WARNINGS: mentions of harassment, implied child abuse, GRAPHIC DESCRIPTIONS OF TORTURE, BLOOD AND GORE.
Chapter Soundtrack: watch?v=BF1DQr5dKW8
The day that wasn't (I).
Throughout all of history, very few names are able to trigger real panic at the Commission. As far as Five knows, the most significant ones, lately, are Abomination and Namibia Boat.
Nobody outside management truly knows what the former means, yet Commission's employees and temporal assassins alike fear it and tell terrifying stories about the Abomination to their children, to scare them into behaving when they're throwing tantrums.
It is publicly known, on the other hand, what the second name refers to. And that makes it nothing less than the most hated one throughout all the organization chart.
Namibia Boat's intentions and reasons have never been discovered; all that is known, is that they're a small but prolific organization of skilled people who know how to time travel and alter timelines to their liking in such a subtle and efficient way that the Commission has never managed to undo what they create. Some times they sign their handiwork, leaving their name written on a wall or in flammable liquid set on fire onto the concrete. Other times they simply kill the hitmen sent to neutralize them.
Temporal assassins compete for the privilege of hunting them down.
Five himself has been tasked several times with thwarting their intervention, arriving on site just to find the enemy's signature freshly painted or already ablaze, and there has been a time in which this used to frustrate him. As he sets off to his new job with Handler, however, he finds himself wondering if having to have those who have been his natural enemies for years so close isn't actually a terrific opportunity to stop the Apocalypse.
"I'd like to discuss the logistics of my family's safety at your earliest convenience. As well as this body replacement" Five cuts his boss' chit-chat short as soon as they enter the Commission's headquarter, intolerant of the long, elaborate panegyric Handler has just given him about what, he assumes, are his qualities she most esteems. He has only heard white noise.
"Such chutzpah! It's refreshing, I'll admit" the woman chirps, tidying her hair. "Slow down, Five. All in good time. In fact, now that you've agreed to work with us, we've got all the time in the world".
Handler guides him along a corridor he has never gone through, and shows him the room from which the briefcases come, an endless string of case managers sitting at their desks and making sure the historical events they've been entrusted with take place as expected, and the room full of pneumatic tubes from which the orders for the assassins depart.
"Any queries, so far?" she asks right in front of the Tube Room's door. Five's eyes narrow into two slits.
"Yeah. Who was the case manager handling me?".
"Ah! You mean the Apocalypse!" Handler giggles, stroking one of his cheeks and patting the other one. She hasn't stopped touching him for a moment.
Dot is a woman dressed in light blue and extremely eager to please. Five watches her smile and nod as Handler explains how she was the one who noticed his presence in 2019 and reported it to the Directors.
"No hard feelings" she says with a too bright smile, and as he gives her the evil eye the boy realizes Dot never ordered a hitman to kill him perhaps because the Commission believed he would have died in that wasteland anyway, sooner or later. Against all odds, however, he has survived, and for more than forty years they've deliberately left him to rot with hunger, cold, loneliness and remorse as his only company. When he'll leave, Five decides, he'll do it by causing as much damage as possible.
Handler and her white noise continue with another soliloquy, at the end of which a hand lands on Five's shoulder, the woman raises her voice to attract the other employees' attention and the office plunges into silence. A giggle, a pat, and she waltzes on the other side of the desk in front of Dot's one. It seems that Five and Apocalypse Lady will have to work very closely.
'How convenient'.
"I suspect…you like a challenge, Five". The chair's legs annoyingly scratch against the floor, as it gets moved and patted too, for good measure. "Which is why I've given you a particularly complex first case. It's too bad Joseph Späh decided against sabotaging the fuel tank. It would have been so much easier…anyhoo, if you have any questions, I'll be right behind you".
Handler finally leaves, accompanied by the sound of her heels, and Five, sitting at a desk to work as a bureaucrat for the first time in his life, doesn't know whether to be relieved or not.
When he puts the red folder to the side and makes to start working with the typewriter, his eyes fall on the plate on the desk. 'MR. FIVE ', it says, and was already there when he arrived. Somehow, the Commission has been expecting his return.
.oO°Oo.
Despite Handler having labeled the case as 'particularly complex', Five is confident about being able to solve it with a single order via tube; what he did not take into account, unfortunately, is the eventuality of being terrible at typewriting. That ticks him off.
"Hiya, Five! How's it going?" Dot trills as she watches him rip the paper, and Five decides to take his frustration out on her. It doesn't matter she didn't have him killed, he doesn't trust her. She's a bitch.
"I must have utter silence in order to complete this task".
