Chapter 1 - Return to 2002
"At least we're together at the end. As a family." Luther stared up mournfully through the busted glass in the ceiling, watching with the rest of the team as the horrific scene unfolded.
"This doesn't have to be the end," Five blurted out, desperate enough to try anything. There was no time to do the math, and to check it over countless times as per his usual rigorous methods. He didn't have time to do the calculations on this. They were out of time for anything else. Desperate times call for desperate measures.
"What? What are you saying, Five?" Diego demanded, hope and doubt both apparent on his rough face.
"I think I have a way out of here," the words tumbled out of Five's mouth. "But you gotta trust me on this." A chorus of protests and 'no's followed. He growled under his breath at his brother's idiotic antics in a time like this. He had no patience left for this shit. "Well then we might as well accept our fate, because in less than a minute we're going to be vaporized," Five snapped harshly. The three men exchanged glances, then looked to Five expectantly.
"What's your idea then?"
Finally. "We use my ability to time travel, but this time...I take you with me." It sounded so simple, but he knew it was anything but. He'd never even teleported with Delores, let alone another living being.
"You can do that?" Diego continued, pressing Five for information the boy simply didn't have. No time to beat around the bush. Five shrugged and replied honestly, "I don't know. I've never tried it before."
"What's the worst that can happen?" They replied, defeated. Five gestured to himself with a sarcastic laugh. "You're looking at it. A fifty-eight-year-old man inside a child's body. So there's that." He didn't know enough about his new ability to time travel yet to predict how anything would turn out, or if it would work at all. It was a huge risk, truth be told.
"Oh, what the hell? I'm in." Diego gave in.
Klaus spoke up, anxious to try anything as well. "Yeah, whatever. I'm in."
"Me too," Luther said next. He glanced down to their sister, who still held Vanya on the stage floor, silent from the injuries Vanya had given her. "Allison?" She nodded her confirmation frantically, tears in her eyes. He turned back to Klaus, not forgetting about the 7th member of their party. "What about Ben?" Five could only hope that Ben's consciousness would go along with them. If this worked, they could save his life, too. Klaus turned to an invisible presence, waiting for an answer. "Great. Yeah he's in."
Five wasted no time. They needed to hurry. "Ok great, Luther, grab Vanya." The genetically altered brute of a man hesitated, looking conflicted. "Wait, should we be taking her? I mean she's the cause of the apocalypse. Isn't that like taking the bomb with us?"
"The apocalypse will always happen, and Vanya will always be the cause of it...unless we take her with us and fix her." No one argued, uncertainty clear on their faces, but it was obvious to everyone that no one understood the space-time continuum as thoroughly as Five did. It would have to be a concern for another day. He ushered them over frantically. They were wasting precious seconds. There was no more time to discuss. This was the only potential way out, their only hope. The world was ending.
Five held out his hands, gesturing for everyone to do the same, and they formed a circle, linked together. Wind ripped past them, swirling dust and debris, disheveling their hair and garments. Countless pieces of sheet music swirled around them in blurs of white, adding more noise to the deafening scene they found themselves in the center of. The seven siblings were gathered wearily on the wrecked stage of the Icarus theatre, hands linked, anxiously glancing between Five and the night sky, where their doomed fate rushed closer and closer in the form of giant chunks of the moon that once hung so beautifully above. In just minutes, everything they knew would be turned to rubble and ash.
Five noticed none of it, focusing more intensely than he ever had, knowing that all seven of their lives literally depended on his ability to repeat opening up a time portal. His teeth ground together and eyes squinted shut in pain as he felt the familiar power creeping up inside of him, but louder, more powerful than ever before, making his stomach turn and his head pound incredulously. He hardly remembered who's hands he held on each side, but they surely were regretting their placement in the circle as he dug his fingers into each of his sibling's palms. Never before had he teleported another living being - let alone five adults and a ghost. A familiar blue energy emitted from his palms at last, sparking like electricity, spreading to blanket above the entire group. He could feel it spreading, sucking more and more energy from his body, until it stabilized behind the now flimsy barrier in his consciousness, ready to burst. The amount of pressure coursing through his body was overwhelming.
"It's working!" he heard Luther confirm over the chaos.
The boy forced himself to look up with a grimace, confirming they were all there before he let loose of his power and attempted to jump them to safety. God knows if it were going to work at all, but it was better than everyone dying here again without a chance. Allison stood on his right, then Luther with Vanya held limply in his arms. Her skin was pale white, with dark shadows beneath her her eyes, everything about her transformed by the powers their father had hidden all these years. Gone was the sweet Vanya he once knew as a child. He wished things had been different for her. Diego was on his left, followed by Klaus, with the strange apparition of Ben clinging behind him, tragically and ironically reunited with his siblings at last during the final moments of humanity itself.
