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Chapter Text

When Number Five was four-years-old (and two months), he stood in the kitchen with his brothers, Four and Six.

(They knew their numbers now, they could count up to twenty which was very high, and everyone knew that four-five-six went in sequence, that meant they should be closest, right? He was bracketed by Four and Six, and that meant they were automatically much cooler than the others.)

Five showed off his prizes to appreciative oohs and aahs - the crayons he’d managed to liberate from unsuspecting Nanny Juliet a whole month ago before she’d gone away for good and the lady who wanted them to call her mother showed up. He’d been hiding them in his room for a special occasion for forever now, and Dad just told them all that Seven was getting better and would be able to rejoin them at dinner time. So it was a special occasion right?

Four and Six both agreed with him, and they all agreed that they should draw Seven something extra special to celebrate her getting better, since she’d been so sick that none of them could visit her.

(Five had drawn her pictures and signed them all with ‘5ive’ so that she knew it was him. He’d given them to Grace-call-me-Mom to pass on but he’d never gotten anything in return. He figured Seven must feel awful poorly if she wasn’t well enough to draw pictures.)

Six produced some paper for them to draw on (he’d asked their new mother very nicely for them - he was the bestest at being polite) and they got to work. But it was Four that decided paper was boring and that they needed to do something really inspired to welcome Seven back into the fold!

Five and Six had agreed, of course they had. Without Four they were Five-Six-Seven, which was almost as good. Seven was a little quiet, but Six was pretty quiet, too. And when they were Five-Six-Seven, Five got to be the leader because he was the first number. Not that he minded following Four’s lead - but sometimes it was nice to be able to boss his siblings about.

So they decided they were going to draw Seven the best picture right up on the wall! Dad hung up lots of pretty drawings on the wall after all (though never any of theirs) and so surely the bestest pictures went up there, right? And their welcome-back one for Seven was going to be the best! So it should go up on the wall!

The logic was sound between the three four-year-olds, and Four was the bestest at drawing out of them so he got the crayons while Five and Six stood behind him to make suggestions.

They were gonna draw the whole family all together! And they’d even add Grace-call-me-Mom as well since she was around.

They started with Dad, making him real tall. They only had a red, green, and blue crayon, so Dad got to be in red. Blue was the closest to grey in their opinions, so Four carefully colored in Dad’s mustache and hair.

Next came One, who they drew flexing because he was already super strong! And then Two, with a blue knife that looked more like a sword. Three with red scribbled hair and a big smile. Four drew himself, and then after an argument between them all they decided he wouldn’t add his imaginary friends since they weren’t technically part of the family.

Five wanted to draw himself, but Four slapped his hand down and told him in no uncertain terms that Four came before Five so that meant Five had to do what he said. Unable to argue with that logic, Five at least requested that his shirt be made green since that was his secondest favorite color.

It was in the middle of drawing Six that things went wrong. When Dad came in and took one look at their picture and started yelling real loud.

Four dropped the blue crayon and it broke in half, rolling away under the table.

“What is the meaning of this!” Dad asked too loudly, even though it didn’t really sound like a question. Dad asked a lot of questions that didn’t sound like questions though, and sometimes it was really difficult to tell whether it would only make him angrier if you answered or if you didn’t answer.

So they cowered together, Four-Five-Six. Linking hands and biting lips as they weren’t sure whether this was one of the questions-to-answer or not.

“Well?” Dad demanded, signaling that it was in fact a question-to-answer.

It should have been Four who answered for them. Four was the firstest number of Four-Five-Six, after all. But when Five looked over at his brother, Four was pale and opening and closing his mouth without a sound. Five knew that if they didn’t answer a question that needed an answer, Dad would get really mad.

So he stepped forward. “I gived Four the crayons.” Five told their Dad. Dad was always telling them about ‘sponserbility, and Grace-call-me-Mom had said that ‘sponserbility was claiming your actions. “I stealed them from Nanny Juliet, and we were drawing Seven a picture.”

Dad’s face was severe and Five quailed under it. He blinked back the tears that were already springing up in his eyes, “‘M sorry?” He offered finally, because sometimes saying sorry was the best thing. Nanny Lana had told him that, back before she went away forever as well.

“I see.” Dad said in that tone that Five was pretty sure meant Dad thought they were doing something dumb, and Five bit his lip. Dad used that tone with him an awful lot when Five couldn’t jump like he wanted to, even though Nanny Helen had said that Five was real good at jumping when she’d drawn that hopscotch thing on the sidewalk in the summer. Five had really liked Nanny Helen, and he wished she hadn’t gone away for good as well.

“Hold out your hands.” Dad told them, face unreadable as stone, “I have something for little boys who draw on the walls.”

Even though it sounded like they were gonna get a treat, like a candy or something, Five still hesitated and his hesitation made the others pause as well. Because even though the words said they were gonna get something, Dad didn’t sound happy like the time Three had figured out what her power was.

“Now!” Dad ordered, and Four-Five-Six obediently stuck their little hands out. They were wary enough of Dad’s anger as it was, no need to make it worse.

And Five had been right to hesitate, because Dad picked up his cane and smacked in into Four’s hand with a meaty thwack sound. Four yelped loudly, and then brought his red hand to his chest and burst into tears. Five and Six immediately dropped their hands back down to their sides, afraid.

“Hands out!” Dad barked at them, “Or it will just be worse for you!”

Five and Six stuck their hands meekly back out even as Four sobbed next to them. Dad brought down the cane onto their hands hard, and neither of them could prevent the tears that followed either.

All of them, Four-Five-Six, sobbing and clutching at their hands together as they cowered under the eyes of their father.

“You do not draw on the walls.” Dad told them severely, and made them repeat it back between their sobs to be sure that they understood. “Number Five, hand out again.”

Five’s head shot up to look at his father in horror. Surely the one hit was punishment enough? But Dad’s face brooked no arguments, and so Five shakily held up his hand one more time to be met with the unforgiving edge of his father’s cane. He howled as he cradled his poor hand against his chest.

“You do not steal. Repeat that, Number Five.” Dad ordered.

Five couldn’t control his sobbing long enough to parrot the words back. He was trying. He was. But every time he tried to say a word, his lungs contracted and he ended up sobbing again.

“Number Five!” Dad yelled again, too loud. Much too loud. Too much. “Number Five! Say it! Say I will not steal.”

“I - I will - I will - will - ” His hand burned and throbbed as he hiccuped. He felt a hand touch his side. Number Six, who still had tears streaming down his own face but was looking at Five in such concern that he knew he could push through it all. “I will - I will not - not steal.”

Dad nodded once, like he’d gotten what he wanted out of them. “Good. Now go and fetch your mother and tell her to clean these scribbles from the wall. There will be no supper for any of you, and I will talk to the ringleader behind this later. Now, whose idea was this?”

Even though he hurt, even though he was scared and crying, Five didn’t even hesitate. “Me.” He told their Dad, standing tall even though he wanted to cower away and hide behind Four-and-Six until the hurt went away.

“Very well. Off you go now, and there will be no more drawing.” Dad waved them off and they scrambled to obey him, Five falling down near the table and having to be pulled up to his feet again by his frantic brothers as they scurried off to the kitchen where Grace-Mother was probably located.

Grace-Mom was much more sympathetic to the three bawling children who fell into the room than their father had been. Two, who had been helping with dinner (as much as taste-testing was helping) looked at the all with wide eyes as Four-Five-Six were boosted up on the counter so that she could tut and look at their little red fingers.

Five’s hand was the worst, the reddest of the three. But Grace checked it carefully, twisting it this way and that over Five’s whimpers before she declared that there was nothing broken.

She kissed all of their hands better, though Five’s didn’t feel much better at all. She got tissues and wiped at their wet snotty faces until they were more presentable. And then she gently picked them each back up off the counters to put them on the floor so that she could escort them to their rooms, where they would go hungry for the night.

Even though Five knew that Grace-not-Mom was only following Dad’s orders, he couldn’t help but feel almost betrayed. She’d seemed so sympathetic that Five had almost thought that she’d talk to Dad on their behalf, but she just smiled and gave a dreamy, “I’m sure your father knows what’s best for you.”

Five went into his room and watched as the door was firmly shut. It was only then that he pulled the half of the blue crayon out from where he’d tucked it in his waistband. He hadn’t really fallen by the table, but it had given him a good opportunity to quickly snag his broken prize without Dad suspecting anything.

Five toddled further into his room as he picked the paper off the crayon, grabbing a piece of paper that he was supposed to be practicing his letters on. But this was more important. Because they weren’t going to be at dinner to welcome Seven back now, and she wouldn’t even get to see the picture they made for her.

His hand hurt too much to hold the crayon well, but that was okay. He could use his other hand. It wouldn’t be as good but - Nanny Rachel said that it was the thought that counted.

And later, when Dad called caring a weakness and said about maybe punishing Seven for being the cause of all this nonsense, Five stared up with defiance in his eyes as he told Dad that he was never gonna do something for Seven again because she was stupid and it got them in trouble and it was all her fault in the first place.

He waited until Dad left, another bruise on his hand to add to his new collection. He waited until Grace-call-me-Mom came up to check on him, and then and only then did he slip her the paper with the shaky stick figure drawing of a girl in blue with an equally shaky ‘7even’ scribbled across the top.