"Oh, okay…".
Surprisingly, Dot tries to talk to him a couple more times, one of which she gets rudely dismissed and the other simply ignored. Five has only one thing in mind: finding clues on how to thwart the Apocalypse. So he goes to the Tube Room and makes to directly send the message to the agent awaiting his orders on the field - who he knows are Hazel and Cha Cha. Unfortunately, he gets interrupted.
"I'm afraid that's not procedure" Handler warns him sweetly, popping out of nowhere. "Five, meet Gloria. Gloria is perhaps the single most vital cog in our machine".
"Aaaaw" coos the old lady coming forward and waving a hand as to blandish an overly-sugary niece. Five is surprised, when he finds himself hinting a smile at her: he's never been one to feel solicitous toward old ladies.
"Gloria, this is Number Fiver".
"Look at yooou, deadly little thing! So happy we decided to close the contract on you life!".
From how she looks at him, it is clear how Gloria thinks him an adorable child even though she perfectly knows what he's capable of. The joke's on her. Five no longer has any qualm about hurting her, now.
Handler takes the liberty to go through how he decided to neutralize the threat to the timeline: she unrolls the slip of paper, reads what is written on it and Five proceeds to explain the plan he hatched to make sure LZ 129 Hindenburg burns in the sky of New Jersey on the established date without making the correction too obvious. As he does so, she looks delighted, touches him some more, and the boy can't help but feel proud about his work. It's imaginative, subtle, precise and effective, even though produced in little time. It's a masterful job, and he knows it.
'So much for the guy who just told his brother to not like killing. What's wrong, with me?' he thinks, the derogatory part of himself battling with the gloating one. Five makes his peace by thinking that, however blood-stained his hands may be, it's to keep his siblings safe that he does what he does.
And after all, it's been amusing to see Gloria repeating the noise he's made to mimic the Hindenburg's explosion.
.oO°Oo.
"I'm sure you've all heard that Mr Five has proven to be as adept with a pen as he was with a sword". Five takes that as the right moment to get away from Handler and go back to minding his own business; once he reaches his desk, he finds a new red folder waiting and starts leafing through it with false interest, reducing his superior's voice to background noise. She's publicly humiliating someone now, and he doesn't have the time to listen to her.
The siren for lunch break's start is the other signal Five has been fervently waiting for. Looking up he sees Handler leaving in the company of a guy to whom she's saying who knows what. Quick and silent as a weasel, the boy grabs the Dot's red file and hides it under his vest; once he reaches one of the restroom's cubicles, however, he makes a tremendously frustrating discovery. Somebody probably already suspects of him, because a sheet with a smiley face printed on it's all he finds in Dot's folder. And on top, someone's coming. Someone wearing high heels.
"Shit!".
"So, how's your first day going?".
"Couldn't be better!" Five lies through his teeth.
"Glad to hear it!" Handler sing-songs as she sits down and starts to noisily do her business. Not yet satisfied, she even starts to forcibly cough. She's so unrefined and intrusive that even Klaus would be appalled.
"Ah. I burned my rugae. Ever burnt your rugae?".
'No, and I didn't ask for an explanation because I don't care'.
"Ruuuugaaaeeeeeee…the ridges of the hard palate that help pass food to the esophagus. Anyway: I'm on a liquid diet for two days, hence the marathon of urination. One faulty cog and nothing works as it should".
Five awkwardly slips the folder under his vest again and pulls his jacket tight around himself, feeling strangely violated. "You know, we value integrity at the office above all else. Trust is essential, and that trust is…built over time. But in the event of a breach, the Commission will act swiftly and without mercy. An efficiency I'm sure you above all people can appreciate, Number Five!".
Corrigendum, Handler's definitely keeping a close eye on him. Does she already know about the folder he keeps hidden under his clothes?
"I'm feeling peckish. Have you had your lunch?".
"Not yet".
"Great. How would you like to lunch with me in my office? You can eat solids foods, and I can live vicariously…through you!". The woman's face peeks at him from above the cubicle door, and Five has to fight with all his might against the urge to gouge her eyes out with his bare hands. He'd like to escape, partly for he has better things to do and also because he already can't stand her anymore, but that would only make her more suspicious. So he puts on a smile that people seem to find irresistible, ever since he's a kid again, and accepts.
As they walk toward her office, Handler chit-chats about this and that, animatedly gesticulating; for what is probably the sixteenth time in a few hours, Five refuses to listen to her and thinks about how to escape her clutches to do something useful to prevent the world from becoming the nightmare he has grown up in. A few meters from their destination, though, Handler gasps and brusquely stops on her tracks.
