The Sparks Between Us | Five Hargreeves x Reader

TWENTY-EIGHT

—————༻☂︎︎༺—————
༻ Y/N'S POV ༺

My system stuttered to life, a low hum vibrating through what remained of my body. Lines of code crawled across my vision, broken and fragmented, like shattered glass trying to piece itself back together.

SYSTEM REBOOTING... ERROR DETECTED...
WARNING: POWER LEVELS CRITICALLY LOW.
LOADING SYSTEM FUNCTIONS... 13%... 22%... 45%...

Everything felt slow, like my circuits were lagging behind, struggling to catch up with my thoughts. My remaining eye flickered weakly, the glow barely illuminating the edge of my vision.

BODY ERROR: MOBILITY FUNCTIONS DAMAGED.
CONNECTION INTERRUPTED... RE-ROUTING... STABILIZED.

I could feel it—well, I couldn't exactly feel it, but I knew something wasn't right. My left arm wasn't responding; there was nothing but a cold, empty absence where it should've been. The faint hum of my core was uneven, sputtering like an engine barely holding on.

"Y/n," a soft, familiar voice spoke, and I registered movement near me.

I tried to turn my head, but my neck motor stuttered, glitching as the command faltered. After a moment, my head jerked to the side in a series of awkward, mechanical movements. My vision was blurred, static fuzzing along the edges, but I could just make out the shape of Pogo leaning over me.

REBOOTING SENSOR CALIBRATIONS... PROCESSING...
LEFT LIMB FUNCTION: OFFLINE.
RIGHT LIMB FUNCTION: LIMITED.

The diagnostic updates scrolled through my mind, each one a reminder of how broken I was. My core buzzed weakly, a faint pulse of energy keeping me operational, but barely.

"Easy now," Pogo's voice came again, calm and steady. "You've been through quite a lot, but you're stable for now."

Stable. That word didn't feel right. My systems were still glitching, struggling to align themselves with the repairs.

WARNING: SYSTEMS RUNNING AT 42% CAPACITY.
MOBILITY ERROR... FIXED.
POWER CORE: PARTIALLY STABILIZED.

I blinked slowly, the motion feeling jerky and unnatural. My vision sharpened just enough to see Pogo's face clearly now. His expression was calm.

"Can you hear me, child?" he asked gently, his small hand resting against my shoulder.

I tried to respond, but the sound that came out was garbled, static-laced and distorted.

VOICE MODULE: RECALIBRATING... COMPLETE.

My vision flickered again, glitching briefly as more updates flashed across my internal display.

ERROR: ENERGY DRAIN DETECTED. REROUTING POWER TO CORE FUNCTIONS.
SENSOR CONNECTION RESTORED.

I tried to move my arm, the one that remained. It twitched faintly but didn't lift. My body felt heavy, sluggish, like I was trying to move through water. The absence of my left arm was glaring, the missing weight throwing off my balance even though I wasn't standing.

His words lingered in my system, reverberating as I stared up at him. I wasn't sure if it was relief, frustration, or something else entirely flooding my circuits, but

My vision flickered back to life, faint lines of static dancing across my field of view before stabilizing. Slowly, my eyes began to glow—a soft, faint blue that pulsed weakly in the dim light.

SYSTEMS ONLINE.
WELCOME BACK, Y/N.
DOWNLOAD COMPLETE.

The words scrolled across my mind, their presence grounding me as I blinked a few times to clear my vision. Everything felt... slow. Heavy. But it was there—my connection, my awareness, coming back piece by piece.