Chapter Text
The ding of a bell drew Five to consciousness.
He blinked, his awareness slowly crawling forward, alerting him that he was standing. The doors in front of him slowly opened to reveal what seemed like an unfamiliar park. A small statue stood in the middle of six pathways, one leading towards him.
Towards them.
As his brain raced to catch up to where he was, he was quickly aware that he was not alone. In fact, there were five others around him, and they began moving out of the small room (an elevator, he was slow to realize). His brain still felt like mush, like it had been blended up and molded back into an attempt at a brain, but they felt familiar.
He shook his head lightly and stepped out, eyebrows furrowed. Goosebumps sprung across his skin as he looked around at the park. There were street lamps surrounding the statue, lighting up the night sky. He could hear cars nearby, as well as police sirens, mingled with the soft sounds of a city.
What was going on? His brain seemed to be zapping back into gear, figuring out how to work again, and he zeroed in on the centerpiece of the park.
It was a bust of an elderly man, one who looked achingly familiar. His name was on the tip of his tongue. His eyes fell down to the inscription below it.
OBSIDIAN MEMORIAL PARK
GRACIOUSLY DONATED BY
SIR REGINALD HARGREEVES
THIS 1ST DAY OF OCTOBER, 1989
Oh.
That was his father.
And his birthday.
How had he forgotten his father?
He heard a distant ding, and then one of the people around him spoke.
“Luther?”
An image of a boy flashed through his mind: tall and blonde and bossy. He could practically hear him telling him to hurry up in his mind.
He spun around, relieved that maybe he could find someone who could help him figure out what was going on, but the man exiting the elevator was certainly not the child he had in his memories. He was tall and blond, sure, but he looked to be thirty, not thirteen. He was looking around at the park in confusion.
“Luther!” A short man who seemed to be about the same age as this ‘Luther’ person exclaimed once more, a wide grin on his face as he hurried towards him.
“Oh shot,” Luther said, eyes wide, “You can see me?”
“Yes!”
The smaller man threw his arms around the taller man, and he was lifted into the air in the bear hug that followed it.
“I’m alive? I’m alive!” Luther called out, a wide grin on his face.
He stared in confusion, mind racing several miles a minute as he tried to figure out what was going on. Now that he was looking towards the elevator, he couldn’t tell where it even went to. How had he gotten on it in the first place? How had this ‘Luther’ man, and why was he so excited that he was alive?
It seemed like he was the only one confused about that last part, though, because the others around him were suddenly cheering.
“Luther’s alive!”
“Oh my God!”
“Wait,” the smaller man said, patting Luther’s arms, “That’s not all, big guy.”
“Huh?” Luther’s eyebrows furrowed, and he looked down at his body. He jumped suddenly, as if surprised by what he saw, “Whoa! Oh shit! My body! Wait… I look amazing.”
He had never been so lost. His skin itched, eager to get away from whatever was happening and figure it out. Memories were pushing back into his brain, but it was all too slow and confusing.
The Academy. He needed to get to the Academy. That was… home?
A brief flash of an image sprung into his mind, of his arm, bloody and detached from him, laying on the ground. He remembered the pain, but it was a distant pain, one dancing just out of his reach. He couldn’t figure out where the memory connected to, but he found himself looking down at his arm anyway, relieved to see it there.
“Luther’s all svelte now,” another man with long hair and a goatee spoke from near him as he stared at his arm.
“I got my arm back,” he said to himself, though he couldn’t quite figure out if it had ever actually been gone.
“Wait,” Luther said, grinning, “I gotta show Sloane. This is so cool.”
He spun around, eyes searching for someone, and Five could tell that whoever it was, she wasn’t there.
“W-Wait. Where’s Sloane?”
“Oh, she was, uh… She was right behind me-“ the man with the goatee said, frowning lightly.
Five’s head snapped towards him briefly, before quickly turning as a woman with blonde hair picked up.
“When Allison hit the bloody button.”
“She’s gone, too,” muttered another man, this one with short, dark hair.
Allison? An image of a fiery but kind girl popped into his mind, and he could distantly hear the words ‘I heard a rumor…’
“You know, I don’t know about you guys, but I have not felt this good in years,” Goatee Man said with a grin.
Five wanted to tell him that he was pretty sure it was just him, since he felt dizzy and nauseous and very confused, but the others seemed to be in relatively good health even if they seemed confused, too.
“Does anyone know where the hell we are?” another man, one that he had not noticed before, demanded angrily. Five could sympathize with that anger. He was getting really frustrated, too.
