A/N: This is kinda my headcanon of why Five is just Five. Sorry if I got some backstory things wrong! I don't know if it ever actually gets explained what country everyone is really from. I've never read the comics, just a ho for the Netflix series.
XXX
The news came unexpectedly, as most things did in the Hargreeves household. Even at seven years old, Five had come to expect it.
Dad, of course, never liked to explain his plans. He would swoop into the room like an overgrown raven and announce things suddenly and dramatically, things like, "Number Four, today we will test the temporal constraints of your ability. Quickly now, straighten your tie."
Or, "There will be no more talking or stories before bed. That time will instead be used for silent contemplation and study."
This time, however, it was Mom making the strange announcement. She had just finished setting down plates of fried eggs and bacon, in a smiley face pattern, as usual. Her wide skirt brushed by the children as she did. It was comforting, like a little fabric kiss. Five generally tried not to get too attached to Mom, knowing Reginald and knowing the ways of the world. One day, he imagined, Dad would suddenly announce that he was shutting her down, that they were too old for a Mom. Or he might re-program her, make her some kind of training dummy for their fights. The old man would not hesitate over any of their protests. But sometimes it was hard not to get attached. He'd never really had a mother, after all.
After all seven of them had plates in front of them, Grace stood at the head of the table, a placid smile on her face. Reginald had his head buried in one of his notebooks, and seemed to take little notice of her.
"I have names for all of you," she said mildly.
There was the slow sound of forks and glasses being put down. All the children turned to look at her with varying levels of confusion. Reginald did not look up from his notes.
"Names?" said Number One.
"Yes," she said. "One for each of you."
"But-" Number Three said, haltingly. "We have names. I'm Three." She nodded across the table. "He's Two."
Mom looked at them adoringly. "Yes, but I mean real names! You call me Mom, but my name is Grace! You see?"
They didn't see. Number Four seemed intrigued. Number Seven seemed apprehensive, as usual. Five, meanwhile, was trying to figure out how this was somehow a new trick of Reginald's to test them. To study them with detached, vague interest as if they were penicillin unexpectedly growing in a sink.
"Why?" Five asked. He glared into Grace's depthless blue eyes. "Is this your idea, or his?"
"My idea, silly!" She said. "One day you'll all be going out into the world, and people will need to know your names!"
Everyone else looked around at each other quizzically. Five continued to glare, thin-mouthed, at Grace.
"Number One," she said, with a breathless air. "Your name will be Luther."
Number One considered this with a bemused expression on his pale face. Grace seemed to have been expecting a bigger reaction, maybe some applause, a cry of joy.
"Hmm," Number Three laughed, as if to herself. "Looo-ther."
"I like it," said Number Four suddenly. It was difficult to tell whether he was being ironic. "It's got a certain...Je suis non quoi."
"Je ne sais quoi," Number Six corrected him.
"Whatever," said Four.
"Why Luther?" asked the boy who was apparently Luther now.
"Your country of origin is England. The name Luther has a Germanic root, like many popular English names. Your name is shared by such notable figures as Martin Luther, founder of the Protestant Church, and by Martin Luther King Jr., a powerful advocate for civil rights. It is a name that projects strength, honor, and justice."
There was a pause while Luther took this in.
"I think it suits you very nicely," Mom said, with a fond smile. "Anyway, eat up everyone! You've got a big day ahead."
"Wait, w-what about the rest of us?" Number Two blurted out. "Don't you have names for us?"
Reginald finally emerged from behind his notes to stare down the table at him. "Enough questions, all of you. Do as she says and finish your breakfast."
But a few moments later, Five heard Mom whisper to Number Two: "I'll tell you yours very soon. After morning training."
XXX
The morning came and went, with everyone feeling hushed and expectant. Mornings in the Hargreeves household involved mostly strength training, some weights, a bit of cardio. Reginald had programmed Mom with an extensive knowledge of fighting styles, with an emphasis on Krav Maga and Kali. Sometimes she threw in some Jiu-Jitsu for fun. Number Seven, of course, watched from the sidelines in between pages of Anna Karenina.