It wasn’t his best work. It wasn’t even very good. Four was the best artist of them all, but Four wasn’t there right now, and Five couldn’t even use his good hand.

“Please, Mom.” Five asked, with wide eyes and wobbling lip.

She brushed a strand of hair from his face and beamed at him. It was the first time he’d called her Mom, after all. “Of course, darling. I’ll make sure Number Seven gets this. And I do hope you learned your lesson in all of this”

Five did learn his lesson. He learned that you can’t show that you care about something or it will be taken away and used against you. He learned that lesson with a stub of blue crayon clenched in his fist and a ban on drawing. He learned that lesson in bruises upon his hand when he stepped forward in his honestly. He learned that lesson with the threat of punishing Seven falling from his father’s lips.

More than anything, Five learned that he had to be careful. He had to be smart. He could get around the rules if he was clever enough, if he was quick enough.

Dad said that caring was a weakness, and all Number Five heard was that he had to hide what he cared about.

It was an important lesson, either way.

Chapter Text

On their sixth birthday, the students (more like cadets) of the Umbrella Academy lined up against the wall and dutifully allowed Mom to measure their heights and weigh them - she called out the numbers dutifully to Reginald Hargreeves who grunted in acknowledgement and made no move to indicate whether he approved or disapproved. It was like this every birthday, they got a full checkup for their health and they they received whatever objects and items Dad got for their mental development. This years present was a bundle of puzzle games for them to solve.

But the most nervewracking part of birthdays was the checkup. The not knowing. Dad was always so difficult to read.

When they were finally finished being poked and prodded, Dad stood up making them all stiffen at attention. “Grace,” He directed towards their caretaker, “It has come to my attention that when the children make their debut, they will be in need of names. I will leave the task of coming up with names for the six with you.”

All of them stiffened further at the word six. They were one-two-three-four-five-six-seven. Not six. And none of them had to ask about which child was being excluded, because it was the same one that was always pushed to the side since she'd gotten sick two years ago. The same child that Reginald took every opportunity to remind them had committed the terrible crime of being ordinary.

Five hated when Dad called Seven ordinary, just because she didn’t have powers. By that logic, Dad was ordinary. But when he’d pointed that out Dad had gotten real angry and he’d ended up punished so Five learned to keep his thoughts to himself when those thoughts were about Dad being dumb.

“Of course!” Mom chirped, smiling as she ushered them all out of the room, “I’ll get right on that, Sir.”

Five thinks he hates Mom as well sometimes. It’s not fair to her, because once when he’d asked her why she never went against Dad and she’d informed him that it was against her programming to disobey. But the fact remains that Mom is the one that tucks them in and cuts up their food for them and hugs them when they’re sad, but she still lets Dad say terrible things to them without protest. She still stands there, useless, as Dad goes on about what a disappointment Seven is.

The worst part is, Five remembers back when they had a parade of nannies who did talk back to Dad and defend them. They always had to leave after they did, but there was something terribly satisfying about being curled up in Nanny Penny’s arms as she told Dad that his treatment of them was unfair and cruel and lots of other words that made Dad’s face go red and angry.

Nanny Bea had thrown her shoe at Dad once after he belittled Two for stuttering. It was possibly the greatest moment of Five’s young life.

Mom didn’t do any of that. She didn’t talk back to Dad or correct him or put her hand in theirs and pull them away regardless of what Dad yelled. She just smiled and nodded her head and obeyed. She tried to comfort them later, tell them that Dad did everything for a reason. That their father was a great man. That he was the way he was because he cared about them.

Five preferred having nannies over a mother, personally. But he wasn’t consulted in the decision, and things were the way they were. Mom had been around for two years now, which was a really long time. Clearly she wasn’t going away.

They had a little bit of free time before they had to go do more lessons, so Five toddled up to his room to think. He climbed up on his bed and picked up the teddy bear that all of them had received identical copies of for their fifth birthday.

The others had named their bears. One’s was Star, Two’s was enthusiastically dubbed Dagger, Three had named hers Lacey, Four had Sir Bearington, and so on and so forth all the way down to Seven’s Mr. Snuggles.

Five hadn’t seen the point of giving his bear a name. His bear was named Bear. Simple as that.

“You don’t need a name, do you?” Five asked Bear very seriously, staring into button eyes as though they held the answers to the universe. “Yeah. I don’t need a new name, either. I already gots one.”

And maybe that was what bothered Five the most about the whole thing. The fact that he already had a name. He was Five, that’s who he was. That’s what Dad called him, that’s what Mom called him. His name was Number Five, Five for short.

And it was also what tied him to the others. How were they supposed to know who was the first number if they didn’t have numbers anymore? Would Four-Five-Six stop hanging out if they were - if they were Fred-John-Mason or something?

Five liked being Four-Five-Six. Liked being Five-Six-Seven. Liked being able to attach himself to his siblings without a problem, stacking them together like blocks. They fit together, they matched together, and he didn’t like the idea of change.

But - he didn’t think the others felt the same. Even though she’d looked guilty, Three had looked absolutely thrilled at the idea of getting a name. Five almost hoped she got a really dumb name, like one of the ugly stepsisters in Cinderella. But then he immediately felt guilty for the thought, because they should be happy where they could be. Maybe Mom would name her Ella, like the princess. Three deserved a princess name, really.

But it still sat wrong with him that Three could be so excited while Seven had looked so sad. Did Seven want a name?

“We could give Seven a name ourselves?” Five asked Bear, but Bear gave him a doubtful look with those button eyes that had Five nodding in agreement, “Yeah, we aren’t real good at names.”

And then an idea hit Five with all the force of a truck and he shot up with a gasp. “We need to talk to Mom!”

He grabbed Bear and ran for the door before he thought better of it, trotting back to the bed to return Bear to his place and pat his head. “You stay here, I’ll talk to Mom.” Five murmured sympathetically. Dad had forbidden the bears from leaving their rooms ages ago back when they’d tried to bring their stuffed companions to dinner with them.

Five thought that was dumb, but he didn’t fight it. He didn’t want Dad to take Bear away, after all.

So he left his room on his own, with a mission in mind. He found Mom sweeping the floors, alone, which was the best way to find her. It was difficult sometimes to find her without Two hanging around. Two really liked Mom, even more than all their nannies. Five though that was stupid, but kept those thoughts to himself. Mostly.

But nevertheless, he scurried over to tug at Mom’s skirt to get her attention. She straightened up and graced him with another one of those plastic smiles that Five still couldn’t figure out if he liked or hated. “Yes darling, what is it?”

“I was thinking,” Five said, scuffing his foot against the hardwood floors absently, “Dad told you to give us names right? Six names?”

“He did.” Mom confirmed, “Though I’m not done yet if that’s what you’re after!”

“No no no,” Five denied hurriedly, “I was just thinking uh, that you don’t have to think up a name for me.” Mom tilted her head, lips pulling down into a puzzled frown so Five recklessly continued, “I don’t want a name, I like being Five. I’m Five and Five is me. So you can just skip me.”

“Your father told me to give you six names,” Mom told him firmly. But Five was prepared for that. Five was the best at figuring out wiggle room between the rules, even if Dad hated it and still punished him even when he was technically obeying every letter of the law. Five figured Dad just didn’t like being wrong or anything, but that didn’t make Five any less right.

“Okay,” Five said, purposefully careless. He had to tread carefully here, act just the right amount of dismissive. “So pick out six names. You can give Seven mine. Dad never said which six you had to pick out names for, and I want the no-name spot. It’s not fair if Seven gets it automatically just ‘cause she’s the last number.”

Seconds went by where Five imagined he could actually hear the gears turning behind Mom’s eyes. Come on, he tried to beam his thoughts directly into her electronic brain, work around the orders. Find the space between. The loop holes. Let this work.

And then Grace smiled at him and nodded, making him almost melt in relief. “You’re right! Your father didn’t say which of you children didn’t get a name. I suppose if you want to be the one without, then I should start coming up with something for number Seven instead. I suppose it’s a first come first serve spot.”

Five nodded hard enough that he almost fell over before scurrying away back to his room before she could change her mind. He ran and leaped onto the bed, grinning widely. “It worked!” He told Bear gleefully, reaching out chubby hands to right his friend where the bouncing had knocked him over, “I get to keep my name!”

Bear seemed to exude pride and Five preened at the attention.

“Plus, this way maybe Four and Six will still remember that we’re four-five-six even if they get different names.” Five whispered, as if imparting a secret, “‘Cause I’m the middle one, which makes me the most important right?”

Bear agreed.

Later, when they all got together for lessons, they shared their new names with each other. Excitement bubbled in their voices. Luther, Allison, Diego, Klaus, Ben - and everyone turning in surprise when Seven quietly told them, wonder in her eyes, that she’d been named Vanya. It only took a second for them all to burst into confused chaos, talking over one another until no one could hear anything.

It was Six - Ben - who turned to Five with wide eyes. Five grinned with all his teeth, triumphant and victorious.

“You didn’t share your name.” Ben stated, his whisper somehow managing to catch everyone’s attention.

