("What the—?" Ben's head snapped upwards at the whirring/whooshing sound that brushed at his crown. Peering close, he was able to glimpse the wide-eyed stare of his older brother swaddled in that familiar blue that they'd all come to associate with Five's Blinks as he toppled out and onto the countertop next to him).
"Je—Jesus!" Allison cursed, jumping back in fright as Five—briefcase & all—suddenly landed atop the bar's countertop with an audible groan.
("Nngh!" For once, Ben was kind of glad that he was dead because if he wasn't, then he would've been flattened against the stained wood. As it was, his brother simply landed in the space where his legs lay and though it felt as weird as it always did when someone walked through him, it was still better than the alternative).
"You guys…?" Klaus warily murmured as he rose from the chaise where he had collapsed. "Am I still high? Or do you see him too?"
"…Five!" Luther exclaimed after a moment of balking at his brother's sudden (sooty) reappearance. The boy lay wheezing atop the singed briefcase in an effort to regain his breath for a moment before he rolled from the device and stumbled into the waiting arms of his siblings. "Where have you been?!"
("So much for that 'errand' huh, Luther?" Ben sassed, recalling his brother's excuse for Five's absence. Seemingly, not even Luther had a clue as to where Five had run off to).
"Are you all right?!" Allison worried as she moved to catch her unstable brother.
"Who did this?" Luther added, eyes roving over his bedraggled figure.
"Irrelevant" Five dismissed as he rose, waving off the persistent helping hand as he snatched the half-drunk coffee cup from Allison's hands and downed it like a man starved.
"They see him, right?" Klaus asked, turning to Ben with hopeful puppy dog eyes.
("Obviously" Ben replied as he eyed up his brother's war-torn figure. Although he too—despite having felt his brother brush through him—was skeptical).
"So" Five turned to face them as he drained the last dregs of caffeine from his prize. The smoke of his ashen overalls and the fresh blood that clogged at their senses sent protective sides into overdrive. Who had hurt their brother? What had he done? "The apocalypse is in three days and the only chance we have to save the world is, well, us"
"The Umbrella Academy" Luther supplied, filling in the blanks.
"Yeah, but with me, obviously"
("What am I? Chopped liver?" Ben muttered sulkily to himself, pouting just a little).
"Which means if y'all don't get your sideshow acts together and get over yourselves, we're screwed!" Five continued to rant.
("Well, isn't he just a little ray of sunshine?" Ben grumbled, earning an appreciative snort from Klaus).
"Who cares if Dad messed us up? Are we going to let that define us?" Five tried to emanate one of his Father's pre-mission pep-talks. It wasn't going well, but at the very least it seemed to be enough to get the others to align their goals. "No. And to give us a fighting chance to see next week, I've come back with a lead. I know who's responsible for the apocalypse"
Five triumphantly brandished a small slip of parchment paper that had clearly seen better days. Holding it aloft, the boy smirked victoriously as all eyes zoomed in on the little yellow piece of paper and it wasn't long before Allison had reached forward to snatch the offered item. Unfurling the little piece of paper, it seemed to take an age before Allison could actually read and understand what was written on the missive. When she did, she balked.
"This is who we have to stop?" Allison balked, "Vanya?!"
("Little Vanny?" Ben blinked dumbly, "She—she's supposed to end the world?…Vanya?")
"…Whoa, no! Let's—let's go back!" Klaus spluttered, trying to wrap his head around the notion. Yes, Vanya had grown a bit of a backbone in the time that they had been gone, but to end the world? That was a whole other kettle of fish. "I jus—sorry, let's just go back, all right? This is Vanya we're talking about! Our sestra! The—the one who always cried when we stepped on ants, as kids!"
"And the same one who threw me across the room, remember?" Luther retorted, easily jumping on the bandwagon that Vanya had to be taken down (and possibly, by extension, Theodore).
"To be fair" Diego piped up, "You were being a total ass"
"I was not!" Luther replied hotly as he puffed up indignantly.
"Dude" Diego deadpanned. "You threatened her son"
"That box said 'Property of One" Luther explained, as if it were obvious. "And I'm One! It's mine!"
