of fire. Why was Rowan allowed to have the cozy, welcoming, trivial, juvenile, fulfilling life Ben had wanted ever since he was told that he couldn’t have it? Ben was better, he always was. Better than Marcus, better than Fei, better than even Sloane because finding a family wasn’t that fucking special. 

Ben remembered crying and crying, hands clasped over his stomach as something inside him writhed like a hellborn fury. He had bled so much, he’d thought that he’d turn empty soon. What was the point of his quest to be Number One if he was the only one left? It had to mean something. It held weight, he swore it did. 

Rowan hadn’t done shit. He’d whined about his daddy and laughed with his siblings and he was comforting someone who looked like life had very thoroughly fucked over, but – 

Ben had done more. Ben deserved that happily ever after where people applauded him for being so useful. 

He opened his mouth to say something cryptic and powerful, maybe even cruel, but nothing came out.

“It’s getting faster,” Lila said. She had her fingers wrapped around Diego’s shirt collar, which was fucking disgusting. Get a room. “Shit.” 

“Five!” Viktor was saying, much louder than he’d been before. It never failed to surprise Ben how goddamn loud that tiny man could get. “It’s okay, we’re all okay.” 

“I know that,” Five grit out. He looked like hell, sweaty and pasty, knees knocking together. Ben remembered – 

It didn’t matter what Ben remembered. This wasn’t his story. 

That was the worst thing about this all: being an amendment. Being that footnote intertwined with an asterisk. He knew with burningly vivid clarity that he wasn’t who this was all about. The Sparrows were just the latest great thing to happen to the Umbrellas, and Ben wasn’t better than them. 

He’d never admitted it, but Ben knew that being the best Sparrow meant jack shit. Standing tallest at the bottom of the barrel was pathetic. Pathetic, pathetic, pathetic. 

He used to cry at the vastness of it all. In his gut was a portal to an entirely other world, filled with spikes and tendrils and teeth. The Horror most frequently liked to pay him a visit, but he’d never been really able to rest easy knowing what else existed out there. How was he supposed to pretend that anything he did mattered even a little bit when he was just a blip on one world out of a galaxy out of a universe? 

If he could, Ben might just tear it all down. But that’d force him to be important, and Dad had taught him at a very young age that he just wasn’t. 

Marcus used to whisper to him that Ben was the best Number One the world had ever seen. Then Ben had tumbled down down down, and no matter how much he clawed his way back up, everyone knew what he really was. 

He hated being ignored, but somehow, being seen was so much worse. 

“Calm your shit, dickhead!” he yelled at Five, and immediately someone swatted his arm. He didn’t care. Five’s eyes flickered toward him, and Ben saw something horrifingly familiar, and –

Less than a minute passed before they were all yanked back, but in that minute, Viktor learned something very important and very surprising: Rowan had friends. 

Colorful friends, to say the least. Each with dyed hair or shiny piercings or vibrant flags hanging from their shoulders, they laughed and shouted together, one proud mass that he wished he’d had when he’d been young. 

They moved as one huge body around the plaza, sweeping from one booth to another at near lightning speed. He barely caught sight of Rowan’s brown head of hair before he vanished behind another college-aged kid. Fuck, they looked so small. Half of them even had backpacks slung underneath their flags. 

Five – Rowan burst out from the huddle to pick up a pin from a ginormous stack. The plum shirt he wore was absolutely covered with glitter, as were his gray tube socks and his black shoes. The white long-sleeve undershirt wasn’t spared from its friends’ fate either, but he supposed that the chaotic beauty was the point of all of this. 

The pin in Rowan’s hand read he/they , and Viktor blinked. Oh. He was like him too. He – They – Was Five…? 

He thought about walking up to little Number Seven with his short legs and long hair, and telling him about every little big thing that would add up to being Viktor. It sounded awful. He didn’t want that. He wanted his younger self to peel back the layers of who he was bit by bit, like he had. There’d been a quiet satisfaction in placing the last piece down and taking a step back, proud. 

