RUN BOY RUN- reader x Five Hargreeves

Part Forty

When the dreaded time came, Five and I made our way to dinner through the lamp-lit streets of the city. The evening air carried a crisp autumn chill that matched the apprehension in my chest. We stood outside 124 Marilyn Street, staring up at thetas structure. Streetlights cast long shadows across the weathered stone steps, and somewhere in the distance, a car horn punctuated the evening quiet. I moved towards the building's entrance, but Five's gentle grip on my wrist held me back. Turning to him, I caught the uncertainty swimming in his eyes—a rare sight in someone usually so confident and composed. Despite his youthful appearance, decades of hardship were evident in the way he carried himself, in the shadows that sometimes crossed his face. "It's been forty-five years since I last saw Dad," he muttered, his gaze drifting upward to where the building seemed to pierce the evening sky. His voice carried a weight I rarely heard, thick with years of isolation and regret. I reached up and cupped his cheek, noting how he instinctively leaned into my touch. The gesture was small but spoke volumes about how far we'd come, how much trust we'd built. I pressed a soft kiss to his other cheek, my lips brushing against skin that still felt impossibly young. "There's nothing for you to be worried about," I whispered against his skin. "We're all here together this time." A gentle smile tugged at his lips—the kind he reserved only for me—as he looped his arms around my waist, drawing me closer. He leaned in until I could feel his warm breath ghost across my nose, carrying the comforting scent of coffee and leather-bound books that was uniquely Five. It reminded me of late nights spent in the library during our childhood, of stolen moments between missions.

With one arm still draped protectively around me, we made our way inside. The lobby was exactly as I remembered it: all polished marble and brass fixtures that spoke of old money and older secrets. I pressed the up button on the elevator, and the silver doors slid open with a quiet hiss that echoed in the empty space. "Do you think the others—" The words had barely left my mouth when Diego walked in, his leather harness gleaming with freshly polished knives. Allison followed, her heels clicking against the elevator floor, looking every bit the movie star she'd become. Klaus stumbled in after them, his glazed eyes and unsteady gait making it clear he was under the influence of one of his many vices. His hands, marked with "HELLO" and "GOODBYE," fidgeted constantly with the hem of his eccentric jacket. Vanya followed quietly, and finally, Luther's heavy footsteps announced his arrival, his massive frame barely fitting through the doors. "Good, we're all here," Five muttered, his arm tightening slightly around my waist. The familiar gesture grounded me, even as the tension in the elevator rose with each passing floor.

As we ascended, a horrid, rancid smell suddenly filled the confined space. I buried my face in Five's shoulder, trying to escape the stench that seemed to permeate every molecule of air. "Luther!" Five groaned, lifting his perfectly pressed blazer to block the smell. "Sorry, I'm nervous," Luther mumbled, looking sheepish despite his enormous size. When the doors finally opened, we all stumbled out, gasping for fresh air in the hallway. The ornate wallpaper and crystal sconces seemed to mock our undignified exit. "Alright," Five started after taking several deep breaths, straightening his tie with practiced precision. "When Dad gets here, let me do the talking. I'm the only one who knows the most about what's going on." His tone carried the authority of someone who'd lived through apocalypses and time wars. "Hey man, I got a few questions I wanna ask him myself," Diego challenged, stepping up to Five with his usual bravado, fingers already twitching near one of his knives.

"What kind of questions? What flowers to get JFK when you ask him out?" I couldn't resist teasing, even as tension crackled in the air between us. Diego's face darkened as he stormed toward me, but Five smoothly intercepted his path, his slight frame somehow managing to command the space between us. The air crackled with the possibility of his spatial jumps. "Enough," Five commanded, then turned to fix me with a stern look that couldn't quite hide his amusement. "From both of you." I looked down at my feet as Vanya spoke up, ever the peacemaker despite—or perhaps because of—her own devastating power. "Okay, how about this?" She walked over to the large mahogany table and picked up a conch shell that seemed out of place in the formal dining room. "Whoever has the conch gets to speak." "Maybe I should take the lead," Allison interjected, reaching for the shell with manicured fingers. "We all know I'm the better public speaker." The words carried an echo of her power, though she seemed unaware of it.