Five’s grin just widened, he could see their father listening out of the corner of his eye so he had to tread oh so carefully. He puffed his chest out, “I got to keep my name.” He told them all as proudly as he could, “Dad said to come up with six names, so I went right to Mom to claim the seventh spot! I didn’t want a dumb new name, it wasn’t fair Se- Vanya got to keep hers.”

“You didn’t want a name?” Fou - Klaus fretted, patting at Five’s shoulder.

Five shook his head. “My name is Five.” He told them all simply, “An’ if you guys weren’t smart ‘nough to ask to keep your names then that’s not my problem.”

They seemed to accept that easily enough, turning to go about their business.

When they were leaving to go back to their rooms though, Vanya grabbed his arm to stop him. She looked at him with wide, shimmering eyes and the smallest of smiles. “Thank you,” She whispered to him, like it was a secret.

“I didn’t do it for you,” Five denied, like a liar. Well. Half of a liar. “But… you’re welcome.”

And that was all the needed to be said about that.

Chapter Text

Number Five was eight-years-old and he hated his father more than anything else in the world. More than brussel sprouts. More than the straightjacket Dad used for his training. More than anything.

It was the training, the experiments, the eagerness of their father to push their limits and figure out exactly what they could do that burned. It was the ice coldness of the water tank Five had been dumped into and told to try and jump through the water. It was the exhaustion and collapsing when he was forced to jump until he couldn’t anymore. It was him emptying his stomach when he’d twisted himself in and out of reality for the seventeenth time in five minutes.

But more than that, it was the effects it had on his siblings.

It was in the way that Ben haunted the halls like a ghost, pale and frightened of his own powers and what he was capable of. The fact that Ben cried loud enough to travel through the walls and Five had to come up with more and more increasingly improbable excuses for why he was out of bed and hopping into Ben’s room in the middle of the night (there was only so many times he could pretend to be looking for a book, after all).

It was Allison staring off into space and the way she would go quiet, not speaking to any of them not matter what they tried. The way she’d touch her throat and look into the distance like she was remembering something terrible, something none of the rest of them could understand.

It was the way that Luther shook, limbs trembling after too much exertion. The way he winced as he moved, limping through the house and not lifting his arms above chest level.

Klaus was one of the worst, shaking and pale for hours upon hours after the secret training Dad took him on. His eyes were gathering bags dark enough to give the local goth kids a run for their money. He jumped at shadows and his eyes skittered over things the rest of the didn’t see.

Klaus’s friends weren’t as imaginary as they’d been as kids. Five didn’t think they ever really had been.

Five felt bad about it, but he was almost jealous of Vanya. Vanya who didn’t have to go through the brutal training regiments with the rest of them because she was ordinary. Some of the others held it against her already, and Five knew it wasn’t her fault.

It wasn’t like any of them would handle being in Vanya’s spot any better. They all warred so much for Dad’s attention in their own ways, and Vanya was invisible in all the worst ways - they wouldn’t last a single day in Vanya’s place without throwing a fit loud enough that the whole house would pay attention.

Though admittedly when it came time for special training, half of them would give their left arm to be as invisible as Vanya.

Five had to tread carefully to keep his attachment under lock and key. Had to puff out his chest and speak as arrogantly as possible. He acted out, challenged Dad, yelled about how it was him who needed more training of course. That he wanted to be the best, be ahead of the curve, forge ahead of the pack and leave the rest behind.

He pretended it was arrogance that made him catch the attention of Dad’s spotlight search, pretended it didn’t leave him quaking internally as he anticipated the newest of Dad’s many tortures for him.

But it was worth it, to see the relief on Klaus and Ben’s faces as they realized that they would be spared from being under their father’s microscope for another night.

The others weren’t like that. Luther scowled at him and stood up to request extra training as well on shaking legs. He was number one after all, their esteemed leader. He couldn’t let Five show him up. Diego varied from day to day, sometimes itching to pick a fight and try and prove himself and other times perfectly content to hide behind Mom and pretend the rest of the family didn’t exist. Allison never seemed to care one way or another.

But it was still worth it, because as callous as it sounded numbers One through Three didn’t need his protection in the same was as Klaus and Ben. Their powers were more straightforward. Less… experimental. Their training was all about pushing existing limits. Lifting more weights. Throwing more accurately. Being more precise with word choice when rumoring.

Five wasn’t quite sure what training Klaus went through. Ben knew, the duo were as thick as thieves at times.

(It had been a long time since their days as Four-Five-Six. Klaus-Five-Ben didn’t mesh nearly as well, click together nearly as neatly. Five missed those days with a fierceness that surprised him sometimes.)

But he did know that whatever it was, it was bad. Left Klaus a gibbering mess barely able to walk back to his room by himself. He’d had to assist his brother up the stair on more than one occasion, Five on Klaus’s left and Ben on the right.

Five hated their father.

They would get Klaus into his room and he’d fall upon his bed, curling around Sir Bearington with a kind of desperation that shouldn’t be found in children as he would sob his heart out. Five and Ben would exchange looks, hating with every ounce of their being that they couldn’t help in any way that mattered.

And if, after those nights, Five acted out even more. Was even louder in his arrogance, then no one mentioned it.

(Ben looked at Five with knowing eyes, always too smart for his own good. But he never said anything, never brought it up, and Five could never tell if he was relieved or disappointed.)

It was a little bit like being a magician. All eyes on me, he would think giddily as he drew the attention away from his siblings, all eyes on me. His very own brand of magic, the best way he could protect his siblings while being able to point the finger at his own ambition. A master disguise, a mirage, the biggest misdirection their household had ever experienced.

It didn’t always work though, sometimes Dad was on a mission and even Five’s shenanigans couldn’t derail that train from its tracks.

(He tried though, god he tried. He ended up with more punishments than the rest of his siblings combined. Confined and contained, bruises on his body and blood on his teeth. Five Hargreeves was eight-years-old and he knew fury and hatred as old friends.)

(Five Hargreeves knew the face of cruelty, and it wore a mustache and monocle.)

It was late one night, and Five had already escaped his confines when Dad returned home with Klaus. Five’s wrists were bloody and bruised from the restraints, from pressing and wriggling until there was just enough room for him to move. To jump. To flee. He didn’t let Grace see to him, if she even knew he’d broken out and was prowling around. No, after nights like this Five preferred to lick his wounds in the peace of his own room.

But he could hear Klaus from his room. The whole house could hear Klaus screaming and sobbing.

Five stuck his head out of his room, meeting Ben’s eyes where his other brother also looked concerned. They ducked back inside when they spotted Reginald dragging Klaus down the hallway, looking absolutely furious.

But Five didn’t duck back into his room before spotting the most likely reason why Klaus was screaming in the first place, because clutched in Klaus’s hands in an iron grip was the soft arm of a bear. The soft arm of a bear that wasn’t attached to anything else.

It made him swear, the words he definitely wasn’t supposed to know falling from his lips. Klaus knew better than to take the bear out of his room, not after what had happened to Diego’s bear Dagger. Grace had managed to piece the bear back together since Reginald hadn’t ordered her not to do so, but everyone knew that Dagger would never be the same. Klaus knew better.

Klaus loved Sir Bearington with a fierce protectiveness, the one friend he had conversations with he could be sure wasn’t one of the ‘imaginary’ friends that had turned out to be ghosts.

Five’s eyes were drawn to his own bear, creatively named Bear, who sat upon his bed. Identical in every way to each of the other bears that Reginald had purchased for them for their fifth birthdays.

“Should we do something?” He asked Bear, feeling only a little bit silly. But Bear really was very smart and always seemed to know what to do in these sorts of situations.

Bear looked back at him with solemn button eyes.

Five looked away, “Klaus needs Sir Bearington. He’s not as - as good at dealing with stuff.” Another silence, “Well I don’t know where Klaus goes to train. Or what Dad did with the rest of Sir Bearington. It looks like he might have just - yanked him away from Klaus even though Klaus was holding on. And he ripped.”

Five sighed deeply, “Okay, so we can’t go out and find the remains of Sir Bearington. We wouldn’t know where to start. But I don’t think Klaus can sleep without him, and he already has nightmares as it is. This is just going to make things worse. So is that it? There’s nothing we can do?”

Bear looked at him with calm eyes, and Five noted again that Bear really was identical in every way to the other teddies his siblings had been given.

He gasped, “No.” He shook his head firmly, “No, Bear. That’s a dumb idea. I can’t just give you to Klaus, you’re my bear, and besides Klaus loves Sir Bearington. I doubt he’d accept a substitute.”

Another silence, broken by Five again, “Sir Bearington is clearly somewhere missing an arm, Bear. What, is Klaus just not going to notice spontaneous limb regeneration?”

Five didn’t like the way Bear was looking at him. “Absolutely not,” Five denied, “We don’t know what kind of condition Sir Bearington was left in. For all we know, Dad shredded him in front of Klaus’s eyes. No I’m not being dramatic, you know how Dad is.”

Bear stared at him with expectant eyes, and Five could feel himself crumpling. It didn’t help that he could still hear Klaus sobbing through the walls.