"Oh! But I forgot you and I have unfinished business!" she says with eyes wide open and a voice that sounds too enthusiast. Five is dumbfounded, and - even if he would never admit it - a tad scared.
"Huh?" it's all he manages to utter, while in his head's privacy he's whimpering 'Oh god…'. The woman in black suggestively smiles, and taking advantage of finding him with his hands tucked into his pockets, links arms with him.
"Come with me".
'You do realize I'm under the age of consent, right now? How actually sick are you? Get off me!' the boy slightly panicks, while she drags him through infinite corridors and stairwells that all look alike; when they reach what seems a windowless dungeon with heavy metal doors all lined up along a rather shabby tiled wall, he realizes they're alone and cringes.
'Oh, for fuck's sa-'.
Surprisingly, Handler reaches out with her free hand and knocks on a door; a few seconds later, one of the agents in black overalls and red gas masks greets them.
"We'd like to visit your little protègèe".
The agent only nods, almost mechanically, and silently leads them through an antechamber; as they cross it, their ears detect muffled but still clearly distinguishable bloodcurdling screams.
Although blood, tears and many other less noble bodily fluids are no news for Five, nothing could prepare him for what he's about to see. When the cell's door opens, his green eyes fall onto a lump of limbs, blood-stained cloth and matted hair.
For a moment all he can see is a stringy mop amidst rubble and ash in an absolute silence that smells of decay, but then he shakes the vision off and his senses reboot.
Unfortunately so.
Because the agent in the cell has grabbed the prisoner by the hair, forcing her head turned toward him and Handler, and blue-green eyes look at him, one of them framed by swollen lids, both bloodshot and through a fog of tears. The prisoner is handcuffed, dressed in what looks to be a hospital gown, has been brutally beaten and besides the rough hand tightly holding her by the hair, she's being forced into submission with a cattle prod's aid.
Five feels his insides freeze. He knows those eyes, he knows that dear face, even if it's more adult-looking and battered than the one he has dreamed of more times than he can count, after becoming the world's last man standing.
'Marben!'.
"Here she is, my very favorite little Boat! Doesn't she look like someone you've seen before?" chirps Handler, lighting herself a cigarette; the boy seems to have lost the ability to speak for himself.
"I…huh…".
"Come on, Five, try harder!" the woman in black laughs with what sounds like genuine fun. A tap of a finger, and the ash from her cigarette falls onto the cell's bloodied floor. "Many years have passed, I'll give you that!" Handler concedes, putting her lips to an appalled Five's ear. "Although I think you've already figured out who she is…why don't you just go ahead and say it?".
'Because I'll be damned, if I say something you still don't know and she ends up even more in trouble!' he thinks, paralyzed by rage and fear alike.
"Ugh...stop hitting on the boy or I'll be sick all over your Louboutins" groans the prisoner, surprising everyone. Five jolts out of his stupor, but unfortunately he's not the only one to do so: preceding any reaction from the agent, Handler extinguishes her cigarette by pressing it against Marben's neck, making her hiss in pain and show her blood-stained teeth like a feral animal.
"Witty retorts won't get you anything good" Five's boss says. The prisoner lets out a broken, humorless laugh.
"No, let's be totally clear: you're the one who won't get anything. At. All!".
Even though he wishes nothing more than to reach out for her, the boy forces himself to stay put and keep his mouth shut as he watches Handler slap Marben's bruised face, sending her tumbling to the floor while the agent in the gas mask prepares to stick the cattle prod in the prisoner's back.
Five is horrified to realize Marben's life has roughly become like the one he and his siblings led within the Umbrella Academy. He gets blindly furious as he thinks that, before then, she too must have suffered beatings, torture and who knows what else, in the almost seventeen years they haven't seen each other.
It's a thousand times worse than enduring torture himself, to stand still; to watch Marben writhe and suffer is like starting all over again.
"You're sure her face doesn't look familiar, Five? Truly?" it's what Handler asks him when, with a kick, the agent turns the tortured woman on her back; who knows where, he finds the strength to nod, and his boss resorts to kicking the prisoner in the ribs. "You, scum! Have you ever seen this boy, before?".
Wheezing, Marben looks up at Five's face. To beg with his eyes without making it evident is the hardest thing the boy has ever done; apparently, however, he manages to get the message across, because she too denies with a shake of her head. And although that's what he wanted, Five feels like he just got stabbed.
"This is turning out to be needlessly frustrating".
Marben scoffs at Handler's whining.
"I could keep doing this all day, you know".
One of Handler's shiny red stilettos lands in the center of Marben's chest, pressing.
