Number Five Imagines

In the Quiet Between Wars

Five Hargreeves x Male!reader

Summary: Five has to work together with Y/n, a freelance time traveler with a reputation for breaking the rules.

A/N: This was a sweet request from a nice tumblr user. This is the first time I've written Y/n as male, and I really hope it's okay.

Warnings: none

The war was over—technically. Timelines stitched back together, paradoxes contained. The Commission was limping along in the vacuum of power. And Five, well, Five was still cleaning up the mess.

It started with a knock. Not at a door—Five didn't have doors anymore—but at the digital signature on his mission feed.

Y/n.

A freelance time traveler with a reputation for breaking the rules even Five wouldn't touch. Five had heard the stories. Y/n burned timelines for fun. He rerouted the death of an emperor to impress a date. He once saved a dog, thereby triggering a butterfly effect that wiped out thirteen minor cities in 1943. And he never—never—stayed in one place long enough to feel regret.

Now, Five was assigned to work with him.

Y/n showed up late.

He wore his hair too long, jacket open, and had that permanent smirk etched into his face like a scar.

Five didn't look up from the mission tablet. "You're forty minutes late."

Y/n exhaled dramatically. "Time is a suggestion, not a rule."

Five's eye twitched. "Only for amateurs."

"Good thing I'm a professional miscreant."

They lasted four minutes before the first argument.

By the end of the first mission, Y/n had killed someone who wasn't on the list, and Five threatened to report him.

Y/n leaned in close, smile thin. "You gonna tattle on me, old man?"

Five's jaw clenched. "Don't tempt me."

They didn't speak for the rest of the day. The silence between them was suffocating.

They landed in 1961.

Cold, rainy, miserable. Five was soaked and irritable. Y/n didn't seem to mind, of course. He lit a cigarette under a crooked awning, casually watching the world like it owed him something.

"Those things'll kill you," Five muttered.

Y/n smirked. "So will time travel, but here we are."

Five hesitated... and then stepped under the awning beside him. Y/n passed the cigarette without a word. They stood close—too close. The air between them was humid with tension.

"I thought you didn't like me," Y/n said quietly.

"I don't," Five replied, taking a drag. "But you're here."

It was the only truth he could offer.

It became a pattern.

Mission. Fight. Silence. Cigarettes.

Then, at night—when the others slept or the timelines cooled—they would disappear. Together.

No one ever asked where they went. Maybe no one dared.

One night, Five returned with swollen lips and hickeys on his neck. Y/n followed ten minutes later, breathing hard, hands trembling.

They didn't speak.

They never did.

They never mentioned it.

Not the kiss in the heat of a campfire.

Not the way Y/n's fingers had lingered on Five's cheek.

Not the look they shared after

They were in the ruins of 2094, watching a world collapse from too many jumps.

"You ever think we're the bad guys?" Y/n asked softly.

Five didn't respond at first.

Then: "I think we're the janitors. We clean it up. Doesn't mean we caused the mess."

Y/n looked at him. Really looked. "You still believe that?"

Five shrugged. "I have to."

There was a long pause.

Then, like something unsaid finally cracked: "You keep pretending you're better than me," Y/n said. "But I've seen the way you look at me. The way you act when we're alone."

Five's voice was low. "What do you want me to say?"

Y/n stepped closer. "That I'm not crazy for thinking you—"

"Don't," Five warned, eyes fierce.

But he didn't move. And Y/n didn't stop.

They stood like that for a long time, breath mingling, silence thunderous.

And then they stepped away.

It was always like that.

Their final mission was a temporal implosion in 1887. The cleanup was brutal. Time folding in on itself, leaving shards of memory like broken glass.

Five nearly didn't make it out.

When Y/n grabbed his wrist and yanked him through the collapsing portal, their bodies crashed into each other, chests heaving.

Five was shaking. Y/n was bleeding.

"You could've left me," Five whispered.

"Yeah," Y/n said. "I could've."

But he didn't.

When the missions ended, Five returned to the Commission. Y/n vanished.

Later, alone in his quarters, he opened a drawer. Inside was a half-used pack of cigarettes. He stared at it for a moment, fingers brushing the cardboard edge.

Then he shut the drawer again.

They never talked about it.

But sometimes, in the quiet space between seconds, Five swore he still felt the heat of Y/'s hand on his.

And he didn't let himself forget.