Five got onto his knees, staring very seriously into Bear’s eyes. “If we’re gonna do this, you have to be serious about this, Bear. You have to look after Klaus, and give him advice, and give him hugs, and all the stuff you do for me except more. ‘Cause Klaus is more delicate than me, you know?”

Bear did know.

Before he could lose his nerve, Five reached out to grab Bear, fingers grasping onto Bear’s left arm and pulling. Pulling and pulling until finally there was a tearing sound and suddenly Five had Bear’s arm in one hand and the rest of Bear in the other.

He could feel himself tearing up, could hear himself apologizing roughly to Bear as he swiped his arm across his face roughly. Bear understood that it was a necessary evil, he understood and that was all that mattered.

Five pried open his widow to drop onto the fire escape, jumping from the top down to the group in a flash of blue light. He hiccupped as he tossed Bear into the dirt, but this had to look right. Bear had to look beaten up, like Five had found him wherever Reginald had discarded Sir Bearington.

It was the work of minutes before Five was jumping back up the fire escape and back into his room. Gently, so so gently, he kneeled down on his bedroom floor and pulled up the loose floorboard in the corner. It was something he’d only discovered a few months ago, and he’d made quick work of clearing out the space to hold his treasures.

Two books, half of a blue crayon, the corner piece of a puzzle, and now Bear’s arm were located inside. They were no great treasures, but they were his.

“Promise to look after him.” Five demanded of Bear quietly, “Promise me.”

Then, with a deep breath, Five jumped for the third time in as many minutes, stumbling into Klaus’s room. Ben was already in there, patting at the back of an inconsolable Klaus. The both froze when they saw him, standing there with a dirty teddy bear missing an arm.

“Ben,” Five took charge immediately, voice firm, “If you can ask Mom to give you some needle and thread?”

Ben hopped up immediately, making for the door as Klaus stared with wide eyes.

“Sir Bearington?” Klaus whispered, immediately reaching out. Five felt a split second of reluctance to hand Bear over, but he ruthlessly squashed it. Klaus needed Bear more than Five needed him, it was that simple, and so Five handed Bear over and pretended it didn’t hurt as Klaus squished Bear to his chest and burst into tears all over again.

The door opened back up and Ben slipped back in with a spool of thread and a needle, offering them to Five as though he had any idea how to reattach severed limbs.

But - it couldn’t be that hard, right? So Five poked at Klaus’s shoulder roughly, “Alright hand him over so we can put B- Bearington back together.”

They ended up all huddled together on the bed, watching with great concern as Five did his level best to perform surgery on a stuffed animal. In and out the needle went, and at the end it wasn’t the prettiest of patch jobs but at least the arm wouldn’t be falling off again anytime soon. Even if Bear did look a bit like Frankenstein’s monster with the black thread very visible against his felt fur.

With that taken care of, Five shoved Bear back into Klaus’s arms. Klaus accepted him gratefully, cradling the teddy against him with a terrible sort of tenderness.

“Thank you, Five.” Klaus whispered, so softly Five almost didn’t hear.

“I just did it so you’d stop crying.” Five responded flippantly, brushing off the words with a practiced ease, “I can hear you through the walls y’know, and I’d like to go to sleep at some point tonight.”

“What happened to your wrists?” Ben asked, equally quietly.

He’d almost forgotten the punishment from earlier, the raw skin on his wrists from his struggles. If there was one thing Klaus was good for, it was serving as a distraction. Five bristled and tugged his pajama sleeves down, “None of your business. Now, if my services are no longer required, I think I’m actually going to get some shuteye sometime this week thank you.”

Without another word, Five jumped back into his room. He didn’t want to see Ben’s sad eyes. He didn’t want to see Klaus cradling Bear.

He climbed into his bed, and felt Bear’s absence like a hollow ache in his chest. He hugged the pillow against him, but it wasn’t the same. But Five wasn’t a baby. He didn’t need Bear like Klaus needed Sir Bearington.

Besides, he was probably too old for a teddy anymore, anyway.

Five closed his eyes, willing sleep to come to him. His wrists throbbed, and sleep did not come for a good long time.

When he did sleep, it was uneasily.

Chapter Text

When Number Five had been only four, his father had impressed the lesson of do not steal into his hand, red and bruised and painful. Three stolen crayons and the hope of doing something kind crushed beneath their father’s heel in a matter of minutes.

He wasn’t four anymore.

Bear’s absence in his life was an almost physical thing, but Klaus took very good care of ‘Sir Bearington’ from what Five could see, at that soothed him a tiny bit. And on some nights, if Five sat crouched on his floor away from the camera aimed at his bed to open the floor and hold Bear’s arm against his chest for comfort - well. That was no one’s business but his own.

But he also wasn’t unobservant. And every time Klaus had private training he got jumpier, got more frightened, slept less. The bags under his eyes got darker and darker even with the benefit of a stuffed animal. Five couldn’t imagine what a disaster Klaus would be like without the intervention he’d already made.

But he needed to do more.

So Five did what he did best, he watched without looking like he was watching. He was flippant and arrogant and squeezed through any loopholes he could in training. Sometimes he got away with it, sometimes Dad praised him for it and help him up as an example to the others, making Luther scowl darkly. Sometimes he was punished for it, angry words and scraped raw wrists.

And when he got out of his restraints late at night, lips pulled back in a snarl and fury sitting behind his teeth, the light was always on in Klaus’s room no matter the hour.

With that knowledge under his belt, it was easy to see how Klaus batted at the wall for a light switch from around the corner before entering a dark room. Easy to see how Klaus walked against the far wall across from any pitch black room. His brother was afraid of the dark, more afraid that any of the others.

Klaus hadn’t been afraid of the dark when they were younger. It made Five wonder just what sort of training Dad made his brother go through.

But no matter how much Five stood up, no matter how much he pulled the spotlight over to himself, no matter how much he acted out and tried to bring Dad’s attention to himself - he couldn’t protect Klaus forever. And it ended up with Five acting out enough that when Klaus did have training, Five was - well let’s just say he was often somewhat tied up.

But Five couldn’t think of a way to help.

Not until Dad decided to be an even bigger dick than he usually was and discovered the fact that Klaus left his lights on at nights and decided that wasn’t good enough.

(Nothing Klaus did was ever good enough.)

Three nights in listening to Klaus wake screaming in nightmares was about as much as Five could manage before he was going to murder their father himself.

(He’d do it, if he thought Grace or Pogo could get custody of them. If he thought they wouldn’t be split apart and scattered across the country. He’d do it if he thought he could keep his family intact. He loved his family, he loved his siblings - he hated his father.)

So he cornered Mom during their very rare hours of free time that Diego was occupied, and looked at her with fury written in his bones and aching wrists and he asked her for one of the very few things he’d ever asked of her - he asked, “Mom, can I buy something?”

Mom blinked at him with a smile that seemed to be permanently fixed in place, “Why, whatever do you need darling?”

“A nightlight.” Five told her bluntly, holding out his notebook. “I’ve located a store which seemed to have a variety within walking distance for reasonable prices, and I’d like you to purchase one for Klaus’s use.”

“How very thoughtful!” Mom’s smile felt just a little bit more real as she beamed at him, but then the smile dropped just a little. “However, I’m not permitted to leave the mansion and as such cannot fulfill your request. I’m sorry, dear.”

Five swore, ignoring Mom’s automatic rebuke of ’language’.

But then Mom put a thoughtful hand on Five’s shoulder, making him look up at her. “However… I can provide you with the funds you require. I have access to some money in order to pay for the groceries to be delivered to the mansion. Though I don’t suppose how helpful that will be, as I’m still not permitted to leave.”

The careful way she said the words had Five’s eyes going wide. It had been a while since they’d been named and Five had wriggled right through the loophole in his father’s orders, and Five had talked Mom through wiggling through even more loopholes ever since.

(It was usually the fact that Dad had never ordered her specifically not to do something that they could use, and Mom really did want to help them.)

But she’d never offered him a loophole on her own though, that was new.

Because she had. She’d said that she couldn’t leave the mansion, but not that he couldn’t. Oh, it was forbidden for them to leave the mansion of course it was - but Five was able to disobey in a way that Mom couldn’t. Was able to choose to break the rules.

Five nodded slowly, “I would appreciate some funds, in that case.”

“Of course!” Mom chirped leading Five out of the room and proceeded to hand him far far more money that he would ever need for a single nightlight. He didn’t protest and instead pocketed the cash. “I trust that you’ll ask your father for permission.”

With that said, Mom drew him closer to drop a kiss on the crown of his head before turning on her heel to walk away and do - something. Honestly Five wasn’t entirely sure how Mom kept busy all the time, surely she couldn’t clean and cook every waking second?

But regardless, Five still had another hour of freetime that he was technically expected to use for studying - but he could just read instead of sleeping tonight it was fine.

He headed up to his room, closing the door behind him, before sliding open his window to gain access to the fire escape. It was a matter of minutes to get down to the ground and head out. It was fortunate that it was the afternoon when school had already let out, so people wouldn’t bat an eye at a school age child out of school at the very least.

Though if he wasn’t careful he could be stopped anyway - a lone eight-year-old was a cause for concern to some people. But Five knew how to walk with purpose, to keep a distance not too far behind an older couple so that people would make assumptions.