They were all here. Together in some twisted sense of humor designed by fate itself. It was time.
"Hold on, it's gonna get messy!" Five shouted over the crackling of the portal. He released the built up energy with a pained scream, watching with amazement as a portal opened up above their heads, surprising himself once again with this newfound ability. Tendrils of energy whipped around as the portal grew. He glanced back to his family, temporary relief washing over him, only to find much younger versions of his siblings standing where adults had once been. The six of them glanced around nervously, eyes wide in disbelief. Five's head spun, dizzy with such a great expense of his energy. He wasn't sure if he was seeing things accurately or not anymore.
With a loud crack, the portal closed over them, and for several moments there was a vast nothingness surrounding each of them. The familiar pulling and tugging he associated with his gift consumed him and the others as they were transported to somewhere - and some time. With another loud crack, the portal reappeared, and the seven of them were placed into existence again from thin air. They dropped to their feet ungracefully, stumbling, still in shock, and still a younger version of themselves. Their oversized clothes hung loosely over their now much smaller bodies, most of them still wearing bowling shoes from the _.
A young Vanya still lay peacefully asleep in her brother's arms, her skin a normal shade instead of the washed out white it had been. Luther himself was proportionate, no longer warped from an experiment gone wrong. Allison reached up to her throat, realizing the sewn up gash on her neck had vanished, leaving perfectly flawless skin behind. Diego, too, had lost his defining facial scarring, and Klaus appeared healthy again instead of the lanky, hollowed out drug addict he had become. Perhaps most amazing, Ben stood in their circle now; real, tangible, and very much alive. Five looked around slowly, wobbling unsteadily, trying to figure out where - and more importantly, when - he had taken them. They were home, he realized with at a glance. This was the academy, still in one piece. That was a good sign.
"Holy shit, it worked," Klaus was the first to speak. "Five, you beautiful son of a bitch, you did it."
Five blankly stared as his brother, unable to process Klaus's words. Sounds were slow, dull, echoing in his ears. His head buzzed dully. If he didn't know any better, he'd have thought he was completely wasted. Delores would have been pissed if that were the case. He was vaguely aware of his siblings staring at him, asking him something, saying his name, when the edges of his vision went dark. Vertigo took over, and he felt himself falling backwards, limp and unable to stop. The back of his skull thumped hard against the floor, and everything went black.
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
The high pitched tone repeated itself again and again, piercing against Five's eardrums, a sharp jab digging into his already pounding head like a knife. His face scrunched up in annoyance. Cracking open an eye, he stirred himself awake, determined to utterly destroy whatever was making that insufferable noise. Turning his head to the left, he found the source. A monitor, reading his vitals apparently. A quick glance around made it obvious where he had found himself. He was in a hospital bed, in the medical wing of the academy. The young man groaned as he tried to push himself into a sitting position - a huge mistake - and fell backwards again into the pillow. His head throbbed, forcing him to sit still for a moment longer. Reaching his arm back, his fingers felt through his hair for the source of the throbbing. A fine line of stitches, sticky with blood. Great. A concussion was the last thing he needed to be dealing with right now.
Gritting through the pain, he forced himself back up, ripping out the wires that attached him to the machine once he was in a reliably stable position. Next was the IV in his left wrist, carefully placed far enough away as to not disfigure the Umbrella tattooed there. A wave of nausea overcame him suddenly. He leaned over the bed railing to vomit. Breathing heavily, he spit the foul taste out, wiping his mouth on the white hospital gown he had found himself in. A string of curses were uttered under his breath at his current limitations. He didn't have time for this right now. Something as pathetic as a bump on the head would not hold him back. Not today. Not after everything he worked for this week, spending years of his life to get to this moment.
Quite suddenly, the door swung open. Five's eyes shot up to regretfully meet those of Reginald Hargreeves. The boy inhaled sharply, finding himself stupidly surprised and at a loss for words. Grace trailed behind Five's adoptive father figure, a happy smile permanently plastered onto her face. She smiled wider as she noticed Five's conscious state, her pseudo-happiness apparent by her programmed expression. Sir Reginald had no such smile. The seemingly emotionless man stopped at the foot of Five's bed, locking eyes with his adoptive son coldly, as per usual. Five's mouth hung open, unsure of exactly what was going on. He had no idea when his portal had taken them to, or how much their father was filled in on the subject, if at all. Where were the others? How was Vanya? A dozen questions raced through his mind, but nothing came out.
