i found myself in crowded rooms, feeling so alone

[numberthree]

WHO: Teen!Rumor + You
WHERE: Nonah (or wherever, we can handwave how)
WHEN: May 4th
WHAT: Allison is hit with Wild Fey Magic, and reverts back to being 13
WARNINGS: One super temper and a mass case of flippant, ruthless uses of powers



Number Three had no clue where she was when she woke up.

The bedroom was bare and unfamiliar, and someone had put her in some weird set of pajamas. While their father might be the end all be all a totalitarian dictator, he had prepared them, if not for every situation, then with skills that could be used wherever they might find themselves. If panic touched the edges of her thoughts, she brushed it away with all the dismissal of ants. She skivvied out of the strange bed, stole a tunic shirt, and belted it at the waist, making sure her every step was silent.

She'd been kidnapped and tortured before. That wasn't anything new. But she wasn't about to stick around and wait to see what the latest flavor whatever villain who got the drop on her had in mind. Weirdly. She couldn't remember how she'd been kidnapped at all, where her uniform was. But that could wait. They could have drugged her. She could focus on that once she was home.

Number Three crept out of the bedroom into ... a house? A house full of boxes? And one where the front door only had a knob lock and deadbolt? This was too weird. But she wasn't looking a gift-horse in the mouth. She slipped out from the house, closing the door carefully, slowly, and waiting for about fifteen more feet of silent steps from the door before she started sprinting down the street, still holding her breath.

It only gets weirder and weirder. She doesn't recognize any of the street signs, and she asks someone on a sidewalk where she is, and how far from home it is. But she doesn't know the name of this place. Or anywhere else they mentioned. Weirder still when she finally found someone with a phone (or whatever this was, that was the size of her hand???), and The Academy phone number didn't work.

It's a mistake the first time she mentions The Umbrella Academy because a crowd forms out of nowhere, screaming questions (about whether she's some love child from the future? And asking any number of things that seem crazily worse. She's pretty sure someone just asked if they went in for underwear or no underwear with costumes wherever she came from).

Eventually, with or without some help, Number Three does manage to wrench herself free of the teeming crowds, that are like the crowds from home and nothing like that at all. After getting a few blocks away, she dropped on a bench. She was racking her head. This wasn't her job. This was what Luther did. Or Five, if he was allowed to.

One barefoot, forlorn, if headstrong and temperamental,
child-hero for sale to any buyers who would like to find her.

Comments

[obediences]

Other families might have had tearful joyous reunions, falling into each others' arms for a hug.

The Hargreeves don't work that way. All of this, it rankles a little. Five is used to working on his own, not taking orders from someone literal decades younger than him, and One isn't used to being bossed around by one of his siblings either, so both of them sit uncomfortably in it like square pegs in round holes. It's not exactly like the combativeness he might've seen from Diego, but...

More the fact that Five is a lone wolf. That's it. He prefers to go about things with his own methods.

And as much as Luther has to look down to meet Five's eye, and instinctively wants to think of him as the boy who vanished — he still looks just like it — Luther has to keep consciously reminding himself that it isn't like that. Not anymore.

"I'll send you the Nonah address, and you should send me— us— what they've assigned as yours. I trust you'll be able to find ours later. There's a spare room, you're welcome anytime. And I'll send you an information dump of what I know about this world." He knew how much Five liked information, at the least.

And then he lingers on this next point, because he has to impress this particular fact upon his brother, making it clear that they haven't all just been dumped here straight from the Icarus, that it isn't just some wayward detour from their jump across universes gone haywire. This is important:

"I've been here for over a year, Five. So if you have questions, just ask. But I'll let you get settled first."

I've missed you is what he doesn't say. Again: the Hargreeves don't work that way.

[timehit]

Here we go, terms and conditions. His mouth draws back with a twitch, as if he's trying his hardest to hear Luther out and keep whatever retort he's considering at bay. After all, a compromise is, by all odds, the best scenario Five can expect. That Number One isn't trying to impress his authority upon him right then and there is, well, commendable.

Not that he's used to giving out accolades.

He doesn't bother to jot any of that down, doesn't need to. Writing reports, and really that's how he sees this, is ingrained in his blood by now. And sure, the Handler might've been prettier, but there's something to be said for authority that isn't holding a gun at you either.

"Keep an eye on your messages," he says. That's it. You give me trust and I'll give back. Reginald didn't trust in him and look how that turned out; stubborn and headstrong and not only out the door, out of time.

Five turns to take a parting glance at Number Three. It's a shame, and he almost hates to leave it at that, but. If any of them have a chance at making this awkward situation work, it's obviously Luther. "Be seeing you again soon," he says to her, raising up one hand in a wry salute. Au revoir, for now.

They don't get the satisfaction of watching him depart. No, it's as sudden and abrupt as ever. A blink and space bends to Five's will, leaving nothing but empty air where he was standing. No hint of his boyish frame in the crowds of passersby, no wave goodbye in the back of a taxi.

Just a promise left on the wind that he'll return again soon.

[numberthree]

Number Three arches a cool brow at that farewell, as though she's neither impressed at his antics nor is he as amusingly above it all as he likes to think he is. But he's gone in about as much time as it takes her to make that expression.

Her neutrality, though, slides to a side almost as fast as the rip in space contorts itself back to normal, and she turns. Which is about as much time as Space gets. It's not entirely a regular thing. But it's been happening more and more. Everything shifting in the breadth of a second. Of something like not quite, but near seclusion.

All her silence and step-file to the line, warped suddenly in words shaped-sharp, if not to being thrown like daggers. The pressure places on more specific words that were though pinned points. "We do not have an address, and the Academy number is not working, so you should start explaining just whatever it is you seem to think is going on here."

Before she begins to list The Unfavorable Options.

[obediences]

He's still watching the spot where Five vanished — using the teleportation power that had been Luther's in the City, so it's almost become familiar. It's a fleeting glimpse, there-and-gone, almost leaving you wondering if you'd imagined the whole damn thing. He'd have wanted his brother to stay longer, glad to have him back, but it's like trying to hold onto slippery water in your hands or a cat weaselling out of your arms. Five will be back at his own pace, when he's good and ready.

Luther sighs (still sounding so much older and more tired), and turns back to his other problem. Even then, a fond smile settles over the boy's mouth even as she cuts into him, her dutiful demeanour obliterated as soon as they're alone and she can safely talk back. It's a sharp tartness that the older Allison doesn't often use anymore; only sometimes. And it's her voice. That voice. All of it suddenly heaves him tumbling back into old history and it's jarring, looking at her, to think that they aren't actually there in the past after all.

At least Five had come through the Porter, been given the introductory schpiel by the government and the informational packet. Allison (no— not Allison, it's Number Three, she didn't even recognise her name when he'd said it) doesn't even seem to have the benefit of that.

Luther balances his words, eventually settles on: "This isn't home. We've been transported to a different universe, kind of like how Five jumps between time and space. We're in a city called Nonah, in North Carolina. We— you and I have a house here. None of the others are here besides Five now."

As crisp and to-the-point as if he's relaying the mission parameters.