(This wasn’t the first time Five had gone out without permission. He’d also orchestrated family field trips as well - the donuts at Griddy’s were sweet and absolutely not a part of their very monitored diet but having to sneak around and feel like they were in a spy movie or something was kind of cool.)

He’d been serious when he’d said the place he had in mind was in walking distance. It was only maybe an eight minute walk from the mansion, a lighting store. Family owned. Lamps competed for window space as Five walked straight in.

“Hi sweetie! Can I help you?” A kindly sales assistant greeted him, smiling at him as the door chimed.

Five gave her his nicest smile, widening his eyes just a tiny bit to add to his general aura of childish innocence. “I’m looking for a nightlight, please!”

She gave a soft ‘aww’ and was very helpful, pointing him towards the back where the kids section was. There were all sorts of… interesting lighting fixtures in that section, and Five very careful did not make eye contact with the creepy glowing clown light. What sort of child actually wanted clown themed items in their rooms? If any existed, Five certainly didn’t know of them.

The lady helpfully pointed out the nightlights before she was drawn away by someone else entering the store, allowing Five a moment to browse through.

The one shaped like a spaceship couldn’t help but catch Five’s eye, and he hesitated. He wasn’t thinking of it for Klaus but - Luther had started a space phase recently and had been excitedly reciting planet facts for weeks. He’d even said that if he wasn’t going to be a superhero when he grew up, he’d be an astronaut. Five had scoffed at the time, had told his brother in no uncertain terms that it was useless to dream when Dad controlled their fates.

Without Five’s permission he was already grabbing the rocket nightlight. He even already had a reason summoned up - if all the kids had nightlights then even if Dad noticed Klaus had one he couldn’t punish Klaus alone. All of them or none of them.

Of course, that meant that he had to pick up seven whole nightlights.

Well, clearly Mom had suspected something like this would happen since she’d given him way more money than he needed for just one. Mom was more perceptive than he gave her credit for, sometimes.

He picked out a cartoony octopus for Ben, grinning as he thought of the look on his brother’s face. Those were about the only good personalized ones though - it was still a small store without a particularly massive selection.

Vanya could have the elephant? Why not. He picked out a star shaped one for Allison since she frequently proclaimed she was the star of the household. A cloud for Diego, a moon for Five. And then there was only Klaus left.

Five picked out the hippo one, because it advertised the fact that it could glow in multiple different colors and since this was all for Klaus in the first place it was only fair that his was special.

With all seven nightlights in hand, Five trotted up to the counter and smiled and hummed his way through the interaction with the cashier.

“Picking out some variety I see!” The cashier beamed at him as they scanned the items. “Where are your parents, sweetheart?”

“Next door.” Five lied easily, smiling back, “They said I could come over here to spent my pocket money though!”

The cashier cooed over him as he handed over the cash, picking out a lollipop from somewhere behind the counter to give such an ‘adorable and precocious young man’ that Five accepted as gracefully as possible. He would probably ditch it in Allison’s room while she was out somewhere - his sister had a terrible sweet tooth at times though she rarely admitted it.

No one stopped him on his way home, and he managed to climb back up the fire escape by clutching the bag of legally purchased goods between his teeth and tumble back into his room without issue.

It almost felt… too easy.

But no one stopped him as he pulled the moon nightlight out of the bag to toss carelessly onto his bed. No one stopped him as he crept out of his room, ready to jump at a moment’s notice. None of his siblings popped up as he found Mom wiping off the counters in the kitchen while humming.

“I’m back.” He announced, making Mom turn around with a smile.

“Welcome back, sweetheart.” She greeted warmly, and Five would never admit how nice it was to hear someone actually care about his well-being occasionally. Even though he knew that Mom was programmed to take care of them, she did a lot for them outside of that programming and if that wasn’t love well… Five hoped it was love.

He offered the bag to his mother, “If you would distribute these at bedtime, it would be appreciated.”

Mom accepted the bag with a nod, “Of course, darling. Is that all?”

“The spaceship is for Luther,” Five blurted out before he could stop himself. But he’d chosen them special, so she had to know. “The cloud is for Diego, the star’s Allison’s, the hippo goes to Klaus, and the octopus to Ben, and then the elephant is for Vanya.”

The moon was sitting on his bed, so he didn’t have to tell her that one.

“And - and they’re from Dad. Not me. I didn’t have anything to do with this.” That part Five was firm on. His siblings couldn’t know he had a hand in this. If luck was on his side, Dad wouldn’t find out either - but it would be easy to find out just who did it if Dad decided to investigate. Five could avoid the camera in his own room, but trekking all the way through the house was somewhat more difficult.

“Of course,” Mom repeated, patting Five’s shoulder, “You certainly couldn’t have retrieved them without your father’s permission after all.”

They shared a nod, and then Five crept back out of the room. At least he could be mostly sure that Mom was on his side, even when Dad was being a colossal ass. Well. He could be sure she was on his side up until Dad’s orders pitted her against him.

Not for the first time, he wondered what sort of person Mom would be without any orders - if she was allowed to choose things for herself all the time. He wondered if she would still love them, would still want to be their mother.

He was almost afraid of the answer.

When he crept out of his room that night, it was to see identical soft glows underneath each bedroom door. He paused for a second, just to listen. But he couldn’t hear Klaus crying or whimpering. There was silence in the house for the first night in a while.

Five turned tail and went back into his room, plugging in the moon nightlight carefully and smiling at the soft light. He didn’t need it. He was capable of sleeping without it, just like he was fine without Bear. But - it was solidarity, so it didn’t matter if he was fine without it.

The next day, Klaus still looked exhausted. But - just a little less exhausted than the night before. Luther was beaming at Dad all throughout breakfast, giving Five an actual headache, and Dad didn’t say a single word even though he probably knew about the new additions to the rooms by now.

(Ha, even if he did take them away good luck returning them. Five had ditched the receipt the second he left the store - if the old man wanted to take them away he could waste his money that was fine by Five.)

In the grand scheme of things, it wasn’t much. It wasn’t nearly enough. But every little bit counted when it came to surviving their childhood under their father’s rule.

“Number Five.” Their father addressed him at the end of breakfast, making him freeze up. “Stay after.”

Luther shot him a glare as though irritated that Five got to spend extra time with their dad. Five wanted to scream at him sometimes, shake him and make him smell the roses for what they were. But Luther loved Dad in a way that Five just couldn’t understand, couldn’t comprehend. And no matter how much Five wanted to, he couldn’t protect Luther from that.

The rest of the family filtered out, Vanya tossing a look over her shoulder as though to check if Five would be okay. Five appreciated the thought, but it was unnecessary.

He would always be okay.

“I believe I told you that stealing was forbidden,” Dad told him, making the blood in Five’s veins freeze into ice. “Manipulating Grace counts as stealing. I suppose I have no choice but to increase your training regiment - clearly having idle hands is doing no favors for you.”

Five had no other option than to grit his teeth and bow his head and whisper out a quick, “Yes, sir.”

“Until you have learned your lesson, your free hours will now be training periods. You can report to your training room. Do you understand, Number Five?” Dad’s voice grated at his ears as he took away one of the few freedoms Five had.

(He still didn’t regret it. Not when he’d slept the night through without being interrupted by Klaus’s screams. Not when Dad didn’t look like he was going to take his hard won prizes away - he could handle the punishment. He would have to.)

“I understand, sir.” Five gritted out grudgingly.

Reginald Hargreeves nodded sharply, as though there was no other response Five could have given. “Very well, off with you then. You may report later.”

Five scurried off to join his siblings, already planning on turning his extra ‘lessons’ into a point of pride in front of his siblings. They couldn’t think it was a punishment, because that meant that they’d wonder what he was being punished for.

He’d learned the lesson about stealing a long time ago, with a crayon clenched in a chubby fist and the memory of his father’s cold fury. But he also knew one very important thing - some punishments could be weathered. Sometimes the goal wasn’t to escape punishment or be good, sometimes consequences had to be calculated in and dealt with regardless.

Five knew that the extra training would be brutal. He knew it would be painful. But he also knew he wouldn’t regret what brought him to it.

Five Hargreeves was eight-years-old, and he would take whatever punishment his father dreamed up if only he could save his siblings.

He thought about the money tucked away underneath the floorboards of his room, the leftovers, and the start of an idea sparked in his mind.

But that’s a story for another time.

Chapter Text

It was an accident, almost. They lived in a mansion it was only natural that they would be curious about what the thirty some rooms they didn’t use might contain. Well, of course they contained all the things Reginald Hargreeves had collected during his long and eccentric life (Mom had once referenced an Olympic medal but Five could not for the life of him figure out in what.)

Some of those rooms were open for Five to root around in and be unimpressed about the random paintings and souvenirs and things. There was one room that just had a stacks of vases. Not even like, weird fancy people vases they were just regular ones.

Other ones however - were locked. Five was only seven, but he was armed with paperclips and experience. In fact, if Dad caught him he could simply say it was practice. After all, it wasn’t like Dad didn’t expect them to have a variety of skills, lock picking being among them.