He wished that Five hadn’t seen this. He deserved to take the time he needed to come to this conclusion, or not to at all.

He was already pushing out useless platitudes when he came back. Anything to stop Five from igniting an explosion he was all-too familiar with, he would say. He had his hands up placatingly, Luther standing before him, as Five stood and blinked and didn’t breathe a word. 

He’d felt so much when the house had come down. It’d been like eating a full meal after starving for so long. His vision had whited out along with his tux, and when he’d opened his eyes again – 

There’d been Sissy. Beautiful, sweet, dangerous Sissy. Sissy, whose son he’d doomed to a drawn-out fate worse than death. 

The aftermath of a thwarted apocalypse wasn’t much better than that of a fulfilled one. He never wanted it to come to that ever again. 

“Five, we love you, and we’re going to fix this. You just need to – ” 

“Shut up.” 

He blinked. “What?” 

“Shut up,” Five said again. His voice wasn’t all that loud, or clipped, or fragile. It was a little hoarse, if anything, but otherwise the same. He looked tired, halfheartedly glaring at him like it was a habit that had gotten very old by now. “Viktor, I’m fine.” 

“It’s okay not to be fine – ” 

“But I am.” Five rubbed at his eyes, and for once, the motion was more Rowan than Five. Had he learned that from his other self, or had the tendency always been there? “Nothing happened. My family is safe. Anything else is a misfortune that doesn’t concern me.” 

“Cut the bullshit,” Diego huffed. “You don’t gotta pretend to be better than your childish emotions, or whatever. It’s us. We understand.” 

“There’s nothing to understand.” His voice got a little rougher, a little snappier. “I’m not hurt, and neither are you all, so there’s nothing to be upset about.” 

“You watched yourself grow up, man. That’s kind of fucked.” 

“And I watched myself die too, but I’m still here.” 

“Five.” 

He sighed, and Viktor just didn’t have the words to describe it. It was Five, and it was a sigh, and that was all it was because that was all the old man wanted it to be. “I don’t understand why you’re all so eager for me to be in pain.” 

Lila cut in, “We’re not eager, you vainglorious venison!” 

“Typical Five,” Allison muttered. “Too good to be human." 

“I am human!” Five yelled, but it was sharp, and it was desperate, and it made Viktor flinch like Five had broken something. He watched as Five visibly reigned himself in. “I’m human."

“Doesn’t look like it from here."

“Allison, watch it,” Luther growled."

“This isn’t about your apish dick,” said Ben, rolling his eyes. “Fuck off, Harambe."

Klaus said, far too loudly, “I’ve seen Harambe’s dick."

“Watch it, uh – Doc Ock!" 

Diego offered him a high-five. “Nice one.” 

“Thanks.” 

“This is so dumb.” Allison pinched the bridge of her nose. 

Lila nodded in agreement. “Destroy the multiverse or not, I don’t care, but can you please get on with it!” 

“No!” Viktor yelped. Holy fucking shit, what amazing diplomacy from the ex-super heroes. “Please don’t destroy the multiverse!” 

Five crossed his arms. Somehow, he simultaneously looked both older and younger. “I’m not going to,” he said. “I’m not upset.” 

“Yes, you are!” screamed just about everyone, even Viktor, because if it’d been him in Five shoes, he would have ended everything. He hadn’t been, and he still had. 

He shook his head. The motion was oddly calm for such a wired little bastard. Said with love, of course.  “When I was fifteen, I sewed up a meter-long gash in my shoulder without anesthetic. When I was twenty-nine, I didn’t eat for twelve days because I got snowed in at my bunker and my rations ran out. I’ve stopped the apocalypse three times – ” 

“With varying success,” Lila muttered. 

“ – in a month.” Five curled his fists so tightly that Viktor was certain his fingers would burst through his own tendons. “Bad things have happened to me, but this isn’t it. I’m okay. Nothing is wrong, so I shouldn’t be upset.” 

“Shouldn’t?” 

“Not. I’m not. Upset.” 

