Notes: Hey everyone! Sorry for another late post today, I had another crazy week and today I'm so tired nothing makes sense, but I'll trust the chapter is revised enough and I'll just post it... :P
In some good news, I just figured something I needed to continue writing, so please cross your fingers for me so I get a lot of inspiration to write tomorrow!

Anyways, it's time for another visit to the Hargreeves kids!

Write Me a Rumor

There was an unspoken tradition in the Umbrella Academy, or at least among the Hargreeves kids, whenever one of them got sick, they'd all suggest ways to cheer them up and the best idea was carried out, so when Allison got laryngitis after an especially harsh training week, everybody set off to find the perfect way to cheer her up.

Ben suggested using their savings to buy her an interesting book, reading a good story always cheered him up, but nobody could agree on the kind of book she'd like.

Luther suggested getting her a CD of one of her favorite singers, but Vanya pointed out Allison loved to sing to her favorite songs and everybody thought that could end up making her feel worse.

Diego suggested playing her a song since he had started learning to play the bass a little while ago, but everyone exchanged a look and told him in unison it would be hard to play anything with only a bass, which was true, but the real thing was that Diego was still pretty bad at it. That had happened before Vanya started playing the violin too, so there wasn't even the possibility of a duo to make it sound better.

Five suggested giving her a shogi set to play since it was a pretty interesting game and it was played in silence, but everybody agreed that Allison didn't even like chess that much.

Vanya suggested writing her a poem, but after arguing for an hour about which word rhymed better with Allison, they gave up on the idea; trying to write a poem between six kids was too chaotic.

And finally, Klaus suggested making her believe she could still use her powers so she would feel better. If given a choice, him and Ben would live happily without their powers, but he knew it was different for the rest of them, Vanya had always wanted to have a power to be part of the team, and Five, Luther, Diego and Allison used their powers so much, it was like breathing to them, like a big part of their identity, so he figured Allison would feel pretty sad about losing that part of herself in addition to her ability to speak.

"Mmm… that's not a bad idea," whispered Luther during breakfast, "I would feel pretty upset if I couldn't use my strength".

"Besides, if she buys it, we could have a good laugh later when she recovers!" whispered Klaus to Ben with a mischievous smile.

Reginald lowered his newspaper and gave them a look, they knew they weren't supposed to talk during any meal, but lately the trainings, classes and homework had increased and they had little free time.

"And how d-do you expect to make that work?" Asked Diego a little skeptical.

"Easy, we make her write a rumor and act like it works," Klaus smiled at the genius of his plan.

"Do we really wanna do that tho? Not having Allison rumoring us into doing her chores for a while is kind of a nice break." murmured Five poking at his scrambled eggs.

Diego chuckled at that, Allison was caring, sweet and often a voice of reason, but she was also very used to getting what she wanted and had no remorse in using her powers to achieve that if needed, which meant she could be rather sly too. "That's because you keep calling Luther an idiot," he snickered glancing at Luther.

"It's not my fault that he is an idiot sometimes," shrugged Five taking a bite.

"Well, I can't argue with that," nodded Diego smirking.

"I heard that," grumbled Luther, "You two are assholes, did you know that?" he whispered glancing at their dad still engrossed with his paper.

"Any other ideas?" whispered Ben from the other side of the table.

"I still think the shogi set would have been a good idea," muttered Five.

"That's because you're a nerd," Diego rolled his eyes, "I'm in with Klaus' idea."

"Fine, let's go with Klaus' idea then," nodded Luther.

Klaus smiled deviously, "this is going to be so much fun!"

Ben side-glanced Klaus' enthusiastic expression, somehow it made him feel like this was a very bad idea. "Are we sure we should be listening to Klaus?" he whispered catching Five's eyes, "I mean, it's Klaus."

"Hey, let me tell you I have had great ideas before," argued Klaus with an exaggerated offended expression.

"Like that time you decided to cut your hair with fire?" Five rolled his eyes making Ben chuckle at the memory.

"Well that was—"

"Or that time you decided to adopt a wild rat only for it to b-bite you? I kinda doubt you wanted to get all those rabies vaccines," added Diego getting himself some giggles from his siblings.

"I had just found out that that endearing Michael Jackson's Ben song was about a rat and it looked all cute and fluffy too!"