(Dad used to handcuff him to railings and tell him to jump out them, but Five wouldn’t be Five if he didn’t figure out ways around the rules in order to piss Dad off. He kept a paperclip in each shoe and a bobby pin pinned to the band of his shorts at all times - just in case. Dad didn’t do it anymore, Five was too good at getting out. But he still kept them and kept in practice.)

So it wasn’t an accident that Five picked the lock on one of the storage rooms, but honestly it could have been any room in the house. There were forty-two bedrooms and nineteen bathrooms after all, it was only chance that Five stumbled across this one.

But he did, and he found the boxes of belongings thrown haphazardly inside the small room.

They weren’t like most of the other rooms, with pristine souvenirs and antiques gathering dust. The first box Five opened was instead full of dusty, dogeared old novels. The house had plenty of books, autobiographies and textbook-esque nonfiction books lined the walls ready for any one of them to crack the spines and get to studying.

But these? They weren’t the factual texts that littered the mansion, they were - just regular books. Dime novels with dramatic covers.

Five flipped a book around to read the summary and they were all… just about people. Regular people. There were mystery novels about detectives, there were romantic love stories, just all sorts of random books about people living their lives. Fiction.

Puzzled, Five set them aside and started rooting around the boxes again.

It was just - belongings. Lots of clothes, all women’s. Five spared a second to wonder if this was just a really weird closet for Mom but - no. Because Five spotted a shawl that brought back such a sudden memory he sucked in a loud breath.

(A long time ago now, before Mom had come along, they’d had the nannies. Some were constantly rotating, but there were others who had been there for a long, long time. One of those was Nanny Ruby, an older woman with a kind smile and a fondness for reading.

Five had loved her, because when he tugged at her leg she had no problem hoisting him up into her lap and quietly reading her books aloud to him. He’d spent hours sat upon her lap, absently chewing on his fingers as he tried to follow along the story. One hand in his mouth and the other fisted in the shawl she always tended to wear.

She never turned him away, never told him that she was too busy to deal with him. She’d let him toddle along after her like a little duckling, sweeping him up into her arms and pressing kisses against cheeks still chubby with baby fat.

Her voice had been a slow drawl, as if she was tasting each word before she said them. Five’s favorite question had been ‘why’ for a long time, but she’d always patiently tried to answer his many questions. She’d also always been willing to admit when she didn’t know, and helped him to find the answers.

Nanny Ruby hadn’t called them by numbers, instead she’d called Five ‘sweet pea’ and ‘little monster’ and ‘baby boy’ and a million other little nothings. There’s a fuzzy memory of her frowning when he’d asked her about why she didn’t call him Five, like Dad did.

“Oh my beautiful boy,” Nanny Ruby had sighed, pulling him into her lap and brushing the hair out of his face, “My beautiful, darling boy. They’re just - endearments. They mean that I care about you.”

Five had wanted to ask why Dad didn’t use ‘deermens then. Didn’t Dad care about them? But Nanny Ruby was already pulling out a few books and was letting him pick which one to read together by the pictures on the covers. None of Nanny Ruby’s books had pictures in them, but that was okay because honestly it was more an excuse to spend time with her than anything else.

She was kind, and wonderful, and Five had loved her.

So he hadn’t understood why she’d vanished.)

Five ran careful fingers across the dusty shawl, pulling it fully out of the box and shaking it out in front of him. When he breathed in he thought he’d be able to smell her perfume, but after years of being tucked away and forgotten all he smelled was dust.

With shaking fingers, he folded up the shawl and put it gently on the ground before looking around again. Because some of these things he’d tossed aside without a second thought, he remembered.

There was the brooch that Nanny Katherine had worn every day, the one that Klaus had tried grabbing and had ended up hurting his finger on. There was the bobble-head doll that Allison had stolen half a dozen times from Nanny Helen. The photo frame with the smiling young couple that used to sit by the side of Nanny Elaine’s bed that she’d smacked Luther’s hands sternly for touching.

A dozen different memories, all sitting and gathering dust.

But why?

Digging deeper into the box that contained the shawl, Five unearthed something even more important. An old and worn book, but not just any old book. Because when he opened it up, Nanny Ruby’s spindly cursive stared back at him.

He must have seen her writing in this journal dozens of times, maybe hundreds of times. She’d sat at the desk in her room pressing a pen to paper, him sleepy and safe on her lap as she hummed around the scratch-scratch of her writing. Sometimes, when he’d asked, she’d even handed him the pen and let him doodle stick figures and strange monsters on blank pages.

He’d been able to read back then, just a little. But Nanny Ruby’s handwriting wasn’t anything like the big blocky letters in their big alphabet picture books.

(Dearest Annie,

I’m settling in just fine to my new job. I’m one of seven nannies for seven young children, hired by that Reginald Hargreeves who’s been in the papers. He seems like a decent enough sort, though I’m not entirely sure why he’s adopted so many children when he seems to have such little interest in them!

He’s not even named them, can you imagine that? He’s just numbered them one through seven. It’s very strange I will admit, though I suppose there are some parents who struggle to decide on one name for their child let alone seven of them! I am sure he will think of names for them soon enough should he spend some good quality time with them.

Little number three reminds me so much of you as a baby! She has a full head of hair, and a powerful set of lungs goodness me. Oh, and number six is such a little darling. Barely cries, the sweet little thing, just wants to be held. They all certainly have their own personalities, even this early on.

They’re all such sweethearts, and so tiny! Why, I can hardly remember a time when you were so small. You hold them and there’s barely any weight to them at all. Mr. Hargreeves had them all weighed and measured first thing when they arrived, though I wasn’t present for that. It’s good that he’s taking an interest in their health, but I do wish he’d spend more time in the nursery.

He held little number one the other day though, when Hannah was needed elsewhere urgently. O! You should have seen the look on his face. He reminded me just a little bit of your father, didn’t know what to do with a baby at all, bless. But little number one, bless his heart, just reached up and patted Mr. Hargreeves shirt and cooed as babies do, and I imagine that softened him a little bit. Just you wait! I bet if I got him to offer any of the babies a finger he would soften entirely, for I don’t believe there’s anything more darling than when a baby grabs your finger, do you?

Oh, little number two is fussing (I am giving Mary a little break with him), so I am afraid I must cut this letter short.

I miss you, and I wish you were here!

Lots of love,
Mum xx)

Five touched his hand to the page gently, as if afraid it would crumble to dust before his eyes. He flipped through some of the pages, all of them addressed to her daughter Annie. But - why would the pages in a journal be addressed to her daughter? Surely they should be letters, sent away and not gathering dust in this dark room.

He traced the letters m u m with care at the bottom of the page. Something inside him ached, and he wasn’t quite sure why.

As he flipped through the pages though, he realized that the letters weren’t the only things contained inside. As he tipped the book a certain way, a picture slid out from between the pages and fell feather-light to the floor. Five froze for a moment before stopping down to gingerly pick it up.

And when he flipped it over he was surprised because it was - them.

The Umbrella Academy.

They were young, maybe two? There was a handful of women in the picture, some familiar to him and some not, and the seven children all in various poses. Luther was cradled in a woman’s arms pouting as she gave a brilliant smile to the camera, looking terribly young and wildly happy. Diego was sitting in someone’s lap, both the woman and him holding onto a colorful block and looking very much like they might start a tug-of-war over the toy in a second. Allison beamed brightly at the camera, already loving to be the center of attention even back then as she stood hand in hand with a women Five actually recognized as Nanny Katrina, who had gone out in a blaze of glory after stealing half the silverware. Vanya was on Nanny Katrina’s other side looking rather concerned with her little hand fisted in the Nanny’s skirt.

Klaus was sitting on the floor with Ben, Ben looking half-asleep as the Nanny crouching down next to them pointing helpfully towards where the camera was. Klaus wasn’t even looking at her though, staring off outside the camera frame at something not visible.

And then there was Five himself, cradled in Nanny Ruby’s arms and giving the camera such an enthusiastic wave that his mittened hands blurred a little.

Oh, he remembered those mittens. He’d despised them. But he’d had a bad habit of chewing on his hands (he remembered them tingling all the time, vaguely - it had caused more than one meltdown) and so the mittens had been provided as a deterrent.

Five traced a finger against the still image thoughtfully. They didn’t have any baby pictures really, beyond the ones taken on their birthday each year to be attached to Dad’s files. But it was still easy to tell who was who, he could see their older faces hidden behind their chubby cheeks.

Carefully, he tucked the photo back between the pages and continued looking.

(Dearest Annie,

O, the nerve of that man! Why, sometimes I want to sweep the children into my arms and take them away. At least perhaps then they would have proper names! I can hardly stand calling them by numbers, Annie. They deserve names, and that man just keeps brushing me off when I bring it up. I swear he’d being deliberately obtuse.

The poor little darlings. They deserve far better than to be cooped up in this mansion all day. There’s only so many times we can have picnics in the courtyard before one starts longing to go somewhere, anywhere else.

But the last time I asked Mr. Hargreeves if we might be permitted to take the children to the park he shot that idea down before it could even take flight. I’m sure if he spent time with the children he would understand that they hate being cooped up for so long, but he spends so much time in that damnable office of his!

Oh Annie, I do apologize for swearing. You know my temper can get the best of me, sometimes.

