Episode Three: Extra Ordinary
Part One.
I don't own the Umbrella Academy.
Percy had the strangest dream.
She had been shot in some random department store by two shooters wearing creepy kids' masks while Five all but professed his undying love for some random mannequin that turned out to be Delores, and she had been shot because she had taken the bullet for said mannequin. All in all, it was a strange yet funny dream, and when she peeled open her eyes and saw Five hovering over her, she found herself grinning.
And then her grin turned into a wince and grimace of pain when she tried to sit up and her shoulder burst into horrific pain. She sucked in a breath sharply, but then spots began to dance across her eyes as Five rushed forward and placed one hand on her uninjured shoulder, forcing her to lie back down.
"I'm only sanitizing it," he assured her, holding up a bottle of medical alcohol and a cotton ball as if trying to prove it to her. "You'll need a couple of stitches."
"I… what?"
Despite Five's protests, she sat up, her head spinning. And then she realized that her dream hadn't actually been a dream—it had been real. Oh, god. How weird had her life become?
"Percy!" Five said in exasperation as he threaded a needle. "You had one job!"
"I—" She pressed a hand against her temple, trying to stop the throbbing. "What happened?"
"What do you remember?"
"The… the department store. Those guys in kids masks shooting at us." She frowned at Five. "Who were they?"
Five didn't answer right away. Instead, he drenched another cotton ball in alcohol and began gently wiping the blood from her shoulder, avoiding her eyes. Percy just raised an eyebrow, but she didn't push the matter. She knew that Five would tell her so long as she didn't force him to. Any moment now…
"Cha Cha and Hazel," he said reluctantly as he set down the cotton ball, not catching Percy's victorious smirk. "They're the best assassins in the Commission… after me, of course. I guess after what happened in the donut shop, the Commissioner didn't want to take any chances and decided to send them after me. And now that you're with me… you just got in the way, to them. If they had to kill you to kill me, then they wouldn't have hesitated." He frowned. "So you should stay here. Where Hazel and Cha Cha won't find you if they're tracking me."
"Five, I'm fine—"
"Percy, you were shot." Five's voice was trembling, the way it always had when he was younger and was struggling to keep his voice level. "You were shot because of me. I can't—no, I won't let that happen to you again. I can't lose you again. You have to stay here, keep our family from doing any more stupid stuff, but if anything happened to you because of me again… I would never be able to forgive myself."
"You can't do this alone."
"I'll manage." He pressed his fingers against her cheek gently, as if afraid any more pressure would send her running. "I… I care about you, Percy. You know that. Please. This is the last thing I'll ever ask of you."
Five had never looked more vulnerable in his life. He had always had everything under control, she realized—ever since he was a child, he had always been so calculating, so clever; he always knew what was going to happen, always knew exactly what to do to make sure he knew what was happening. But last night… last night had been a disaster. He hadn't know what was happening. His panic had been real, a feeling that he wasn't used to. He blamed himself for her injury because he thought he should've been able to guess it would've happened and should've stopped it.
"Five, you can't control everything."
"Stay with Vanya. Now that she knows the truth… she'll be in danger. You have to protect her—she doesn't have powers. The Commission might go after her next."
She glared at Five as he went to work on her shoulder, carefully sewing her wound close as she tried not to wince. They both knew that both of them had a soft spot for Vanya, and as soon as Five brought up that Vanya's life could be in danger, Percy would agree to his request. It was a dirty trick, to be sure—manipulating Percy's emotions to his advantage—but Percy did have to admit—it was smart. Vanya hadn't even been allowed to join them in their sparring matches—in terms of combat skills, she barely had any. Five could take care of himself. Vanya? Not so much.
"Fine," she muttered reluctantly. "I hate you."
Five just smiled at her, and for a moment, Percy could almost imagine themselves as thirteen-year-olds again, just having come back from a mission that hadn't gone too smoothly, their biggest worry their father yelling at them and not the apocalypse. She half-wished she could go back to those times. If Five's power was space-time manipulation, and hers was the speeding up and slowing down of time, maybe if they combined their powers, they could…
No. Percy shook her head. She wouldn't be that selfish. Besides, it wasn't like Five would ever agree to it anyway, and she knew that that wasn't a life she wanted anyway. Though, to be entirely fair, Percy wasn't even sure what kind of life she wanted anymore. It turned out a normal one just didn't work out—after all, she was a twenty-nine year old stuck in a thirteen year old body. Normal had gone out the window when she was born.
"So what?" she asked him as he tied off the needle. "You want me to just track Vanya while you…?"