"Como on guys, he's not that bad," whispered Vanya timidly with a conciliatory tone making everyone but Five start protesting in whispers.

"Why thank you, Vanya," grinned Klaus pointing at her with both hands, "see? You could learn a thing or two from her."

Then Vanya's conciliatory smile transformed into the sly grin Five was waiting for, "as long as you don't leave him alone with a bottle of liquid paper." Their quiet sister appeared harmless and meek most of the time, but Five knew there was a dark twisted side to her that she rarely showed around their other siblings.

They all laughed out loud making Reginald hit the table with the newspaper, "Children, if you don't stop all this bedlam at once you'll be sent to your classes without finishing breakfast!"

They all sat straight and continued eating in silence until Klaus grumbled, "it wasn't so bad, I think I looked pretty stylish!"

"You had liquid paper in your hair and eyelashes for days after that!" Sniggered Ben making everyone crack up again.

Breakfast was officially over.

That same night they gathered around Allison's bed; since her laryngitis wasn't infectious, Grace had allowed them to spend some time with her before going to bed.

"Does it hurt?" asked Vanya from a corner, she had always felt a little intimidated by Allison.

Allison scribbled on her notebook and showed it to her,

A little.

"Do you want me to get you some soup or something hot to drink?" asked Luther always so earnest.

No, mom gave me some soup already, thank you :)

Five glanced at the door to make sure they were alone and whispered to his sister, "if you're not sick, how did this happen to you?"

Everyone was slightly curious since they had seen Allison returning from training red-eyed and coughing a few times that week, but nobody had dared to ask, not even Five when he had blinked into her room three days ago.

He'd never acknowledge it, but whenever he heard one of their siblings crying, he'd make an excuse to give them a visit to make sure they were alright. It wasn't like he was good with comforting words like Vanya or that he always had the right words of advice like Ben, much less Klaus' soothing hugs, even Luther was surprisingly good at listening when he wasn't trying to live up to their dad's expectations, but he was the only one capable of visiting everyone without their guardians noticing; so he'd just make sure they were physically okay and then he'd keep them company for a while, either giving them time to talk or trying to distract them in different ways, often with a long-winded ramble if they didn't feel like talking. When it came to Allison though, he'd usually find a subtle or not so subtle way to distract their dad, Pogo and Grace so Luther could have a few minutes to talk with her before they were sent to bed; he had always thought their relationship was somewhat strange, but he knew Luther was the closest to Allison and she'd feel better talking with him. Nevertheless, that night Grace had asked Luther to help her with some heavy-lifting and he had ended up visiting a very upset and quiet Allison.

She hesitated and then took a moment to write her answer,

I had to shout rumors inside a burning building with a lot of noise around.

Everyone went silent, the girl didn't have to explain more, the young heroes could easily picture their dad forcing her into a building on fire and screaming her lungs out while breathing smoke; the silence was solemn enough that even Vanya could figure how bad it really had been.

"A f-f-fire, really!?" jabbered Diego closing his fists in anger.

Luther was utterly conflicted, on one side he knew Allison could have been seriously injured, but on the other, he was desperately trying to justify their father's actions in his mind. Five for his part, was silently fuming at the thought, when he had seen Allison crying, he had assumed it had been bad, but not this bad.

"How long won't you be able to talk?" asked Klaus.

Mom said around 1 or 2 weeks :(

Klaus gave a quick glance to the others and then added, "Ally… have you ever tried rumoring people by writing a rumor?"

Allison frowned at the sudden question and then wrote,

I don't think that'd work; I think my powers come from my voice?

"Why not try it?" Encouraged Luther with a small smile.

The girl seemed hesitant but after a little while of thinking she wrote something and pointed it to Klaus,

I heard a rumor that you tapped your head thrice with your hand.

Klaus tried to remember how it felt whenever Allison rumored him, so he stood still for a second and then stiffly tapped at his head thrice.

"Oh wow, it worked!" he exclaimed after a couple of seconds.

Allison covered her mouth with a hand, a smile in her eyes, and then she wrote again.

I heard a rumor that Diego barked like a dog.

Diego looked at the text and, slightly blushing, he started barking making Five and Ben look away holding a chuckle.

Allison smiled impishly and directed her next rumor at Five.

I heard a rumor that Five meowed and purred like a cat.

Everyone looked expectantly at him with a nervous expression, he would never do such a ridiculous thing, would he?