“The hotel,” the woman said, frowning, “Or at least this is where it used to be. I think he did it. I think he reset the universe.”
Reset the universe? What? Five turned to her, feeling a bit dizzy by how many people were talking around him, but she seemed to be the most intelligent of the group, even though she was suddenly distracted by one of the men showing her his fingers for some reason.
“You got your fingers back!” she exclaimed cheerfully.
“Sloane? Sloane!” Luther was calling, starting to get frantic. Five had just started to take a step towards the woman, to demand to know what was going on, but Luther was suddenly approaching him, “Hey,” he said, grasping onto Five’s arm roughly. There was a panic in his eyes that told Five that he wasn’t so much anger as scared, but he felt the tension rise in his body anyways, “I don’t care about any resets, all right? I want my wife back. Where is she, Five?”
Okay, so this man knew him. That wasn’t too surprising, since he was part of the Umbrella Academy, but he seemed to know him on a personal level. Five’s brain still felt like mush, but it was working faster, and the only thing he knew for certain was that he couldn’t trust anyone around him.
“I’m glad you’re alive,” he said, surprised at how steady his voice was as he tried desperately to piece together what was going on, “but please take your hand off me.”
Luther did not move from Five. Instead, his hands gripped his shirt tightly, pulling him forward a bit as he growled.
“Not until you give me an answer.”
None of the people around him seemed particularly worried that he was being manhandled, and that only heightened his belief that he needed to get away as soon as possible.
“Okay, screw this,” he said. His hands turned into fists as he pushed forward, completely prepared to break apart space and travel a bit down the road, away from these maniacs, but nothing happened. There was no fizzling energy in his hands, just emptiness. His stomach dropped, “I can’t blink.”
“Yeah, right,” Luther scowled, but he let go of Five.
There was the sound of metal from nearby, and his head quickly turned to where one of the men had drawn a knife out. His heart leapt into his chest, and he was fully prepared to take off running, but the man simply spun it in his fingers a few times before it fell, dropping to the floor.
“That’s not good.”
Suddenly, everyone around him seemed to be strained. He could see them with their eyes closed, hands fisted in front of them, and he was suddenly struck with the fact that they seemed to be in the same boat as him.
Did they have powers too?
“Okay, Alakazam… ghosties,” Goatee said, splaying his hand forward. Nothing happened. He looked distressed, ‘This means I’m mortal again? Aw man!”
“Wait, wait, wait, wait. How do we get ‘em back, you idiots?” The grumpy man demanded, growling, staring at them as if they were going to pull the answer out of a hat.
Five’s memories were slotting into place a bit more, but none of this made any sense, but their distress eased a bit of the tension in him. They seemed to be in a similar boat to him.
“I gotta… I gotta go find my wife,” Luther mumbled. His previous anger had vanished, replaced simply with fear. He started to back up towards one of the paths, eyes a bit glazed.
“No! Luther, you can’t go!” Goatee man called, reaching out to stop him, but Luther started walking faster, “You were dead five minutes ago. You’re fragile!”
Luther didn’t appear to care about that, quickly making a beeline out of the park.
“I gotta go after him,” Goatee said, stumbling away.
“No. Wa- Klaus, wait!” one of them called, and Five jerked slightly at the name.
Memories flashed to the forefront once more, this time of a wild child, laughing and jumping on the bed and hiding joints underneath the dining room table.
Five turned his head to watch, eyebrows furrowed, memories finally starting to fall into place and settle.
“I’m out, bitches,” Grumpy said, glaring at them as he started back away.
“Guys, Come on,” the small man said, “We should stay together and figure this out-“
“Well, what are we supposed to do?” the man with the blonde girl asked. For a moment, Five was certain he was responding to the small man, but when his head turned to him, he saw that he was looking at the woman.
“Live our lives?”
Their hands slowly intertwined, and Five felt like screaming, but he couldn’t find it in him to open his mouth. His brain hurt.
And then they were walking off, leaving Five standing there with the small man in front of him.
They stared at each other, and he could tell that the man in front of him seemed to be just as distressed as him. He pondered walking away, going to find the Academy, and forcing his father to explain to him why he had randomly appeared in an elevator with strangers, some of which shared names with his siblings.
But the man was staring at him, like he expected Five to say something, and he finally blurted it out.
“What the hell just happened?”
“I don’t know,” he said with a shrug, looking defeated, “Looks like we did what we do best, though.”
Five shook his head. He brought a hand to his hair, and he wasn’t sure why he expected to feel dried blood. He looked back at the man, eyes narrowed.