“Bad things can happen without leaving a mark,” Klaus said. He looked small, shoulders hunched so that he didn’t tower most of them, save Luther, as usual. He reminded Viktor of Cael, almost. “Trust me, bud. You don’t need a reason to hurt.” 

“It’s not logical.” 

“Neither are your jumps!” Klaus threw his hands into the air. “Or Allison’s Rumors, or the pseudo-incest our family has tangoed toe-to-toe tête-à-tête with! Things don’t need to make sense to be important, hermano.” 

Five opened and closed his mouth, over and over. Viktor wished he could see what was going on inside his head. Just a peek, so he would know what words he could say to make it that much better. He didn’t think such words existed. They hadn’t when he’d lost it. The only sound that’d made a difference was the gunshot fired too close to his head to be coincidental. 

Viktor heard that sound, and that of a strangled bird and that of a siren and that of so much more, and then he heard nothing.

Rowan was the youngest any of them had ever seen him. No one remembered Five ever looking this small. Not even Five. 

His hands shook as the kid with the life he didn’t want stuck his hands into the air. He was four, probably, and the universe trembled as tendrils of blue came into existence in the area surrounding his fingertips. 

He’d forgotten about this moment. It seemed so clear now; space and time itself shuddering at his touch, asking with shaky voices if he really wanted to know. He’d been a child, more so than he’d ever really been after that, and he’d plunged into the abyss headfirst. He’d never regretted that, even when his actions lead him to a smokey world at the end of everything. 

Rowan’s hands twirled in the air, stained cerulean, and Five heard space and time softly question if he wanted this. His first jump. Rowan reached that much higher, straining his fingers that much father, and – 

Cael burst into the room, talking and talking and talking like any other little kid did. They held up a – a fucking Game Boy, and Rowan dropped his hands. Encounter forgotten, he squealed as Cael launched themselves beside him and started tapping along to the game. 

“He’s never going to jump,” Five said to absolutely no one. “He has nothing to run away from.” 

He wasn’t happy. He wasn’t sad either. He was in this limbo of nothingness. He’d spent quite some time there in the past. It felt like home, more so than his siblings’ hugs ever did.

When he arrived back at the ISB, he began to pull back time before any of the idiots got another word in. He did so slowly, so that the stream that was chronological order inched by at an almost microscopic rate. It wasn’t exactly stopping time, but it was close enough. 

Though every step felt like his legs were weighed down with concrete bricks, he carefully marched toward the main control center. Despite time’s syrupy slow movement, the machine still hummed with an energy that felt more familiar to him than anything else in the world. He ran a hand along its side, something similar to static energy shocking his digits. 

Without much fanfare, he bent down to the space where the ISB met the wall, and unplugged the damn thing. 

The lights on the buttons immediately began to dim down. The energy seeped away until his hands were cold and empty. Every screen turned black, images of Rowan’s bright hair or confused face disappearing. This was the end. This was it. 

It didn’t feel like it. Not like the end, not like the beginning, not like the middle. It was distinctly separate from all that had passed in the past and all that was to come. So was he, he supposed. He’d been too young in the future and too old in the past. His arms ached from being pulled every which way. 

He relaxed his grip, and time began to run smoothly again. It felt like the satin scarves he used to choke the wealthy with were running through his fingertips. Breath filled his lungs once more, and that was about it. 

“Fixed it,” he announced, and stumbled to the side. Back to the wall, he slipped down until his ass was to the ground. He leaned so that the back of his head was resting against the plasticy surface. “As usual.” 

Diego blinked like a particularly dumb ass. “It’s over?” He glanced to his side, and just managed to watch in horror as Lila vaulted over poor Viktor and clambered onto the side of the ISB, taking a look from far too high off of the ground. 

“Mhm. You’re welcome.” 

“Are you – ” 

“I’m okay,” he said, and walked out of the room with legs that only tremored a bit. It was a bit more dramatic than he usually liked, but the Commission were the most dramatic bastards known to the time-space continuum, so when in Rome.