It isn’t all bad, no matter how much I may complain. The children are the sweetest things in the world, for the most part. They’re in that phase where it seems like all they do is ask questions! Especially little number five. Oh, I know I’ve told you about him before Annie but he seems absolutely determined to give me a heart attack!

I almost long for the days before the children could walk. And run! They’re starting to run now, though they’re more likely to take a tumble than anything else goodness gracious. The amount of tears I’ve had to dry in past few weeks, Annie, you have no idea! I swear I turn my back on them for one second and suddenly they’re into something they’re not supposed to be.

Were you ever so difficult, my darling? I can’t seem to remember. But oh, perhaps it is only the rose tinted glasses of being a parent that makes me forget when you were so misbehaved. You were always my little angel.

Not that the children aren’t angels. Why, yesterday I had an entire little parade of obedient children hanging onto my every word for storytime! I was almost sorry when they had to go for their naps.

Mary says that Mr. Hargreeves is starting to convert some of the rooms into separate bedrooms for the children, and I do hope she’s joking! I shall sorely miss them all being in one spot in the nursery, though to be honest it’s probably time for them to outgrow it anyhow. Perhaps we can convert the nursery into another playroom? I have given the children some of your old dolls, I hope you don’t mind. It brings me great joy to see the children so happy with your old toys, like having a little piece of you with me always.

Oh but look at me, rambling. I must go to bed if I don’t want to be awoken by half a dozen little scamps jumping on me!

I miss you, my love. Always.
With love,
Mum xx)

Some of Five’s pictures are tucked between the pages. Ones with stick figure families proudly presented and tucked lovingly between the pages. Not only Five’s drawings and artwork, but ones from all of them.

All are absolutely atrocious. None of them are going to be the next Monet by any means. But they’re - endearing. Nanny Ruby mentions them frequently and enthusiastically in her entries, clearly treasuring them deeply.

Five thinks that has to be a lie though, because if she cared about them all, why would she just leave? Leave all of this behind? Leave them behind?

But even though there’s something inside of him that aches, he still carefully tucks each lovingly crafted gift back inside the pages of the journal with a gentleness so rare to find in him these days.

There’s a whole page filled up with smeared smatterings of ‘5ive’ written in block letters, shaky and proud.

Impatient suddenly, Five flips through the book to the final entry. He’s desperate for - for answers. There’s so much love pressed into every one of these pages, every anecdote and gentle complaint and righteous comment on their behalf. He needs to know why she left, what happened.

He needs to know.

(Dearest Annie,

I’ve gotten things in order I think. Mary knows what I’m planning and offered to run interference. There are so few of us these days it seems, Mr. Hargreeves is replacing us less and less as we leave. As if it somehow gets easier to take care of the children as they grow older!

I’m convinced Mr. Hargreeves wouldn’t know how to be a good father if the world depended on it.

I’m going to take them away, all of them. And if he comes after us - I have my box with all the proof I should need ready any waiting. All the testimonials from everyone who’s left, all the photographs of the children with bruises. O, Annie. If I’d known back then that the children would be so fantastical and special I would have run with them immediately.

I should have known Mr. Hargreeves didn’t care about them as children. He only seems to care about them as experiments, and they deserve so much better than that. He wants them to develop these powers and train them, which is important I suppose.

But I was there, Annie, when little five collapsed after that man pushed him too hard. By God, I thought for a moment that he had died he was so still and pale. And when I intervened he had the nerve to say it was for the children’s own good! I don’t even want to think about what has happened with the other children. I know little number one cried the whole day after.

I knew the children were special, I just didn’t realize how special. O Annie, how am I going to take care of seven children with such powers? Some days it seems all I can do to keep them from mischief. But I suppose I shall just have to adapt. Those children deserve better and by golly I am going to give it to them, Annie.

If only you were still with us, my darling. I know I have told you a thousand times that you would love the children, but that doesn’t make it any less true for repetition. Not a day goes by that I wish you were not by my side once more, giving me strength.

Tomorrow is the day, Annie. I can’t wait any longer, not when so many of us have been mysteriously fired recently. I have a meeting with Mr. Hargreeves in his office tonight, though to what end I do not know. I don’t believe he knows about my intentions, for I only disclosed them to Mary and I know her to not be loose lipped.

It will break my heart to move little number five. He’s sitting upon my lap as I write this, the little darling. I’m still thinking of what name to give him when we are free of this terrible place. The children deserve to have that at the very least if nothing else. When I was pregnant with you I very much liked the names Oliver or Johnathan for a little boy, though I’m not sure that either suits him well enough. I suppose after tomorrow we will have enough time to think on the subject together.

I must get some final things together, my dear, and so I must depart. Tomorrow we will run together and the children will get to be actual children. O, we can go to the park together! They so rarely go outside together. They can play without the fear of their father noticing. Not that the man deserves the title of father, mind you.

I miss you, my darling. I hope you don’t mind receiving seven new little siblings!
All my love,
Mum xx)

There are damp circles on the open page, and Five has to blink a few times before realizing that they’re his own tears dripping onto the journal. Because he knows. Perhaps he always had.

He’d ignored the fact that Nanny Elaine would never leave that picture behind. Ignored the fact that none of the nannies would throw out perfectly good and serviceable clothes. They hadn’t left, not willingly. Five had no doubt that Dad’s had a hand in their untimely exits, not even being able to stop and collect their belongings.

Nanny Ruby had wanted them. She’d wanted to take them away, to love them. She’d wanted to take them to the park, and let them play together, she’d not wanted them to do their training.

There was a truth in these pages, a truth that they could have had it all. That they could have been a proper family, with a proper parent who loved them, instead of whatever facsimile they’d been forced into by Dad. If they were to be adopted, then why not by someone who kissed their tears again? Who tucked their artwork between pages and saved them? Who read to them let them choose what book to read next?

Five had been loved.

Perhaps it was that which stung most of all, the knowledge of things that could have been. The knowledge of how things weren’t.

Five had always known that Dad didn’t love them, sort of. Well, he’d known that if what Dad felt for them was love then he didn’t want it. But this? This was further proof. There was such a stark and terrible difference between Nanny Ruby’s gentle kindness and Reginald’s indifferent cruelty. Five knew now that there had been an option for something he so dearly wished for, and it had never had a chance to come into fruition.

It hurt, and Five couldn’t stop the hot tears from spilling down his cheeks at the realizations of the day.

The others couldn’t know. They couldn’t feel this same pain, couldn’t know how easily their fates could have fallen in another direction. Their life was fine, because it was the only life they had ever known. There were no options, no multiple-choices. There was Dad, the end-all be-all to their family.

If they knew that they had been loved, they would only feel the absence of it all the more keenly.

So Five shoved the journal up his shirt, exiting the storage room with far more care than he’d entered it. He knew all the creaky steps in the house and avoided them with skill as he walked as quickly as he could back to his room without being seen. The journal burned against his skin the entire way, but no one stopped him. No one caught him.

He dropped to his knees as soon as he got into his room, prying up the loose floorboard he’d discovered the other day with fervor. As soon as it was up, he was pulling the journal from under his shirt and shoving it in the hole and recovering it up. It was almost a relief, having it out of sight.

It was better this way.

His siblings couldn’t know, couldn’t find out how close they’d come - not when Five was hurting so much he felt like he couldn’t breathe. Not when he collapsed onto his bed and pulled Bear into his arms and just started sobbing to try and get all the hurt out of his system. He didn’t want any of his siblings to feel the way he did right now, not ever.

It was the worst feeling in the world, knowing you were loved once upon a time. And knowing with absolute certainty that you weren’t anymore.

No, it was better this way, with the journal hidden away from prying eyes. With the only one left hurting in the wake of everything being Five. He could handle the hurt, given just a little time. He could.

He just wished he didn’t have to.

Chapter Text

Five had a plan.

He’d realized at age twelve that Reginald Hargreeves would never change, that he would never be a proper father to them, that he would never stop hurting them.

(It wasn’t always physical, either. He could see the damage done to Luther, who wanted attention and approval so much he was willing to do just about anything to get it. He could see how Vanya became more and more withdrawn with each casual dismissal of her existence. He could see how careless Allison was with her power, knowing that as long as she didn’t turn it on Dad she could do essentially whatever she pleased. They were all so very damaged.)

Five had spent his entire life trying to intervene, trying to protect and guard his family in every way he could. He’d tried to call down everything on himself, fulling willing to sacrifice himself if it meant his siblings were spared. He’d spent so much time picking up the pieces when he failed to prevent things, doing damage control and having to do so without revealing that it was what he was doing in the first place.

He’d spent so long studying the equation of his life, trying to figure out what factors to add and subtract, that he didn’t realize the solution was staring him in the face.

Remove the variables. Remove Reginald Hargreeves from the equation, and they could be happy. Hell, remove them from the equation, take them away from the training, off of the hamster wheel Reginald had them running in circles on.

That’s when he started planning, when he started taking.

He wasn’t an idiot. He noticed Klaus’s sticky fingers and the blunts that showed up in his brother’s hands and pockets. There was over forty rooms in the house, many of them containing things easily traded for drugs. Five had thought about intervening, but - Klaus was calmer. He didn’t jump at shadows anymore, almost too relaxed.