I turned to Five, rolling my eyes at our siblings' antics. "This is a really bad idea," I muttered under my breath, watching Klaus attempt to balance a champagne glass on his forehead. "These idiots will never get through to Dad—they all have selfish motives." Five nodded in agreement, his jaw tightening with familiar frustration, but before he could respond, Diego hurled the conch at the wall. It shattered in a spray of pearly fragments.  "Well, that didn't last long," I huffed, watching the pieces settle on the expensive carpet. The sudden bang of swinging doors cut through the tension as Dad strode in, his monocle gleaming in the chandelier light. His posture was as rigid and commanding as ever, each step measured and deliberate. He made his way to the table with the same precision he'd used to measure our progress as children, and we all took our seats, muscle memory forcing us into the same positions we'd occupied during countless silent dinners. I noticed Five's leg starting to bounce—a rare tell of his nervousness—and placed a steadying hand on his knee beneath the table. Our eyes met, and I concentrated, pushing my powers to their limit as I tried to project my thoughts directly into his mind: 'I. Love. You.' His eyes widened slightly—he'd heard it! The success brought a small smile to my face, but it faded as Dad began to speak, his crisp accent cutting through the air like a knife.

"Not only have you burglarized my laboratory, set my chimp loose, conned your way into the Mexican Consulate, gotten me entangled in legal matters with a street gang, and repeatedly stalked and attacked me, but you have on many occasions called me—" "Oh hey, Pops! How's it hanging?" Klaus interrupted as he finally made to the table from the bar, where he'd wandered during the earlier chaos. He was attempting to juggle several expensive-looking bottles, ghost-Ben probably telling him what a bad idea it was. "Dad," Reginald spat, his mustache twitching with irritation. "My reconnaissance tells me you're not CIA, not KGB, and certainly not MI5. So who are you?" Five answered without hesitation, his words carrying the weight of years spent calculating this very moment. "We're your children. We're from the future. In 1989, we were all born on October 1st. You adopted us and trained us to fight to prevent the end of the world." "You called us the Umbrella Academy," I added softly, unable to meet his calculating gaze through that infamous monocle. A heavy silence fell over the room, broken only by the gentle clink of Klaus setting down his cup. The mention of our title stirred complicated emotions—hatred mingled with an odd sense of longing for those difficult days when, despite everything, we were together. The matching umbrella tattoos on our wrists seemed to burn with remembered pain. "Why on earth would I adopt seven children?" Dad demanded, his pen poised over his ever-present notebook.

"Eight," I corrected quietly, the number catching in my throat. "One of us... isn't here," Allison explained, her voice thick with emotion as she absently touched the scar on her throat. "Dead," Diego said bluntly, twirling a knife between his fingers. "One of us is dead."Another painful silence descended, heavier than before. Ben's absence felt particularly sharp in that moment. He had been the sweetest of us all—my confidant when I needed to talk about my feelings for Five, my midnight companion during secret slumber parties in my room when Dad was away. When Five disappeared, and I locked myself away for days, it was Ben who checked on me daily, bringing food and books, sitting quietly with me while the others followed Dad's instructions to let me "wallow in my petty emotions." Ben, Klaus, and I had been inseparable—the golden trio. "What would possess me to adopt eight ill-mannered malcontents?" Dad asked, his lip curling in disgust as he surveyed our motley gathering. "We all have special abilities," Five answered evenly, though I could feel the tension in his leg beneath my hand.

"Special? In what sense?" Reginald's voice dripped with skepticism as he made another note in his book. "The superpower sense," Luther offered after an awkward pause, shifting uncomfortably in his too-small chair. "Call me old-fashioned, but I'm a stickler for a pesky thing called 'evidence.' Show me," Dad challenged, his words sharp with sarcasm as he clicked his pen closed. My face twisted with disgust at his familiar condescending tone. "Why should we?" "Y/n is right. We are not circus animals—" Five's words were cut short as one of Diego's knives curved through the air, missing Dad's head by inches before embedding itself in the wall with a solid thunk. Five groaned as I slammed my head on the table's polished surface. These idiots were going to get us killed. Or arrested. Probably both. Some things really never did change.