First chance he had, he crammed himself into a closet that smelled like bleach and ginger ale. He’d tried one that was odorless, but as soon as he’d stepped on a condom wrapper he’d immediately left. There was only so much bullshit he could handle in one day, and the Commission’s collectively expeditious sex drive was just about to tip him over the edge. 

The edge, as he kept insistenting, was not the apocalypse. He’d sooner kill himself than start that ignatious hell. It was just – annoyance. Brittle annoyance, shatterable as glass. He was fine. 

He’d broken more bones than he could ever count, both his own and others’. He’d bled and bled and bled, until it seemed like nothing could truly lose that red tint. So much had been ripped away from him, and he’d given what he had left. He’d had a tough life, and he knew that well. The scars littering his true body, lost to time, were innumerable. 

So a bit of squishy feelings in his chest didn’t hurt. Not compared to everything else he’d pushed through to get this far. There was no reason to feel like this. 

Upset was biting down on the inside of his cheek as he ripped his mangled foot out of the avalanche that his library shelter had collapsed into. Upset was choking down a bottle of scotch at the ripe age of fourteen because there wasn’t anything else that could wet his throat. Upset was slipped a knife between a woman’s ribs, and then going back at her with the shotgun because they told him that he hadn’t done it right. 

Five wasn’t upset. 

When the door swung open, slower than molasses in the snow, he didn’t even look up. He just scoffed at Viktor, or Luther, or maybe even Diego. Those hopelessly hopeful brats would be the death of him. They’d always believed that there was such good in the world. How couldn’t they when such ideals had been portrayed in every aspect of their lives? It was always about the Umbrella Academy, wasn’t it? 

Cigarette ash landed on his head, so fucking close to the smoke that’d blanketed the entire world for far too long, and he realized that he’d been wrong. It wasn’t Viktor, or Luther, or maybe even Diego here to ramble about the meaningless meaning to it all. 

A boot toed his side, and he dutifully scooted over to make room for Allison. She crouched beside him, taking a long drag out of a short little bit. “You’ve got a lot of fucking nerve,” she muttered. 

She offered the cigarette to him, but he waved her off. He considered asking her to snuff it out, but thought better. Maybe it was inevitable to die suffocating in the Commission, of all fates. “And why’s that?” 

“It didn’t happen. That’s your whole coping mechanism, right? It didn’t happen, so it couldn’t have upset you?” 

“If it didn’t leave a scar, then it didn’t really hurt,” he agreed. 

She took another drag, then blew out slowly. He wrinkled his nose at the smell. “Claire was gone. The fact that she was gone hurt like hell, Five, and don’t you dare say otherwise.” 

His eyes widened, just a tad. He – hadn’t thought about it like that. 

He looked back on the crackling rage had exuded in the few days in between one doomsday and the next. She’d been terrifying, crossing lines that he hadn’t known existed. He’d been so sure that she was finally going off that deep end they’d all skirted close to one time or another. It’d seemed like the final nail in the coffin when he’d finally put two and two together – Reginald and the deal – and gotten Three. 

Five genuinely feared the day that Allison got like that again. For all he griped about the timeline and the universe, he hoped like hell that his niece made it to the other side, if only to protect the world from Allison’s inevitable ire. 

“You’re not better than me because you didn’t mourn,” she gritted out. “Fucking mourn, Five. It happened, until it didn’t, and it sucks. Accept it. Move on from it, like you all told me to move on.” 

“Allison…” 

“Don’t pretend like you didn’t.” She pinched the end of her cigarette between two almond-curved nails. “You know, out of everyone, I’d thought you would understand. You spent, what? Forty years trying to change the past so you didn’t have to lose us again?” 

“Forty-five.” 

“Forty five.” Her lip curled, and she crushed the papery remains into mush in her hand. “You didn’t give me a week before you said it was time to give up.” 

“I’m sorry.” 