"Number Five," his father greeted him abruptly, all business. "I take it your insistent antics to practice time travelling will finally cease now that you've nearly killed yourself with attempts to disobey? At the state you showed up in two nights ago, it seems that you're lucky you made it back at all. Fortunate that the rest of the academy found you when they did." The proud man huffed, clearly unhappy about Five being even partially right in regards to time travelling being feasible and within the boys grasp. Five struggled to keep up with the timeline he found himself stuck in, thinking back to many, many moons ago. He had taken them back to 2002. His heart was heavy with the realization that his past self must have stormed out of the academy just days ago, insistent on jumping forward to a desolate and hopeless future. If only he could have stopped himself from that mistake...but then everything would be different. He couldn't dwell on his own demons right now. Focus on the big picture.
"Two nights ago?" Five questioned at last, eyes narrowing. "I've been unconscious for two days?"
"Quite," the old man confirmed, continuing on to lecture Five mercilessly, not seeming to be very concerned about his son's poor health at the moment. "I don't know how much more clear I could have made it to you. You are not, nor may you ever be, ready to take on the task of time travelling. I assure you there will be consequences for your behavior," he demanded angrily. Five nodded wearily, feeling out of place being lectured by his once deceased father. He hadn't talked to the man in decades. It was surreal, and Five needed to figure out what else was going on before he made any rash decisions or statements that could alter the timeline in a negative way.
Reginald stormed out of the room with a turn of his heel, leaving Grace to dutifully tend to Five. "You really shouldn't be sitting up just yet, dear." She leaned him backwards with a slight amount of force, washing his brow with a cool rag. Five rolled his eyes, sighing and pushing her away after a moment. "Are you hungry, honey? I'll make you something to-"
"No, no, no," he interrupted, pushing himself back up with a grunt. "I need to see the others. Now. Where's Vanya?" His body betrayed him with a loud grumble from his stomach. He hadn't eaten in days, apparently, but he had much bigger concerns on his plate.
"Well she's working on her studies, of course." Grace smiled knowingly, gesturing at the clock on the wall. "Your brothers and sisters are all busy with their work and trainings until four, remember? Their schedule doesn't stop just because you're feeling under the weather. Here take these." She sat down on the edge of his bed, holding a paper cup to his mouth suddenly and dumping the contents in before he could protest. Two pills.
"Now drink." A glass of water was thrust in his hands. Five glared suspiciously at her, frowning at the lack of control he had over his situation. His father may be pissed, and horrible, but he wouldn't poison one of his little experiments. Grace watched until he emptied the glass and handed it back. The robotic woman stood up, turning to the door. "I'll get you some soup, dear. You'll feel better with something in your stomach."
"Grace- I mean Mom, wait, I need-" but she was gone. The boy ran his fingers through his dark hair with a deep sigh, anxiety creeping up on him. There was too much at stake. He needed to know what was going on, now.
Searching for any scrap of energy he could find, he closed his fists and attempted to gather up enough strength to jump to Vanya's room. No luck. He continued, not one to give up, concentrating hard. But nothing happened. His body must still be too weak to teleport. He growled, throwing the blanket off his legs ungracefully, creating a tangled mess of limbs and linen sheets. Struggling, he managed to swing his feet of the edge of the bed, touching the cold tiled floor with his bare feet.
'Right. Hospital gown,' he thought to himself, sighing for the umpteenth time since he awoke. He'd killed for a pair of pants right now. Hell, he'd killed for less. Thrusting himself up with a heave, he cried out suddenly, grasping through his gown at his lower abdomen where a small blood stain was forming. It was the shrapnel wound from before, in the future. He must have ripped the stitches a little. Nothing too concerning at the moment.
Five stood unsteadily, clinging to the wall for support. Determined to find any one of his siblings, he made his way through the large empty room, laboring against the wall weakly, finally reaching the door. Putting a hand on the knob, he was thrown of balance as it suddenly swung outward. He fell forward with it, colliding with another body, tumbling to the ground in a mess of body parts. A crash of broken china rang through the room as a plate smashed into pieces against the tiled floor.
"Five! I'm so sorry. Are you ok?" A young Vanya leaned over him, gingerly pulling him up to a sitting position on the floor. Five cradled the side of his head again, ears ringing. Damn this sensitive state he found himself in. Powering through it for the greater good, he grabbed Vanya tightly by her shoulders, looking her over with a scrutinizing eye as they sat across from each other. She seemed alright. Her eyes were dark instead of the unnatural blue he had witnessed in her chaotic state from the future.