Number Two kept trying to get Grace's attention, feverishly anticipating the arrival of his name. "Mom, watch me do this kick flip combo! Mom, are you watching?"
But it wasn't until the training session was over that she pulled Number Two, panting, aside.
"Your name is Diego," she said, like she was sharing a secret. He gazed up at her with round eyes.
"Do you like it?" she asked.
He mouthed the word to himself. Dee-ay-go. Then he nodded fervently.
Moments later, all the other siblings were crowding around him, asking him what Mom had told him. All except Five. Five was watching from the corner, his arms folded. His siblings might be naive idiots, waiting to be blessed on high with a real name, as if that changed what they were. But he was not. He wouldn't get sucked in.
The whole thing continued throughout the day. Just before lunch it was revealed that Number Three's name was Allison.
Once again, everyone except Five crowded around. Three seemed to enjoy the attention.
"She told me that it's because I'm French. Well, that's where I was born, anyway. She said that it means I'm noble and stuff. I don't know if I like it, though."
"I think it's pretty," said Luther.
They'd been testing out the names they'd been given all morning, calling Number One "Luther" almost as a kind of inside joke. Number Four had kept calling to "Diego" for no reason other than to say his name and then dissolve into laughter.
Now that he knew he was next, Four spent all of lunch pretending not to remember that fact. But he didn't have too long to wait. He was Klaus before the afternoon was up.
Klaus, from the German. Meaning "Victory of the People." The newly appointed Klaus had a hard time wrapping his mind around how that phrase could possibly refer to him. Mom didn't seem to feel like elaborating about it.
But in any case, he eventually accepted his new name with a shrug and an, "Alright, Klaus it is."
After the hubbub surrounding Number Four died down, everyone seemed to turn their attention to Five. This was in the afternoon, when their studies were a little more subdued. They were all supposed to be reading Machiavelli's The Prince and writing a summary of its key points, but instead everyone kept turning around in their chairs to look at Five as if he were about to explode. He held the book higher, covering his eyes to better ignore them.
Despite his own judgement, he found his thoughts drifting away from Machiavelli and to the idea of his name. It was annoying, how curiosity nagged at him. He'd never known, never thought to ask, where he had been born. He wanted to know where he was from. He wanted to know what Mom saw in him, what she thought he might become.
Ugh. He was pathetic. As bad as the rest.
As the afternoon crept to a close, Mom came into the reading room once again, and everyone else turned to stare at Five. She had that look about her again, that giddy, secretive look.
"Number Six," she announced, leaning down to face him. "Your name is Benjamin."
Six, who had been staring at Five, sat up and turned around with a jolt. "What?" he asked. A confused murmur went around the room. Five put his book down slowly.
"Benjamin is a name popular in America, your country of origin. For your namesake, I have chosen Benjamin Franklin, a wise writer, inventor, and founding father of the United States. He often seemed gentle and unassuming, but had a sharp wit and a keen political mind. You may prefer to be called Ben for short."
Number Six looked around the room as if asking for permission from the group. "Uh, okay," he said finally. "Ben."
Mom straightened up again. "Wonderful," she said. "Wash your hands for dinner, everyone."
As soon as she had swept through the doorway, the room exploded in muttering.
"D'you think she forgot you, Five?" asked Diego, with the the annoying confidence of the newly-named.
"Did she tell you already?" Allison demanded. "You have to tell us what she said, Five!"
Number Seven said nothing, but threw Five a baleful look.
Even Number Six, Ben now, turned around. "I'm sorry," he said, his usually wide and apologetic eyes looking even more so now. "I should have said something."
"Everyone shut up!" Five said, bringing his hands down hard on his wooden tabletop. "No, Three, Mom hasn't told me anything. But it doesn't matter because this whole names thing is stupid anyway."
"My name is Allison," she said haughtily. "And I think—"
"Ughh," Five said, sinking low in his chair. "Do you think Dad will ever call us anything besides numbers anyway? That's all we are to him."
"That's not true," said Luther.
Five wished, not for the first time, that he could just time-jump the hell away from this conversation, this day. A spatial jump would have to do.