He gave her a lopsided smile. "Can't trick me that easily. I'll be figuring out how to stop the apocalypse while you and Vanya… well, do your thing."
"Do our thing."
"You know… girl stuff."
"Girl stuff," Percy repeated, trying not to wince as Five bandaged her arm in some gauze he found. "You mean the exact things that Dad kept us from experiencing when we were young, and the girl stuff we had to learn from Mom, who was a robot. That girl stuff?"
He shrugged. "Sure."
And then he was climbing out the window, offering her a cheeky salute, and Percy just scoffed and rolled her eyes, but she was smiling fondly as she closed the window behind him. Five knew as well as her that "girl stuff," whatever he thought it was, didn't happen in their family. Neither did "boy stuff." If it didn't involve the fastest way to murder a criminal, or how to solve an equation when "x" approached infinity, their father deemed the knowledge useless. It was only through Grace and Pogo that the kids had even learned how to be kids somewhat.
Percy picked up her phone, her arm stiff as she tried to keep it from moving, and was just about to dial Vanya when Allison hesitantly poked her head into the room.
"Hey, Percy," she said softly. "I'm going to find Vanya. You wanna come?"
Percy found herself half-wondering if that was a sign from the universe. "Yeah. But what for?"
"Family meeting."
Percy raised an eyebrow. "A family meeting? Let me guess—you didn't talk to Luther or Diego about this. I know for a fact they wouldn't want Vanya there." Then she grinned. "Well, it's a good thing they're not here, then, right? Fuck them. C'mon, let's get Vanya. We can even do that 'girl talk' thing Five was going on about..."
"Percy, what are you talking about?"
Allison hadn't brought her car, so they ended up having to use Percy's. After managing to wrangle Vanya's location through the phone, Percy and Allison proceeded to have a very awkward, very long car ride. It turned out that not seeing your sister for over a decade except through the big screen and not having any of your other siblings there to say something stupid could really put an awkward edge to the atmosphere.
"So..." Percy cast her mind around desperately. "How's your… um, job?"
She prayed that it wasn't a touchy subject—Allison had a lot of them.
Thankfully, it wasn't, because Allison just replied lightly, "Okay. I just got another role."
"Oh. That's… good."
"And you work as…?"
"Uh… it changes."
It did, really. Percy left jobs all the time, whenever she didn't want to work anymore. Sure, it probably would've been good if she had, but then again, she always told herself that her dad was a billionaire; as long as she was nice to Pogo and Grace, she would have money. Then again, after buying the house, she had never asked them for financial help again, so the joke was on her, perhaps. Either way, Percy didn't always take employment. She didn't need to, anyway. Though her birth certificate said that she was almost thirty, she looked thirteen, and tax fraud was… okay, it was bad, but hey. If she looked like a minor, she might as well have played it.
"Hey, um, I'm sorry about Patrick. And Claire."
"You sound like Vanya," Allison murmured. "I said some really unkind things to her yesterday. It's making me see how you and Five had been right all along—why didn't the rest of us include her?"
Percy shrugged. "Because you were assholes?" She had been joking, but when she looked over at Allison, the technically-older girl looked a bit upset—not at Percy, but at herself. "Hey. It's not your fault. Dad fucked us all up. He isolated her, not you guys. He made her seem less than the rest of us, not us. And yeah, I guess you could've ignored him and included her, but we were kids, Allison. We were desperate for love, even from a person we knew couldn't love us. It was only because Five was able to see through the manipulation and because I knew what isolation felt like that we befriended Vanya. What's actually important is including her now. Show her you've changed, that you love her, that she can trust you now."
Allison was silent for three counts. "You know what? You're right." She smiled at Percy. "What do you say—after this, the three of us? Girls night out? We can do everything we never did as kids."
"Might have to include Klaus in that."
Allison laughed and Percy smiled.
They found a parking spot about two blocks from that wood shop Vanya had told them. Percy had to admit—Allison might've been her big sister and she loved Allison, but the actress could not park (they had agreed to let Allison drive since she looked the oldest). Percy had been holding onto her seat, praying to every higher power she knew by name that Allison wouldn't run over the curb. She did a couple times, but they managed to park semi-safely. How Allison even passed her driving test, Percy didn't know.
And then her stomach escaped. Had Allison rumored herself a license? She found she suddenly didn't want to know.
People were staring as the two of them walked down the street. Percy heard snippets of "Adoption?" and "Must be," which made her grit her teeth in annoyance. She could sense Allison shifting uncomfortably beside her—they all clearly thought that Allison had only adopted her because she hadn't been able to keep Claire. True, it was probably because Percy didn't look anything like Allison's sister—being seventeen years younger physically was probably a major factor in that—but it was still annoying. She had spent her entire childhood subjected to rumors, after all.
