Summary: Injuries always hurt. Scrapped knees, cat scratches, bruises, bloody noses. But shrapnel sucks. One shot. Spoilers for episodes 6-7.

Disclaimer: I do not own The Umbrella Academy or any of its characters

Warnings: Blood, injury and mild language

Shrapnel Sucks

If someone were to ask Five if injuries were normal in his everyday life, he would have looked them straight in the face and told them they were an incompetent idiot for thinking that, because to everyone, he's a 13-year-old boy, not a 58-year-old assassin.

But that wasn't the truth. Being an assassin came at a price. Running from the feds, losing the things you love, stuff like that. Being an oldassassin who worked for an agency of time-travelling murderers came at a much worst price: always moving around, learning new fighting techniques, hand-to-hand combat, target practice, stealth, learning to shoot every single gun on the planet.

So obviously, you know how to defend yourself, but you still don't want to be in a position where you must fight. The point of stealth is not to expose the Commission and not get caught. If you absolutely must engage then at least you can fight. But you can't dodge bullets.

Five learned that the hard way. Again, being an assassin is one thing: being an old assassin is another.

He can't always dodge attacks even with his ability. He can't always duck from oncoming bullets. And he doesn't always have pain killers on him. So, he pushes through the pain and moves on.

So, when he obliterated the briefcase room and a hunk of metal lodged itself in his stomach, he tried to walk it off. Well old habits die hard, I guess.

He tried to ignore it at first, the pain, the way he limped, the blood. Playing it off as hitting his leg when he fell onto the counter. But then it became hard to ignore.

He really didn't know who he was trying to convince that he was fine: his annoying overly concerned siblings, or himself. He didn't have time to focus on himself. The apocalypse was in a few days, and he wasn't important compared to the world. But apparently, he is to his brothers and sisters.

They say they love him but when he went missing, they all gave up on him, except Vanya (his favorite sibling). He's grateful at least one of his six siblings missed him. And, they're all lost without him.

That was the problem with his idiotic uncalculated excuses of adopted relatives. He's the reason they know about the apocalypse, he's giving them all the leads, doing all the work and what do they give him in return? They label him as a crazy messed-up pubescent hormonal teenager with mental stability issues who thinks he's a 58-year-old retired time-travelling assassin. But the truth was, they couldn't do anything without him.

They always needed his advice or they always needed him to vote for some idea of theirs that was stupid. And whenever he would tell them something important, they would gape at him in like he told them the apocalypse was coming (Ha ha!)and ask him ridiculous questions.

So now he's hiding his injury from them because they would freak out, probably harder now that he's apparently the 'baby' of the family. Pathetic. How did he get here? A well-respected, overpaid (not that he's complaining) assassin, now being treated like just another member of a crime-fighting dysfunctional family by people decades younger than him.

He knew it was only a matter of time before they figured it out. He tried to be subtle. Leaning against walls to cover up the fact he could barely stand without support. Not talking as much, worried he might say something that will draw attention to himself, his face morphed into one of concentration and thought, to hide that he was in pain.

But now all his attempts and facades were crumbling as he collapses onto the attic floor of a stalker's home.

"Jeez Five, why didn't you say anything?" Diego asked after pulling up Five's vest to get a look at the shrapnel wound that was oozing blood onto the floor of Harold Jenkins' home.

They didn't have time for this. The end of the world was coming for goodness sake and no one seemed to care. He wasn't important compared to the world. Why couldn't they see that? He thought Allison would be smarter than this. She had a daughter who she could save. Instead she chooses to try and save her long-lost brother who she hasn't seen for nearly 17 years. Is she stupid?

"Have to keep going...so…close," Five said his words slurred as he was getting pulled into unconsciousness.

"Five? Five!" Allison started grabbing his shoulders and shaking him as Diego slapped him on the cheek with his good hand. But it was no use. He was out cold.

The ride back to the academy was a blur. Five was bobbing in and out of unconsciousness for most of the trip. The flashing lights of the other cars and bumps in the road prevented him from fully being taken by the darkness. That and the fact he could taste something metallic rising at the back of his throat. "Internal bleeding. Great just what I need right now," Five thought bitterly.

By the time they got back to the academy, he could feel blood dripping out of the corner of his mouth.

He kept thinking about if he did die then his siblings wouldn't be able to stop the apocalypse. Darn it. Either he lives to help them, but it eats up the precious time that they have left to stop this and even then they might not be able to stop it, or he dies, and the others can't stop the apocalypse. Great. Just great.

"We should have taking him to the hospital," Five heard his sister say angrily to his brother.

"The kid with the shrapnel would have raised some questions," Five states in a hazy delirium.

"Yeah, well so will the murder shrine and Harold Jenkins' attic." Allison replied frustrated and lowered Five onto the couch. He winced at the pain it caused. She observed the wound. "He's still losing a lot of blood. What do we do?" she asked Diego.

"We have to get the shrapnel out," Diego stated. As he looked over at Allison, something behind her caught his eye, and he walked away.

"Diego, where are you going?" When he didn't respond or come back, Allison returned her attention back to Five.

"What have you gotten yourself into this time, Five?" She shook her head and put pressure down on the bleeding hole in his side, to try to stop the bleeding.