"Grow up, Number One," he said, and then vanished with a pop into thin air.
XXX
Five was quiet all the way through dinner, not that Reginald noticed. The sun had set, casting harsh shadows over the man's face. Five often thought he looked more like a skull than a person. Though maybe he was projecting something of his personality.
While most of the other kids were ignoring him, Seven kept trying to catch a glance at him from across the table. He could feel her want to say something to him, and he didn't know if he particularly wanted to hear it.
It didn't much matter, though, because after dinner she said it anyway.
"It's okay if you don't have a name," she whispered. They were walking down the long hallways to their rooms and she had hung back for him. "I don't think I'll get one either."
"Of course you will," he'd hissed back at her irritably.
"I'm not part of the team. I don't see why I'd need one," she said.
Five wished she wouldn't say things like that. Of course it was true, but it sounded more terrible than usual out loud.
"My point is," Number Seven said, "You don't need a name. We all already know who you are."
She smiled a wistful smile at him, and Five found himself, at the moment, lost for words. Which was rare. Seven slipped away down the corridor to her room and Five was left alone with his thoughts.
The evenings were supposed to be for practicing individual talents. Reginald would check in on them now and then, giving them tests when he felt they were slacking. But Five didn't feel much like practicing jumps or calculations tonight. He lay in bed, staring up at the ceiling. His forehead hurt from scowling all day.
Through his open door, he eventually heard Mom's heels clicking down the hallway and stopping a few doors down from his.
"Number Seven?" she called. There was the creak of a door opening, some murmurs he couldn't hear.
"Your name is Vanya," he heard Mom say. "From the Russian. It means God is gracious. I think it sounds like a musical name. Don't you?"
The next part was so quiet that Five could barely make it out. But when he strained his ears, he could hear Vanya saying, softly, "Thanks, Mom."
XXX
Five was just starting to fall into a fitful sleep. It was a quiet night, no wind, no rain. He hated the quiet. It drilled into his ears like steel.
But as he was closing his eyes, he started to hear creaking footsteps in the hallway just outside his door. He turned over in bed. It was probably just Reginald, come to attach electrodes while he slept. Five had caught him at it before, and pretended to be asleep each time. It was just less awkward that way, he figured.
This time, however, the footsteps stopped. And knocked.
Five paused. Another knock, a little louder. This time he turned on his bedside light and threw off the covers. He padded over to the door in his bare feet and swung it open.
There in front of him was Grace, holding a little lantern and a finger to her lips.
"Number Five," she whispered. "Would you like to know your name?"
He didn't answer, only looked at her in a suspicious, calculating way. He was calculating exactly how this could be a trick, what Reginald stood to gain from it, what his options were. There weren't many, but he needed to think it through just the same.
Mom seemed to take his silence as answer enough, and said, "Follow me."
Five did as she asked, leaving the door ajar behind him. When they had left the hallway, away from his siblings, Mom whispered to him, "I expect you've been wondering why I left you out, huh?"
"I guess," he said tersely.
"Oh, don't be angry with me. We would never forget about you, silly!"
"We?"
"I just didn't want the others to be jealous," she said. "You know how kids can be."
She turned a sharp corner up the stairs, and Five realized where they were going.
"Uh, are you—?" Five said. Up the stairs was Dad's office, where they were never allowed to set foot. Five was starting to wonder if there was a wire loose in Mom's brain.
"Don't worry. Your father is expecting you," said Mom.
Those two phrases seemed mutually exclusive to Five, but he kept following Grace up the stairs nonetheless.
The doors to Dad's office were open. He was in his usual spot; behind his desk, head bowed over his notes. His office was shadowy, furnished by stuffed exotic birds that looked especially sinister in the dark. It was so quiet, Five could hear the scratching of his pen.
Mom led him to the very edge of the room, at the doorway he and his siblings never crossed through. She made a noise as if to clear her throat, and Reginald looked up from his notes.
"Ah, Number Five. Good. Come in," he said.
Five hesitated at the invisible line. This had to be some kind of test. Of obedience or independence or...something.
He felt Mom's hand on his back. "Go on, honey," she said.