Before Percy could strangle any of them, she saw the person they were looking for exiting a shop, chatting with another man.
"Vanya!" Percy called, speeding up, and the other woman looked up in surprise.
"Oh! Percy, Allison, hey." Vanya glanced between her sisters and the man. "Um, Leonard, these are my sisters, Allison and Percy."
Leonard squinted at Allison, as if trying to place her, and then his eyes lit up in recognition. "Wait a second, I know you. You were in that movie… the… you were the lawyer!" As Allison awkwardly nodded and laughed a little, he continued, "The tough one in the wheelchair, right?"
"Yeah. Yeah, that was me."
Leonard looked back at Vanya with a smile "You didn't tell me your sister was a movie star. Wow!" Then he looked back at Percy. "Wait, I know you too. You look… you look like that girl from the Umbrella thing"
Percy pursed her lips in a half-smile, trying to dispel the awkwardness. "Yeah, that's me."
"You look… young." Leonard clearly didn't know what to say, and then looked back at Allison. "You were in it too, right?" He glanced at Vanya. "But you weren't, were you?"
Percy wanted to kick Leonard as Vanya shifted, looking uncomfortable. "Uh, no… no, I was sort of the fifth Beatle of the family, so…"
"I never really did like the Beatles," Leonard said, making Vanya smile a little. "More of a Stones guy, myself."
Percy still glared at him from behind his back, though, when he turned, she offered him a half-assed smile. If he made Vanya happy, then so be it, though she didn't necessarily have to like the guy. There was something off about him, something that made her stomach curl unpleasantly, even if she couldn't put her finger on it. Something told her to stay away from Leonard and she would be damned to ignore that.
"So," Percy said, interrupting their little… flirting conversation, "sorry to interrupt, but, uh... could you come back to the house? We're having a family meeting."
Vanya's voice was both hesitant and accusing. "And you guys want me there?"
"Of course," Allison said, as if it were obvious. "It's about Mom."
Percy could see Vanya's facade cracking as she sighed and turned to Leonard, saying apologietically, I'm so sorry. I—"
"Oh, don't be," Leonard said, sounding truly disappointed, though he offered Vanya a smile. "We'll do a rain check on dinner." Then he left, whispering a quiet, "Bye."
"Thanks," Vanya called after him.
Percy still glared at him behind his back, but Allison had just said teasingly, "Who's the guy?"
Vanya whirled around, the tips of her ears red, though she still ducked her head to hide her smile. "He's a... just a friend."
"Friend?" Percy echoed.
"No, it's not…" Vanya sighed. "Maybe I'm just trying to not separate myself from everything and everyone."
Judging from the grimace on Allison's face, Percy had a feeling Allison had said something along those lines to Vanya.
Sure enough, Allison said guiltily, "I'm... I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said those things to you yesterday. I was angry with Patrick, and I… I took it out on you. I'm really sorry." Vanya looked down, acknowledging yet not accepting the apology. "I'm, uh… I'm not good at this whole sister thing."
"I hadn't noticed," was Vanya's swift reply, but she was smiling.
"Ouch," Allison said, but she was smiling too. "Tell me how you really feel."
"Maybe I will."
And the three sisters, for the first time ever, walked back to the car, laughing about nothing and everything at the same time.
Hey guys, sorry for the EXTREMELY late and short update.
I honestly wrote a lot of this chapter back in mid-2021 but then started losing steam, and finished it up toward the end of 2021, but because it was only 2.5k words, I wanted to make it to 5k, like the rest of my chapters. Unfortunately, I couldn't think of any way to make it longer and where it ended felt like the perfect place to end this chapter, so I kind of put off writing and updating for... three months? Wow, that's a long time.
Anyway, I realized today that I'm never going to update this story if I don't just post this chapter, so to condense the rest of the episode in just two more chapters, they might be longer. I don't really have a rigid outline so I can't say for sure, but thank you guys for still sticking with this story despite such a long hiatus (and author's note)!
As always, thank you readers, and reviews are appreciated!
WiseGirlDivergence46: Thank you!
RebelAllied: Yeah, I was trying to combine Five's actual personality and how I wanted him to act toward Percy and ended up with a slightly OOC Five but I love it too much to care that much anymore. Also, OOF. Sorry about the fluff part, because Five and Percy are going to be on separate journeys for this episode. I see Five as the kind of guy to push away the people he cares about when he thinks they'll get hurt instead of asking them for help, especially when Percy just got shot, but that's my interpretation, and I'm always open to know others'. Thanks for reviewing!