"No, it's not" Diego shook his head in exasperation.
"Yes, it is!"
"If Dad had wanted to give it to you, he would have"
"But I—"
"—Would you two put a cork in it?" Five interjected irritably, "We have more important issues than some box!"
Both brothers sobered at the command as if on instinct; each of them recognising the commanding tone that they'd usually associate with their father. Number Two turned to the side with a sulky pout on his lips whilst Number One sucked at his lower lip with a sour expression upon his face. Neither brother was too happy about being scolded as if they were children, but their brother was right (as per usual), they had more important things to worry about.
"So" Klaus drawled as he snatched the slip of paper from his sister's hand, looking far more like he wanted to decorate the floor in vomit and trotted back over to the chaise. "Who's this Harold Jenkins fellow?"
"I don't know. Yet" Five admitted with a defeated shrug as he tossed the empty coffee cup over his shoulder without a care in the world. "But what I do know that he's partly responsible for the apocalypse. So, we have to find him & Vanya and we have to do it now"
"Yeah, but how are either of them connected to what's gonna happen?" Luther pursued.
"I don't know" Five shrugged.
"So you've just got names? That's it?" Allison quirked a skeptical and disbelieving brow at her brother.
"That's enough!" Five retorted hotly.
"But there's probably dozens of Harold Jenkins' in the city! And no one's seen Vanya in days!"
"Well, then we'd just better start looking!"
"Uh…Dee? You okay in there?" Klaus prodded at his stagnant brother. He had turned blank-faced, wide-eyed and spacey at the other name listed on the missive. "Hello~? Anybody home~?"
"…Ha-Harold Jenkins?" Diego spluttered as he returned to life with cheeks fluttering a puce-coloured splotches. "Harold Jenkins?! Are you kidding me?!"
"See?" Klaus offered the slip of paper to his irate brother, "It says right there: PROTECT HAROLD JENKINS AND VANYA HARGREEVES"
"Son of a bitch!"
"Wait—!" Five perked up, "You know a Harold Jenkins?"
"I know one that I wouldn't mind kicking the crap out of" Diego replied, smiling ever-so-innocently.
"Something you wanna share with the class, Diego?" Allison quirked an expectant brow.
"Harold Jenkins" Diego smiled sardonically, drawing out the anticipation mostly for his brothers' benefit. "Is Vanya's Baby Daddy"
"…What" Five blinked dumbly. "What?!"
"So the end of the world is a family event?" Klaus mused, seeing the light of the situation. "That's…fun"
("And so us" Ben added. Because of course the end of the world was thanks to a Hargreeves family meeting-turned-blowout).
"What—what are you saying?" Luther stammered, trying to wrap his head around all of the information thrown at him.
"It's gonna be a whole damn family reunion!"
"Wait, wait, wait—!" Allison shook her head as she tried to order her thoughts. "Where's Theodore in all of this?"
"Aside from being the son of a nutjob?" Diego replied, "I 'unno"
"Nutjob?"
"Aside from a smattering of few things, Harold took out Teddy's eye when he was seven years old and, y'know, Vanny and him tend to get into it pretty violently"
"Theodore's missing an eye…? Why didn't Vanya say anything…?" Allison murmured, completely aghast that her sister wouldn't tell her about something so dire. No one had an answer for her.
"Now that you mention it" Luther hummed in thought as he recalled the moment that their nephew had awoken in Diego's apartment and couldn't locate his mother, "Theodore did seem rather nonplussed about the whole-missing-mother-and-father-back-in-town-thing when he went to make all those calls"
"…Harold's back in town?" Diego eagerly turned to his brother with an expectant and hesitant brow.
"That's what Theodore said anyway" Luther shrugged.
"…Now I really wanna kick his face in"
"I'm sorry—" Allison interjected, sounding not-at-all apologetic, "—Am I the only one that's—that's skeptical here? I mean, how exactly do you even know all of this about what's-his-name?"
"Harold Jenkins" Five and Diego chorused. The former shifted in discomfort as his hands hovered briefly over his side whilst the latter religiously fingered the hilt of a blade, before returning to the conversation at hand.