“No, you’re not. You would’ve done the same thing if you could do it again. That’s your thing, isn’t it? You’re always right and you always get your way. You fucking child.” She got to her feet. She was so tall. She’d always been taller than him, from the very first memory he had of her. “Here’s what you’re going to do. Are you listening?” Her eyes were slits, angry and narrowed. 

He didn’t say a word. That was okay, because that was what she wanted from him. It was what everyone wanted from him: for him to shut his mouth and do what they told him to do. Dad had spent every waking second trying to hammer that lesson home, and it’d never stuck. One glare from his sister, and he was tripping over himself trying not to be the monster she knew him to be. 

“You can feel upset, but you are not allowed to feel sorry for yourself. Do you understand?” She kept talking before he gave any action of affirmation. “I’m going to leave. When I do, you are going to sit in the dark for ten minutes and cry. Cry about how jealous you are of Rowan, or cry about how badly you want to be him, or cry about how much of a bitch I am. I don’t care. Just do it.” 

She opened the door. One foot across the threshold, she turned back. “When your time’s up, I’ll knock on the door. You’ll get up, get out, and get to work. You are going to save my daughter, Five. You are going to find a way that keeps Claire safe, so that I don’t have to mourn her. Get it? I don’t want to be anything like you, and you’re going to make sure I never am.” 

If Viktor, or Luther, or maybe even Diego had come in, they would’ve given him a pep talk that didn’t really work. It would’ve been too hesitant or too prideful or too broad. He would’ve ignored most of it, but he would’ve also focused on the feeling of their skin pressed to his, stuck in this fucking tiny closet he’d chosen for a reason. At the end of it all, he would’ve peeled himself off of the wall and crawled his way back to wherever the hell he’d been before. 

Allison left the room, never having so much as brushed against him, and he felt so much worse.

Hand cupped over her mouth, Allison forced her legs to carry her to an empty conference room before she fell to her knees and sobbed. Fucking hell. She was in too deep. She’d gone too far this time, she knew that she had. This didn’t feel right anymore, not when she’d cut Five so harshly. 

She’d never meant to lose her brother in her battle for her daughter. 

Allison sat in that conference room and cried and knew that in the closet, Five was doing the exact same thing. And she felt like a monster.

The first tear took a few minutes to muster. It felt almost like a chore. Allison needed him to cry, so cry he would, because everything he did was for his siblings. That felt like a chore too. He loved his siblings more than anything else in the world, but everything they did made his chest feel like it’d been impaled with Diego’s knives. 

Because, at the end of the day, he knew with perfect, vivid clarity that they didn’t love him back. 

Viktor felt a sort of pity for him, never really looking past his naked jaw and bony elbows for the man he truly was. Any affection mustered from him was forced, and bound to run out sooner or later. Same with Luther. He’d seen firsthand how willing the big guy was to off him if it meant a happy ending for the people he actually cared about. Dallas was a shithole, and Luther was king of the damn mountain. 

Lila and Ben hated him, plain and simple. He’d hurt them, they’d hurt him back, and on and on the carousel spun. No matter how many dull barbs they passed back and forth, that was it. He was the subject of their hatred, and he would be until the day he finally died. 

Allison had made her stance on him crystal clear. 

Diego, with his stupid speeches and dumbass heart, didn’t consider him part of the family. He’d given his grand pitch to Lila in that barn, and he’d smiled. He’d looked at every member of his ragtag, cross-stitched family – except for Five. Five was the exception. Always was, always would be. 

Klaus might love him. But that was only when Five could be good to him, and he couldn’t promise that. Five only knew fisted love, accentuated with vows that it was what was best. Klaus wouldn’t love that when he realized what Five really was. 

Rowan had all that love and more. Maybe Five could have earned it as he did. Maybe all he’d needed to do was turn down the offer of the stars and live an ordinary life. Or maybe Five was intrinsically broken, and love had never been in the cards for him. 

Once the first tear slid down his cheek, the rest were quick to follow. The sob that burst out of his chest echoed in that small cavity, too loud for something that really didn’t matter. He rubbed at his eyes as tears popped out quicker than he could staunch them. Huddled in the closet as he cried for the first time since he was a boy, he had the vague thought that Dad would kill him for this. 