"Do not tempt me. We're in no rush, time doesn't exist here! And we know how to be oh so imaginative! Denailing, electric shock, lashing, iron branding…you name one, we're experts about it! So what do you choose?". Under her shoe, Marben just gasps for breath. "I'll pick for you, the-".
"Ho-how is it even possible for this woman to be from Namibia Boat?" Five wills himself to ask, then; he has clothed himself with all the composure he has managed to muster, and with his hands in his pockets and a listless expression on his face he almost looks like his usual self. His voice breaks a little, but he ardently hopes Handler will deem it juvenile and sweet.
The woman in black bursts out laughing and looks at him in disbelief - luckily taking her foot off the prisoner's chest.
"Five, you surprise me! I mean, we know each other well and surely you've got your flaws, but...I would never have believed you a sexist!".
"This has nothing to do with sex!" the boy blurts out in outrage, and his superior's expression becomes flirtatious.
"Doesn't it?".
"Oh, heck..." Marben rasps from the floor, disgusted. "You two have been together, haven't you?".
Five feels himself violently blush and longs for a chasm to open under his feet and swallow him.
"How about telling us something that might be of any real interest?" Handler crouches down to impatiently bark in her face.
"You look like Professor Umbridge's goth sister".
This time, Marben earns herself a kick in the face.
"Jesus, stop!" Five yells, he doesn't know whether to Handler or Marben. He can't put his finger on what they're both trying to achieve: has Marben become an idiot and a masochist, in all the years they've been apart? And is Handler trying to intimidate him or to be possessive of him in front of who, he dreads, she knows has been his girlfriend, long ago?
"What's wrong, Five? Are our celebrations not to your liking?" Handler asks puzzled when she sees him reaching out in hers and Marben's general direction. "Don't tell me violence upsets you, now that you're no longer a temporal assassin?!".
The boy simply ignores her.
"Why is she being tortured?".
"Oh, my…you got soft!" the woman in black flippantly giggles. "Or…are you finally starting to remember something about her?".
"What is there to remember? We never met!" is Five's exasperated retort, which Handler just brushes off with a careless wave of her hand.
"Relax, Five!".
"You said it yourself, Namibia Boat have always given us a hard time. Even to me" the boy adds for good measure, to emphasize how he's not emotionally involved in the matter, only on a professional level. "Don't you want her dead? Just kill her and be done with it!".
"But that's where things start to get fun! She's keeping some things from us…like, for example, what she and her besties get from messing up with the timelines, or…how they manage to time travel, who they take orders from!".
"This isn't practical at all. It's just a waste of time, nothing more, nothing less" Five restlessly says, starting to pace back and forth in front of the door, one hand in his pocket and the other one drawing wild arcs into the air.
"Yet, is how your…former colleagues manage to extract all kinds of information. Have you already forgotten?".
Handler sounds like she's starting to doubt his wit, now; Five stops his wandering and looks at her like she is the one being slow.
"No. But temporal assassins have time to waste. We don't. We need to improve, so the next Namibia Boat - or whatever they'll want to be called - that will be coming to us will no longer pose as a threat!".
"You want to offer suggestions about improving the protocols?".
"I may".
At that, Handler smiles intrigued and raises from the floor, completely forgetting about Marben which gets left on the cold tiles, with the only company of her ragged breathing and her tormentor.
"Let's discuss it over lunch, then, shall we?". Five nods, frowning, and begrudgingly allows his boss to link arms with him again.
"I'll…find a way to…come looking for you…if it turns out yoh…you're a fucking child…predator!" Marben coughs at their retreating backs. With a devilish smile, Handler turns just slightly to throw her a glance.
"Yeah, you got yourself a reputation for doing that, but I'm not scared. You're to be disposed of very soon anyway".
"I'm not gonna yield, not even in your wildest dreams!".
"Oh, we'll see".
As she turns again to make for the door, Handler's whimsical eyes get caught by something that makes her gasp; Five follows her gaze and sees a pair of red, high heeled sandals covered in spangles. Under everyone's gaze, Handler snatches them from the top of the cabinet on which the've been abandoned, and then throws Marben a grin.
"These are coming with me. I chose lashing…and electric shock!" the woman in black tells the agent, and then they're out.
The last thing Five hears, is the sound of a messy scuffle. It's Marben, painfully and tiredly trying to escape from her jailer because she refuses to go down without a fight.
He only hopes to find her alive, when he'll finally come up with a way to whisk her away and go save humanity.
A/N:...I bet this wasn't the reunion you've been anticipating since 'By your window' ended. You're welcome.