Five couldn’t take something away from his brother if it helped. But once they got out they could address the issue, once they got away from Dad then Klaus wouldn’t have to be stoned out of his mind to deal with his life. There would be no more training, they would be free.

He clung to that thought every time Klaus stared right through him, every time Klaus said something completely nonsensical. Soon, Klaus wouldn’t need the drugs. Soon.

But Klaus wasn’t the only one with sticky fingers, and Five’s powers turned out to be rather handy at the best of times. Small items, he could move. Useful when it came to swapping out a gun for a stapler in a robber’s hand, even more useful when it came to stealing.

There were loose floorboards in Five’s room, underneath of which there were two shoeboxes. One contained his treasures (two books, the left arm of a teddy bear, half a blue crayon, the corner piece of a puzzle that never got finished, a handful of receipts from Griddy’s diner, a moon shaped nightlight that no longer worked) and the other contained his plan.

The money was stacked neatly to one side, bills of all sizes and states of rumpledness. Not nearly as much as was probably needed, but he’d recently spent a good chunk of it on the other thing stacked neatly to one side. Fake IDs, all of them with his siblings faces pasted on them and claiming that they were all sixteen (he would have gone with eighteen, but he’d been assured that he couldn’t pass for that - sixteen was pushing it enough).

It had been a… stressful night, to say the least, when Five had broken into Dad’s office and stolen their photos from their files. The only good thing was that Dad’s birthday photos of them for his records were as good as any DMV photo. It was fortunate that they’d only just turned thirteen, the more recent the photos the better.

It wasn’t like he could just ask his siblings to line up and take their pictures without getting any questions regarding it.

He also had a map of the city tucked into his plan box, marked up with potential places of interest. He figured that they could probably buy bus tickets and get out of the city at some point, but before that they’d need to figure out how to lay low. It’s not like they were inconspicuous. They were the Umbrella Academy - Dad had them out stopping robberies and giving interviews. They’d already been on the cover of magazines. They had merchandise.

All of them except Vanya were recognizable, especially in their Umbrella Academy uniforms. Those would have to be the first things they ditched. It’s not like Five was adverse to theft, and his powers lent themselves admirably to the task, but he was pretty sure his more ‘heroic’ siblings would not approve.

Which means that Five needs more funds before he can even think of trying to get them out.

Of course, that leads to another problem - getting them all out in the first place. While Five doesn’t think he’d get too much backlash from the lower numbers on the spectrum, Luther and Diego would definitely present problems in their own ways.

Luther would never want to leave Dad. He was still convinced that Dad loved them - he didn’t know any better of course, but it was still frustrating to Five. To be fair, if anyone in the family could lay claim to any amount of Dad’s affection it was probably Luther who was consistently the favored child. He was the leader of the Umbrella Academy, after all.

Diego wouldn’t go fetch a glass of water if Dad was on fire, so that wasn’t the issue. The issue was Mom.

No matter how much Five wanted to, he couldn’t think of a way to bring Mom with them. It would admittedly be easier if they had Mom, having an adult with them who wasn’t associated in any way shape or form with the Umbrella Academy, but the unfortunate reality was that it was nigh impossible.

For starters, Mom was a robot. She needed to recharge. In the mansion she had a recharging station, but there wasn’t exactly advanced robotics technology on the market right now. They couldn’t just waltz out of the manor with the whole seating area Mom ‘slept’ on. She would end up running out of power and becoming deadweight far too soon into their endeavor, and because Diego would always refuse to leave her behind it would become an entire ordeal.

Not to mention the fact that Five was pretty sure that Dad would be able to track them through her. Dad was nothing if not thorough in his own way, and if anyone was capable of programming Mom to give off signals or whatever for a ‘just in case’ scenario it was Dad. Paranoid old bastard.

And even if there weren’t those two very big obstacles in the way, there was no guarantee that Mom would even leave. She was programmed by Dad. She probably had codes that ordered her to report on them and prevent them from doing things entirely unthinkable (like running away). That was the whole reason that Five had always been wary of confiding in Mom. For all he knew, Mom uploaded her memory somewhere for Dad to browse through at his leisure as an extra camera and security measure. He certainly wouldn’t put it past Dad.

So yeah, clearly the only logical solution was to leave Mom behind. Which meant that Diego would be difficult.

The key, in Five’s opinion, was securing an allegiance with Allison. He wasn’t particularly proud of this solution, but if he got Allison on his side then she could simply… rumor the more disagreeable siblings into complying until they got far enough away that it wouldn’t matter anymore.

Five hated that his plan included overwriting his siblings’ free will, but desperate times called for desperate measures and all that. The most important thing was getting them all out from underneath Reginald Hargreeves’ thumb before anything else, and he was sure in time they would come to see that it was the best decision to be made.

(And even if they hated him for it, Five could bear that. He could bear anything as long as they were safe.)

The plan was coming together though, he had the IDs. He just needed more funds, which could easily be collected in the next few months. Just a few months longer under this roof while he put the final touches in place, until he could bribe Allison into agreeing with his plan.

Just one thing, first. Five needed to be as capable as humanly possible of looking after his siblings, which meant that he needed to have the best grasp of his powers that he could be capable of. Dad was terrible and cruel and awful, but he was smart and had an uncanny ability to push them to their limits.

There was one thing that was lurking in the corner of his mind, one thing that he wanted to train with before he fled.

Time travel.

The allure was clear - if Five could jump to another time, could jump with his siblings to another time, then worrying about being found by Dad would be a moot point. They’d be free from him in a way they would never be able to in this timeline for as long as Reginald lived.

He’d already broached the topic with Dad briefly, only to be shot down. Five knew why - because it was something that Five could use to escape more thoroughly that anything else. It was something that gave Five the ability to slip though Dad’s fingers in a way that Dad couldn’t try and come after him.

Because at the end of the day, Dad was ordinary.

No matter how many times he hurled that word at Vanya, the truth was simple: Dad was no more extraordinary than his daughter. He didn’t have powers - all he had to his name was enough money and eccentricity that people didn’t bat an eye at the fact that he violated pretty much every child endangerment law known to man.

(He’d waited for weeks after their debut for someone to come and take them away. They’d killed people, after all. Surely the use of lethal force would bring… something down on their heads. Hadn’t there just been that boy on the news who killed his father? Even children weren’t exempt from the law. But no one had come, and Dad just continued to send them out on missions and… nothing changed.

Five couldn’t help but wonder if there hadn’t been a… liberal application of Allison’s ability involved. Dad had always been a fan of seizing training opportunities, after all. Or maybe people just assumed that because they had powers, they didn’t count as humans. Dad certainly didn’t.)

Regardless, he was doing well with his spatial jumps. He knew he was ready, all he had to do was convince Dad of that fact.

He could frame it as arrogance, the natural progression of his abilities. He could show no indication that he even conceived of it as a way to escape, as a way to run. Surely Dad would love to experiment with something so interesting as time travel. Goodness knows he was more than ready to craft experiments around every other aspect of their abilities.

Five could bring it to a confrontation. Dinner, tonight. He could force Dad’s hand.

He just needed some time, but the balance between time and getting out was a delicate one. He just needed a few more months, a few measly little months to gather more resources was nothing in the grand scheme of things, right? They’d survived for thirteen years now, a few months wouldn’t hurt anyone.

Soon. Soon they would be free, all of them.

(The worst thing about finding his siblings in the apocalypse was finding them in the rubble of the mansion. The knowledge that they’d been there, that they hadn’t escaped from under Dad’s thumb. That he’d left them alone, left them to rot.

If he hadn’t been so secretive, if he’d just told them then they could have left themselves. Could have used what he’d collected for themselves, could have gotten out themselves. He was too selfish, too tied up in being the ringleader of the operation, and it was his fault.

When he finally found Vanya’s book in the rubble, he cried. He cried even knowing that it was a pathetic waste of fluid, even knowing that he couldn’t spare what little water was pouring down his cheeks.

He cried for Ben, who had died. Cried for the fact that he hadn’t been there, for the fact that he’d abandoned them. If he’d have stayed, if he’d have just been content with spatial jumps and planned better then Ben would be alive. Would be safe. But he’d left and his brother had paid for it.

He cried again with relief when he realized that not everyone had stayed with Dad, that the rest of them had gotten out when they turned eighteen. All of them except Luther, of course.

Ben was dead and Vanya was - somewhere. Probably buried under the rubble of one of the building, lost and alone because clearly whatever fight had taken place they hadn’t bothered to include their ordinary sibling. Five couldn’t even blame them for it, they were probably only trying to protect her. What were they supposed to do, put her in danger just so she could die with them and Five could have some closure?

He didn’t have the strength to move some of the rubble, nor did he have the strength to dig four graves. Instead he piled the rubble he could move atop his siblings in silence, building them each their own cairns.

He covers their faces and hopes that now they’re at peace, that in death they have managed to finally escape.

Five Hargreeves grieves alone at the end of the world, grieves for what could have been. The life they could have had. Grieves for the sights they never saw and the adventures they never went on. He grieves for the childhoods that were never theirs to be had.

Five Hargreeves is alone at the end of the world, and he almost thinks that he deserves it.)