"Yeah, him" Allison grunted, "How do you know all that?"
"I'm nosy" Diego shrugged.
"I wasn't talking to you" Allison snorted, "And by the way, we all know just how nosy you are"
"I don't know what you're talking about" Diego smiled innocently—unconvincingly.
"Oh? You don't, Mr I-stalk-my-sister's-dates?" She cocked a brow.
"What?" Diego didn't back down, instead cocking his own hip (however awkwardly with the sling). "Did you think we were just gonna let you screw some random brat behind the shed?"
"Mmhm!" Luther agreed in the background, nodding vigorously as he crossed his arms.
All of the Hargreeves brothers had been particularly protective of their sister(s) when it had come time for dating and boys (Though Luther's reasons were very different than the rest of them). And it had been unanimously decided that no boy was worthy enough; which was ultimately why Allison had left, in the end. Vanya had jumped a couple of steps and left before any of them could even implement any of those tactics towards her, so her 'dating experience' was a little different and short-lived.
"Anyway" Five cleared his throat as he rolled his eyes as the odd (but domestic) little tangent that they'd wandered off onto. He then turned to Allison in order to answer her previous question about how he knew so much and how he had gotten the oh-so-important missive in the first place. "You know those lunatics in masks who attacked the house?"
"Oh yeah, I think I remember those guys" Klaus sassed tiredly as he sprawled himself out across the chaise in an attempt to calm his raging belly. It wasn't working.
"Yeah…" Diego replied accusingly, "The ones that attacked us whilst you were out getting drunk!"
"Yeah, them" Five nodded, completely dismissing the latter half of the sentence. "They were sent by the Temps Commission to stop me from coming back and preventing the end life on Earth"
"The Temps…what?" Allison puzzled.
"My former employer" Five sighed heavily, one hand coming up to tiredly run through his hair and down his face. "They monitor all of Time and Space, to make sure that whatever is s'posed to happen, happens. They believe that the apocalypse is coming in three days, so I went to Commission headquarters and intercepted a message for said lunatics: PROTECT HAROLD JENKINS AND VANYA HARGREEVES. So they must be involved in the apocalypse somehow"
There was a beat of silence following Five's explanation before everyone burst into further chatter and a million questions & comments that clambered overtop of each other in their attempt to be heard. Diego went to pout himself a drink, seemingly distraught by the amount of information being thrown about whilst Klaus curled up on the chaise, tenderly hugging his waist. Both Luther & Allison continued to grill Five with needless questions that seemed to repeat themselves, if worded a little differently. Whilst his siblings were content to grill their resident time traveller, Ben turned to the busted briefcase languishing on the counter beside him. His thoughts ran wild with all the different possibilities he—they—could achieve with something like this. That is, if what Five was saying was true.
Absentmindedly, he called out to Klaus as he fiddled with the dials on the golden lock. ("So, instead of the little blue boxes or busted deloreans, you jump about the timeline with briefcases? Who thought that was a good idea?" Ben mused "I've always like the theory of Quantum Entanglement better).
"…What?" Klaus' brows furrowed in confusion and his expression tinged with amusement as his head lolled over towards his brother who still sat on the countertop. Mercifully the rest of the siblings just ignored their (one-sided) conversation because they were used to Klaus' strange ways and just brushed them off as another one of his drug-induced episodes. Sometimes that steadfast belief had its merits.
("You know I like watching Doctor Who" Ben shrugged as he moved on to inspect the rest of the briefcase. It was one of those old-style briefcases that was bound in black leather and clipped with a plastic handle between the two golden dials. It would've looked like your average business briefcase if not for the sticky blood splattered across the front and the bullet holes that glowed in brilliant blue, sparking every now and then. The thing was clearly broken, but it was still a magnificent piece of technology nonetheless.
"Doctor…what?" Klaus puzzled.
("Doctor Who" Ben corrected, "Y'know, 1200 year old time-travelling alien? Police box that's bigger on the inside? Sassy eye-candy assistant? Any of this ringing any bells?")
"Nope"
("Seriously?" Ben peered over incredulously at his ill brother. "It's like the hallmark of time-travelling culture. I mean, it had been running for 50-odd years, so that's probably why")
"Dad didn't let us watch '…useless shows' Remember?"