Dad was dead, he remembered, and he cried harder because his dad was a bastard who loved him about as much as his siblings did. 

Shuddering sobs racked his body. They got louder and louder, until he was shouting with rawness he hadn’t known that he possessed. He bit down on his lip, and immediately blood rushed out of the wound. He stumbled to his knees and spat out a huge glob. It was disgusting. He was disgusting. 

His hands found their way to his head. His fingers curled themselves into his hair, and he yanked and twisted as he bowed over. He sounded like a dying man. Maybe he was a dying man. They were all dying, after all. Some just became more accurate sooner. 

When the door opened, he tried to swallow his scream. It didn’t work, it just made him sob that much harder. But it possibly, maybe, might’ve been okay, because it wasn’t Allison standing in the hallway, one hand on the doorknob. 

It was Viktor, and he looked as pale as he had the day the world had ended. “Five…” 

Five had nothing to say. He just looked at Viktor, and Viktor looked back. This was what he was. This was the Commission’s best assassin: a boy with tear tracks running down his face. 

Viktor eased his way onto his knees. He reached out a careful hand and took Five’s own. Five didn’t protest. He watched with glazed eyes as Viktor pulled him forward, inch by inch, until – 

Until he was wrapped up in a hug that he’d spent years fantasizing. 

Any hug, really. He hadn’t been picky, couldn’t afford to be picky when he had so little. A kid in the apocalypse, he’d just wished and wished that someone real could just be there. He hadn’t gotten his wish. Dolores had been the next best thing. She’d been the only good thing he’d ever had. 

“I’m here,” Viktor whispered. “You’re okay. You’re going to be okay. I promise.” 

Viktor was here. Five was okay. Five was going to be okay. Viktor promised. 

He believed him. That was the worst part, the fact that he believed him. 

It hurt a bit, that hug. It made him shake even more, because how weak had he gotten if a hug was the final answer? He used to gun down murderers as dangerous as himself and walk away unscathed, yet here he was: sobbing into his little big brother’s shoulder, knowing that actually, everything was a bit better now. 

Because Viktor was there. And if Viktor was there, willing to let snot drip into his shirt in disgusting strands, then that meant he cared, if only a bit. He cared, and care was close enough to love that Five didn’t bother to look deeper. Viktor was here, and Viktor would always be here. He was consistent like that.  

In another universe, set around one thousand sixty-seven miles to the north and sixteen years in the past, Rowan MacNamara stood outside of a music shop. He peered through the window, eyeing the piano, then the flute, and finally the bass. It all looked fucking magnificent, and he couldn’t have any of it. 

The feeling wasn’t a new one, but it wasn’t one that got any easier as time went on. 

He sighed. The shop didn’t look like it was hiring, so he should probably get going before they yelled at him for loitering. He took one last look at the violin before he turned away, and promptly bumped into a distractingly skinny boy. 

“Sorry!” he said to the boy. Neither of them had been holding anything, so no harm no foul, but Mam hadn’t raised him to be a rude bastard. “You’re alright there?” 

He chuckled. “Yes. I am.” His voice was heavy with a not unfamiliar accent. It was Russian, maybe? Or somewhere around there. Definitely not American, which was always a treat to encounter when Rowan regularly got teased for being a leprechaun. Which, by the way, was a stupid joke that seriously needed to be dropped. The boy nodded to the store window. “Do you play?” 

He winced. Bit of a sore subject, that was. “No. I don’t. But I’d sure like to.” Those instruments were so pretty. It never ceased to amaze him how the notes could soar through the air, completely untarnished by the weight of the world. It was beautiful. “Do you?” 

Distantly, Rowan had the feeling that something was linking together. Two pieces that’d long since been cleaved, maybe. Wires twisting around another as gunpowder was packed into a bomb. This was a moment of such importance that his chest heaved, and he felt just a bit sick. 

The boy grinned. He blinked, and a layer of white film slid over his eyes. “I play everything.”