He took two careful steps into the room. Something made him want to stay by the doorway, where escape was slightly more possible.
"Number Five, as you know, I have decided that the time has come for all of you to have names of your own." Reginald was still looking down at his notes even as he said this.
"I thought it was Mom's idea," said Five. Grace still stood by the doorway, a bland smile on her face.
"She came up with the names; I told her to. All except you. You, I wanted to name myself. Come closer, Five."
He beckoned with his hand and Five reluctantly look a few more steps forward, until he could have reached out and touched the smooth mahogany of Dad's desk. Though he didn't.
Five had the feeling that Dad didn't want him to ask any questions. He did anyway. "Why just me?" he asked sharply and then added, as an afterthought, "sir?"
With a thoughtful frown, Reginald put down his pen at last and looked up into Five's face. Five could count on one hand the number of times Dad had looked him, any of them, in the eye. Reginald's eyes were hazel behind the monocle, as it turned out. Who knew.
When he spoke again, his voice lacked its usual crispness, and was slow and thoughtful.
"I see a great deal of myself in you, Number Five. We're both travelers. Both outsiders. We're both highly intelligent and resented for it by...smaller minds." He grimaced slightly, and continued. "I can see a single-mindedness in you, Number Five. A purpose, above all the petty drudgery of the day-to-day. The others...they have potential, but they're so consumed by their feelings, by their need for approval. It's tiresome. But not you. You are not weighted down by such things. You separate yourself. I admire that."
Five had never heard Dad speak so...intimately. It was uncomfortable, to say the least.
Reginald seemed to be waiting for a thank you of some sort, but Five did not supply it. So he ventured on:
"But there's the question of your name, then. Well, I have decided that it would be only fitting to have you continue the family line. And the family name. Reginald Hargreeves Junior, how does that sound?"
At this, Five imagined several things.
He imagined living in this very house when he was as old as Dad, rattling around with a sharp beard and a monocle, surrounded only by beings he had trained or programmed into submission.
He imagined Dad as a child, as old as he was now. Or tried to. He couldn't seem to make it fit in his head.
And then he imagined announcing to the others that he was Reginald Junior now. The looks of contempt, of jealousy, perhaps, in their eyes. Number One would be jealous. Number Four would laugh. And Number Seven—Vanya—she'd be so quietly, so bitterly disappointed in him. He would be disappointed, too.
"I don't know if I like the ring to that, sir," said Five.
Reginald's face shifted. He seemed to disappear again behind his monocle. It took him a moment before he replied.
"This is not a gift that I grant lightly, Number Five," he said.
"Yeah, I know. I get it. So thanks. But no thanks." Five smiled tightly up at his father.
Reginald Hargreeves, if only for a second, looked hurt. Lost. There was infinite satisfaction in knowing that he could be.
"Very well, then, I suppose you have a much more fitting name in mind?" he said huffily.
Five shrugged. He looked back at Grace, waiting by the door. She had been watching the scene with mild interest.
"It's late. I should go back to bed. Walk me back, Mom?"
Five turned for the door, and Reginald called, with his usual blunt, careless manner, "Bright and early tomorrow morning, Number Five. You will be tested on your mathematics skills, and I want to see improvement on those spatial jumps."
If Five had looked back at him, he'd have noticed the crease in Reginald's forehead, the gleam that was something like fear in his eyes. But he didn't look back.
Mom walked with Five back to his room, silent the whole way. If he didn't know any better, he'd swear she was thinking. Or computing, anyway. Whatever it was she did.
When they came to the end of the dark hallway with Five's room ahead, Mom turned and put a hand on his shoulder. He hadn't been expecting it, and almost flinched.
"I think Five is a lovely name," she whispered. "Just lovely."
XXX
The next day, Reginald, of course, pretended that nothing had happened. That it has always been his intention not to give Five a name, for whatever mysterious reason he might have. Like most tyrants, it was of the utmost importance to him to project the appearance of control at all times, even if he didn't have it.
The rest of them never knew. But Five remembered the hurt and fear in his eyes, and held onto it for years to come. Like a talisman. Like a blessing from on high.