"Vanya," he muttered, putting aside the peculiarities of her age regression. Nothing was weird when you were a member of this family. "What happened after we arrived? We weren't sure what to expect after what happened at the Icarus. Are you hurt?" She leaned back, far away from her brother, shocked at his outburst. Grabbing his hands, she pulled them from her shoulders, squeezing his hands tightly. Her expression seemed...confused. Five cocked his head at her, waiting for an answer, anything at all to fill him in on what he had missed. Her eyes glanced down at his gown, where the growing red stain was glaringly obvious against the pressed white cotton.
"Your stitches! You shouldn't be up right-" the young girl started, brown eyes filled with worry.
"Fuck the stitches," he cursed loudly, pressing on. "I'm fine. But what-"
"Shh," she ushered him, eyes wide at his outburst. A small hand pressed against his lips to quiet him. "The Icarus? What are you going on about? What on earth has gotten into you, Five? I'm fine. You're the one that should be resting. I was just trying to bring you this," Vanya hissed, gesturing to the broken glass scattered around them. A peanut butter and marshmallow sandwich sat amongst the mess, covered in shards and no longer fit for consumption. He almost smiled at the sentiment. It was his favorite. She had remembered, all these years later.
"I overheard Mom telling Dad that you had woken up and I-" she paused, looking down self consciously. "I just wanted to make sure you were ok. Dad was so mad when you stormed out at breakfast. And I - I was scared you weren't going to come back at all." Her eyes met his again, full of angry tears. They fell down her cheeks as she blinked, staring at him with big eyes. Five's brows furrowed, his brain working as fast as it could in its current state. Breakfast? Oh. Breakfast. The breakfast he stormed out of when he time traveled. That was so long ago for him. Forty years, give or take. Did she remember nothing of the last week, nothing of the future? His blue eyes searched her face for answers, but none appeared.
Panic started to fill his chest as he came to the realisation of what was going on. She didn't remember anything. Their Dad's funeral, him returning to 2019, Peabody, the concert. It was 2002, and Vanya was just a thirteen year old ordinary girl again. His breathing became erratic as his mind raced. What about the others? Oh God, what if he was the only one that remembered? Did he bring his entire family back to 2002 and erase their memories of the future and the apocalypse in the process? How would he convince a group of hormonal teenagers to get their shit together long enough to help him stop the end of the world? Five squeezed his eyes tight, trying to calm down as he felt an all too familiar terror crawl across his skin.
Ash rained down. He could smell it in the air.
Everything was burning.
Everyone was gone.
He found himself alone.
He forced his eyes back open and shrieked, clawing backwards away from a vision of his siblings, dead in front of him in an apocalyptic world. "It's not real. It's not real. There's time. I can stop it," he muttered, over and over, cradling his pounding head. A voice cut through his own delirious chanting, but he ignored it.
"Five!" it screamed again, shaking his shoulders roughly this time.
His eyes snapped back open to reality. He reached around desperately for a moment, realizing with a tightening in his chest that Dolores wasn't with him in this present. God, he wished she was. Instead, the young faces of his siblings stood over him, excluding Vanya. Relief washed over him, if even for a moment. They were still alive. Everyone was ok. "Where's Vanya?" he demanded, noticing her absence right away.
"Just breathe, Five. You're fine. It's late, Vanya went to bed already. We all wanted to check on you again." A teenage Ben put a reassuring hand on his brother's shoulder, squeezing gently. Young Allison smiled gently from the end of the bed, no signs of having her throat slashed open. "We are all fine," she assured him. "We all made it back in one piece."
A chuckled snort came from Klaus. "Well, everyone but you, anyways. What the hell, man? You've been out for days, and you still look like shit, like all your stuff from the future carried over."
If looks could kill, Klaus would be dead. Five smiled sarcastically. "Thanks Klaus, I appreciate the input." It was a valid point though - why was he stuck with all of his previous injuries, while everyone else seemed perfectly fine? No bumps, bruises, or scrapes on them. He considered the possibilities. "That could be due to the fact that you all had bodies here in the past, ready to drop a consiousness into. It would explain how Ben is here. My past body is...well, in the future we just left, right now," he added thoughtfully, almost sadly. Their faces fell with him as they realized what that meant. Decades of being alone in a wasteland, leaving a shell of a man behind. Klaus broke the silence with an attempt at humor again.