Five had no idea how long they stayed like that, his sister pressing on his stomach. A minute? Ten minutes? An hour? It didn't matter. Normally when he got injured it wasn't this bad. He wouldn't pass out. He would finish the job and either sleep it off or ignore it. Well to be fair, that was his adult body, not his pubescent hormonal teenage body.

Suddenly, he felt Allison move her hands away and they were replaced with cool, firm but gentle ones. He heard people talking, but he couldn't make out what they were saying. He tried to open his eyes and look around but found the task difficult as he fought to stay conscious.

The voices were asking him questions, but he couldn't do more than blink dozily at the ceiling. He felt someone pick him up again and start walking. Jostling him and aggravating the shrapnel wound, they were walking up the stairs. And that hurt.

He was placed on a comfortable surface and Five smelled the familiar scent of chalk and gun powder. His old room. Well, it was better then the couch.

He felt something prick his arm and a needle being inserted. Drugs. Thank goodness. He suddenly felt exhausted as the sedative worked its magic and lulled him into a peaceful slumber.

oOo

When Five woke up he was surprised to see he was no longer in his uniform. Now he wore his old pyjama's from when he was a kid, a real kid, with an IV in his arm right above that stupid umbrella tattoo. When he moved, he could fell bandages wrapped firmly around his torso.

Oh yeah, shrapnel. Then he realised a very significant detail. The apocalypse. How long was I out? What happened to the others? How long did they have left? His brain was on overdrive. Millions of situations running through his mind. But his panic was interrupted by soft footsteps and an overly happy addict.

"Oh, goody you're awake, thought you never would." The séance said once his eyes meet his brother's.

"How long was I out?" Five asked.

"I don't know." Klaus said and Five was about to scowl when Klaus continued. "I was chasing Number One all around town and I finally found him at a strip club, where he was super high and drunk and was being a party animal, he actually brought home a stray. Anyways, I didn't get home until, like, midnight. Then I found you in your room asleep and oh guess what? Mom's alive! Yeah! She fixed you up and M. Bitter and Miss Movie star went on searching for dear little Vanya and-"

"Klaus stop, it was a simple question." Five cut him off, rubbing his temples, but the IV was still attached to him and it was exceedingly annoying. So, he ripped it out. Klaus smiled lazily at him.

"But if I were to guess, I'd say 12-18 hours," Klaus said with a stupid grin.

"And you couldn't have led with that?" Five scowls angrily.

"Probably not." Klaus replied. Then he developed a more serious look, but his voice still held a tone of mischief.

"Alright little bro." Five frowned. "Get off your lazy ass and go to the kitchen for an important announcement." Five scoffed at his brother's antiques.

"Klaus, if it's you it's nothing important." Klaus put a hand over his heart in mock hurt and gasped. "How could you say that, to your own brother?"

"No, I'm serious Five, it's important, it's about dear old Daddy." Five rolled his eyes. "Unless Dad had something to do with the apocalypse, go away Klaus." Five really didn't have the patience for Klaus right now. He needed to find the smarter ones here and get back to stopping the end of the world.

"Oh, you'd be surprised dear brother of mine," Klaus stated with a smirk. "I pity your future spouse." Five said blankly, then muttered under his breath. "If we ever live to see the future."

"No, Five, I'm completely serious." Five looked at him skeptically. But Klaus said it and he looked and sounded so serious that Five almost believed him. Almost.

"Name one reason I should go with you and hear what your moronic brain has processed about our current situation."

"We have coffee."

And that is how he now finds himself sitting in a hard plastic chair in the kitchen, listening to his apparently sober brother babble and argue with his hung over, monstrous clump of muscles excuse of a brother over the apocalypse and their recently departed adopted father (if you could call him that).

But now that Klaus finally got to the point and said Sir Reginald killed himself in order to bring them together and Pogo and Mom were in on it and the academy was divided and… he needed a minute to process everything.

So, he jumped. In hindsight he should have realized that was a bad move. But he just found out that his adopted father committed suicide, a murder was on the run, Vanya was still M.I.A and he wasn't thinking straight.

Five sits on his bed and takes deep breaths. Note to self: do not jump after overexerting yourself and having been hit with shrapnel in the stomach.

He had to think. How did Dad know exactly when to kill himself? Where was Vanya? And had Hazel and Cha-Cha killed each other or were they still a threat? He had so many unanswered questions and he needed to figure out this puzzle.

He sighs. This was going to be rough. Between the shrapnel, the apocalypse hanging over his head, Harold Jenkins on the loose, possibly with his sister, the Commission tracking him down with a grudge after the whole briefcase debacle and his father's suicide, Five didn't think he was going to last long. But the world needed him, and his problems could wait. Even though he was in pain, his head was spinning, and he felt sick.

And if he was being honest with himself, shrapnel seriously sucks.

oOo

Author's Note: Yay! I finally wrote this! The Umbrella Academy was the show that started me with reading Fanfiction, and I've had an image about this scene since I first watched the episode. And now I did it! I finally wrote it! Yay! I'll write more Umbrella Academy Fanfictions when season 2 comes out, I'm so excited! ALSO! If you look closely in the scene where Allison and Diego bring Five into the academy, you can see blood dripping from the corner of his mouth. I did not make that up. Until next time!

-Viever