("Oh, I remember" At one point in his life Ben would situate himself outside of the Tommy's TVs television display window just to watch those so-called 'useless shows' that their father had forbidden them to watch. Shows like to Doctor Who).
"…You're aware of how insane this sounds, right?" Allison shook her head, ignoring Klaus' strange mumblings as she turned to her time-travelling brother instead.
"Y'know what else is insane?" Five snarked, gently probing at his side for a moment before he cocked his hip and quirked a brow in question. "I look like a thirteen year old boy, Klaus talks to the dead and Luther thinks that he's fooling everyone with that overcoat—!"
("Don't forget the ghost sitting on the counter" Ben added a little sassily).
"—Everything about us is insane, it always has been"
"He's—he's got a point there" Klaus agreed, awkwardly pointing towards his brother.
"We didn't choose this life, we're just living it"
("Sounds like it should be on a decorative pillow" Ben hummed, earning a snort from Klaus).
"For the next three days, anyway"
("That…not so much")
"But the last time we tried to stop it, we all died!" Allison reiterated, "Why would this time be any different? I mean, why shouldn't go home to my daughter?"
"Because this time I'm here" Five replied firmly, "We have the name of the people responsible and we actually have a chance of saving the lives of billions people…including Claire"
"…You know her name?" Allison sobered.
"I do" Five nodded solemnly (mostly from Vanya's numerous books). "And I would like to live long enough to meet her"
("…I'd also like to meet my niece" Ben raised his hand, but was mostly ignored).
Five's response seemed to be enough evidence to silence any more of Allison's concerns as she practically jumped onto the band wagon after that. Diego followed not too long after. Klaus, on the other hand, was looking sad and sorry for himself; whilst Luther looked almost flabbergasted that the family-meeting-slash-mission-briefing had been pulled out from underneath him. Because if Ben could peer inside that big brain of his, he was sure he would find something that revolved around how upset Dad would've have been with their conduct and something to do with the moon; because he hadn't stopped harping on about the big white rock in all the time that he'd known him (most especially since he'd been back).
"All right" Allison nodded determinedly, looking more like the Umbrella Academy heroine that she had once been. "Let's go get this bastard!"
"You had me at 'Baby Daddy" Diego agreed heartily as he fingered at one of his knives, his smirk promising pain to his opponent.
"Harold Jenkins" Five corrected tiredly
"Whatever" Diego waved off, "I just wanna crush this bastard's face in"
"And Luther?" He turned to the big blonde oaf.
"Yeah, you guys go" Luther sighed as he awkwardly shifted in place. He looked for all the world like he'd been the last person picked for the sports team as his moon idea and leadership were dismissed. "I'm gonna—gonna stay behind go through Dad's files. I still think that this has something to do with why he sent me to the moon—"
"—Seriously?!" Diego exclaimed incredulously as he turned on Number One. "You want to make the end of the world about you and Dad?!"
"No!" Luther replied hotly, "Watch for threats' That's what he told me before I went up there! And you think that's a coincidence? It all has to be connected somehow!"
("I think you're reading too much into it" Ben's dry comment was overthrown by Allison's louder one).
"No, we should all stick together!" Allison protested.
"Look! We don't have time for this!" Five cut in.
"Let's roll! I know where we can find this asshole" Diego commanded, "Five, Allison, Klaus, you're with me"
"Yeah—yeah" Klaus gingerly rolled from the chaise as he gripped tight to his gurgling stomach with a groan and shuffled towards the closet bathroom. "I—I'm uh, I'm good. I think I'll uh…I think I'll pass. I'm feeling…uh, feeling a lil' under the weather, so…eurgh!"
"Klaus…?" Allison worried, moving to follow after her brother who did look particularly ill. Her concerns were ignored, but still grateful.
"…" Five, in turn, quirked a brow at his retreating brother's back, but more or less shrugged off the reply as he made his way to the door.
"…Right" Diego nodded, accepting his brother's refusal without much complaint, "C'me on you lot, let's go see a bastard about the end of the world"