"I guess you should also know that Dad has officially added no time travelling during meal times to the house rulebook. We'll never know what Herr Carl said in those moments."
Five glared at him, unamused. "You all...you remember, right? Vanya, she-"
"Shot a hole through the moon?" Luther cut in.
"Followed by destroying the entire planet, and everyone on it?" Diego added. "Yeah. We remember." The group exchanged glances wearily. "But Vanya doesn't."
Five sat up slowly, getting five concerned looks and urges to take it easy. His brain was starting to feel almost normal, less fuzzy. Almost. "It could be as simple as her not being conscious when I jumped us into the past," he muttered, calculating in his head. He wished he had a pen. "Or it could be that she's simply emotionally suppressing it. Her mind was incredibly damaged from her powers going berserk. It's not uncommon, even for an average joe without powers. I assume Dad is making her take her pills again, here?" Allison nodded quickly, confirming his thoughts. "Her pills are a sedative I suspect, slowing down her mind, and most importantly to Daddy-dearest, her powers. We're going to have to jump start her memory a bit to see if she remembers anything from the future," he concluded, then added, "It won't be pretty either way."
"Woah, that's obviously a bad idea," Luther started. "Last time she used her powers, even a little, she-"
"Last time she was shut out by her entire family, manipulated by a psychopath, and improperly educated about her own powers." Five glared at his brother. "This time is different. This time we fix her. We train her. There's nothing else that matters more than Vanya keeping her emotions in check." He trailed off, feeling a little sappy with his next words. "She needs us, and she needs our support. There's no way in hell Reggie's going to change from the last time he raised us, so it's going to be up to us to monitor her progression."
The group stood silently around Five's hospital bed, unspoken words of their broken past hanging in the air. None of them had received proper parental love or support growing up, but at least they had each other, for however brief a time. Vanya though...Vanya had no one. Reginald made sure she was secluded and alone.
Diego cleared his throat awkwardly, interrupting the silence with a hushed tone. "So since our dear dad was the one who fucked up this entire family so much to begin with, and hear me out please," he assured, pointing a finger at Luther specifically, "Wouldn't it make sense to...remove him from the situation?" Luther glared at him like he'd grown an extra head.
"You want to kill Dad? What the hell Diego?!" the blond shouted, fists balled up, defensive and ready for a fight. "We can't just walk around killing people for a solution! We're supposed to be saving lives."
"If we're going to kill anyone it should be Peabody," Allison chirped in, contemt for the man who hurt their sister clear on her face. "He's the one that manipulated Vanya's powers to begin with. He dies in the future regardless."
Diego shook his head and threw his hands up in argument. "Dad is the root of the problem, how do you not understand-" Luther laughed, taking over in the middle of his sentence. "Maybe the root of the problem is that we never acted like a team Diego. You all abandoned ship. If you would just work with us-" Diego scoffed at Luther's attempt to turn the conversation around. "Oh you want to talk about the root of the problem, Number One? Let's talk about how you locked our sister up like a criminal instead of dealing with her." The two were at each other's throats, Diego reaching for a hidden blade, Luther taking off his uniform jacket in preparation for a scuffle.
"Shut up," Five shouted horsley, voice cracking. Damn this body. "Everybody just shut up. You pea-brained morons. No one is killing anyone. Do you idiots not understand that doing so would alert the commission to what we've done, and where we are? God knows they may already know as it is. We have no idea how long we're going to be safe here. Granted, they should be distracted for some time seeing as I blew up an entire department, but we can't take unnecessary risks with sudden timeline altercations." No one spoke as he snapped at them. They hadn't considered the possibilities of The Commission catching up with them again. "For once, Luther is right. It's time to work together. If we fail again, then that's it. This is the only thing that stands a chance at changing the timeline in our favor. Now everybody shut their goddamn mouths and start acting like a happy family for one fucking day," he spat out irritably.
"And for Christ's sake, can someone please find me a cup of coffee?"
I've been dying these last few weeks, itching for more Umbrella Academy, so I figured...hey why not! This story will be focusing on Five (because I'm a tad bit obsessed with his character and abilities) and what happens to the group when they jump through time together. There's a very big chance at a Vanya romance. I'll explore that as I go into this next chapter. This is entirely based on the Netflix series with no inkling of how the comics go, but that could change as we go. We'll see. I'm sure I've left mistakes scattered about - I wrote this in a couple of hours with a toddler clinging to me, so I apologize. I hope you enjoyed my little distraction project.
Review and follow please - I'll be posting again soon!
Storm