Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
After leaving the donut shop, Five had sent Ransom back to the academy. Telling his partner to keep an eye on his siblings, the younger boy going to stay with Vanya in her apartment.
Ransom felt odd being in Five's childhood bedroom, but it seemed to make sense. The bare walls, the boring colors of the comforter. There was no sign of individuality anywhere in the room.
Really, when he thought about it, he couldn't decide if Five was raised into being angry like he was or if the apocalypse had done it. He wondered if Five felt scared, or missed his family, because by the time the Handler found him he had learned to block out most of his emotions.
If one had a mind strong enough they could block Ransom's powers, but he had yet to meet anyone that could do so successfully. Well, anyone besides Five. The only emotions Ransom could read from him were anger, frustration, annoyance, any variation of such things.
"What are you doing? Where's Five?"
Ransom smiled, turning to see Diego in the doorway, his hand hanging loosely by his hip with a knife between his fingers.
"Do you ever put that away?"
"Where is Five?" He repeated, his grip tightening ever so slightly. The assassin smiled, his tongue flicking over his bottom lip as he looked Diego up and down.
"Five had some grownup business to attend to, you wouldn't understand."
"I don't know who the hell you are, but you need to get out of our house."
Ransom couldn't help but laugh, Diego's anger seeping out of him and filling the room. It was all Ransom could focus on, the Hargreeves holding his glare on the blond.
"Yeah," the smile fell from his face, "that isn't going to happen."
"Oh, yeah? What are you gonna do about it?"
"I'm glad you asked." Ransom tilted his head, watching as tears began to pour from Diego's eyes.
The man stumbled into the wall, leaning back to hold himself up.
"W-What are y-you doing?" Ransom winced at the stutter, almost feeling bad that he had caused it, Five telling him of Diego's struggle.
"Do you know what I've learned while having this power?" Ransom asked rhetorically as Diego slid to the ground, leaning back against the wall. "Pain is an emotion."
He tried not to look back at Diego as the man gasped, clutching at his chest as he groaned in pain.
"I never realized that before." Ransom dropped his hold on Diego, his gasps of air feeling the room. "There's a lot of things that I didn't realize were feelings. Enjoyment, adoration, awkwardness, craving, compliance, interest, aliveness, nostalgia, doubt, lust." He turned back to face Diego, the man still glaring from his spot on the floor. "Did you know mourning is an emotion? Did you know I can heighten and lower them as I please to anyone around me?"