The boy closed his eyes in embarrassment and emitted a faint meow that made everyone laugh out loud, his ears getting apple red.

"Where's the purring Five?" teased Diego with tears in his eyes.

Vaya mouthed an "I'm sorry" to him before scratching behind his ear like he was in fact a cat. Five was so humiliated he wanted to blink then and there, but he complied and did his best to imitate a cat's purr throwing everyone into hysterical laughter. They often joked that Five acted more like a grumpy adult than a child, always neat and dignified, so no one had really believed he would do it, but seeing him meow and purr now had made them realize how extremely similar to a grumpy cat he actually was, making the situation even funnier.

Until that moment, Allison had only smiled and giggled, wondering why their eyes didn't get white like they always did when she rumored people, but if even Five could be this ridiculous, maybe written rumors simply worked differently, so the minute her brother began to purr, a weird sounding laughter, like she was taking little gasps of air, exploded out of her, and that was the end, everyone lost it, even Five gave in and started laughing, at least it had been worth it.

"After that night, Allison kept 'rumoring' us whenever we had a chance to visit her. Thankfully, she never really abused her powers during her sick time, she just kept making us do silly stuff," Five stopped for a minute, a small side-smile flourishing on his lips, "at one time, we all had to beg Diego to convince mom to pretend too since Allison had told us she wanted to rumor her into reading us a bedtime story… to be fair, it always looked like she also wanted to do it, but something in her programming didn't allow her, probably dear old dad thought it would make us weak."

"Did she do it?" Asked Lila.

"It took Diego a while, but after telling her it was just make-belief to make Allison happy, she caved in and somehow that command managed to cheat her programming enough to do it."

"Boy, these Hallmark memories of yours… I can almost buy you were a happy family," Lila murmured trying to sound mocking to hide a tint of jealousy.

"Well… we had our good times…," mused Five with a distant look before returning to the present, "the thing is, after Allison recovered her voice and things went back to normal, we all kind of forgot about it until months later when she handed Pogo a folded paper right before dinner." Lila gasped, "Pogo had supported Dad's actions when Allison had come crying to him after Dad had scolded her in front of everyone during a mission, so she wanted to get back at him by making him do a silly dance in front of everyone. Pogo just looked at her sternly and said 'Miss Allison, I'm afraid somebody has kept you under the impression that your powers work differently than they do'," he said emulating Pogo's solemn tone.

Lila snorted.

"Klaus promised he had forgotten too, but he kept laughing his ass off for days. Allison, conversely, was so furious she stopped speaking to us for almost a week until she recognized she had had a lot of fun during her sick days thanks to Klaus' stupid idea."

"It wasn't that bad then."

"No, it wasn't… but thinking back, it was very reckless of us to make her believe she could do that, what if she had tried to do that during a mission?"

At that moment they heard the doorknob jiggling, Lila almost gave him an apologetic gaze before upping back his depressants and quickly stepping away. Five in turn nodded reassuringly and did his best to appear fast asleep. Both, agent and ex-agent, silently looking forward to their next conversation; unintentionally but steadily growing fond of each other.

Notes: I know I didn't add their age for this one, honestly, it was because I was never able to decide lol, but I'm guessing it would have been around 11-12?

I've considered Five looking out for his siblings when they were kids seeing how much he "secretly" cares for them, and I've read in quite a few fanfics different ideas on how Five took care of his siblings subtly, often visiting them at night when they had had a rough training day or a rough mission and I just loved it so much, so I ended up adopting that as a headcanon as well! :P

On Allison's rumors, she clearly learned rather late that her powers could have terrible consequences considering her adult life, so I can imagine her using her powers a lot more when she was a kid.

On Diego's bass, I just thought it was cool that he played the bass and had a band in the comic with Vanya, so although this story is show-verse, I thought it would be fun to give him the bass even if he never had a band with Vanya.

On Vanya's dark twisted side, we are shown this meek timid adult, but let's not forget all the nannies she killed simply because she didn't want to eat oatmeal and how cocky she was challenging Five in season 2, I'm pretty sure there's some dark twisted side to her under that timid demeanor and that's probably one of the reasons she and Five got along.

Aaanyway, thank you so much for reading, I hope you enjoyed this little silly chapter. And get ready for an intense more fast-paced chapter next upload! It was definitely one of my favorites to write!