“Okay, new question,” he demanded, “Who the hell are you?”
There was a brief moment where the man didn’t say anything. His eyes widened, and he took a step back in surprise. His eyebrows furrowed.
“I’m Viktor, Five. You know me.”
“Obviously, I don’t,” he shot back, his heart beating frantically in his chest. He gestured at the door to the elevator, “How do you know me?”
“I’m your brother,” Viktor said hesitantly. He stepped forward, and Five took a step back.
He shook his head firmly, keeping his eyes fixed on the man in front of him.
“I don’t have a brother named Viktor,” he said.
A hurt expression crossed the man’s face for some reason, but it was replaced with sudden worry.
“Who were those other people?” he demanded, his voice starting to shake, “And how did we get in that elevator? Why did everyone think that man was dead? Why did he think I would know what was going on? Why is there a statue of my father that dates back to my birthday? Why can’t I use my powers?”
He knew, logically, that it was impossible for the man to answer all of those questions at the same time, but he couldn’t keep the panic at bay any longer.
Viktor, to his credit, simply held out his hands and took another step forward. His voice was steady and soft as he spoke.
“Five, what is the last thing you remember?”
He licked his lips and took another step back, mind racing.
“Uh, it’s… it’s all foggy. I think… I think I was training.”
“Training? With who?”
His eyebrows furrowed lightly.
“Diego,” he said, a little more certain. He could distinctly remember that Dad had Diego throw knives at him to test his spatial jumps. He had to blink out of the way before they hit. Fairly standard.
“And how old is Diego?” Viktor said, sounding strained suddenly.
“Thirteen,” he said.
“Shit,” Viktor groaned, leaning his head back and cursing unashamedly, “Shit. Of course. Things were… reset, according to Lila. Time, Diego’s fingers, your arm, Luther’s body... I even noticed that Klaus’ tattoos are gone. And you were in the middle. You probably got the most of… whatever it was… out of all of those. Of fucking course your memories were reset, too! Whatever happened must have fixed your mind like it fixed Luther.”
His eyes flashed angrily, and he kicked at the statue. Five took an unconscious step back, wary.
He prided himself on being smart, but he was so incredibly lost at the moment.
“Shit,” Viktor mumbled one last time before sighed. He ran a hand over his face. The anger seemed to drain out of him, leaving him exhausted. He brought tired eyes to Five, and he was startled to see sympathy in them, “You’re missing memories. A lot of memories.”
“I gathered that much,” he mumbled. He crossed his arms over his chest a bit defensively, “But what happened?”
“It’s a very long and complicated story,” he answered, “Alright, so it’s clear that you don’t recognize me, which… makes sense. A while ago, you time travelled. You ended up in 2019. Do you remember that?”
He perked up at the mention of time travel and shook his head. He had been pondering it lately, had been bugging their father for a chance to practice. Time travelling to the future and getting sucked into whatever was going on wasn’t out of the realm of possibility, and since it was the only thing making any semblance of sense, he found himself listening.
“Well, you did. It’s very complicated, and I’ll go into more detail later, but it is 2019, and I am your brother.”
“I don’t have a brother named Viktor,” he argued distrustfully.
“But you do,” Viktor said. There was an odd, almost hesitant note to his voice, “You just didn’t know me as Viktor back then.”
Five was quiet for a moment, staring at the man, his eyes gliding across his features. He tried to place him to his brothers, but he was coming up short. It definitely wasn’t Diego or Ben. Nor was it Luther. Klaus was a… possibility, but he really didn’t look like him. In fact, he looked more like…
“Oh,” he said as it hit him suddenly, “Seven?”
Viktor nodded, and there was an expression across his face of worry, and it all clicked into place.
He observed his brother for a moment, before giving a short nod.
“Viktor suits you,” he said, “I’m happy for you.”
He was. It was obvious just in the short moment that he had been here that Viktor was thousands of times more comfortable in his skin than the Seven at the academy.
Relief flooded over Viktor’s face. He smiled.
“So, those others… Okay, that makes more sense,” he said, nodding lightly, “Luther, and Klaus… Wait, Luther was dead?”
“Dad killed him,” Viktor scowled, and the statement slammed into Five like a bull. He sucked in a breath and took a step back, and Viktor seemed to suddenly realize just how startling of a statement that was. There was really no way of sugarcoating it, though, “It’s a long story, like I said. Things got really bad. The world was ending. Dad… well, you always knew he was horrible.”
He did, but horrible enough to kill his own son?
“Shit, I’m not good at this,” Viktor groaned. He walked forward and placed a hand on Five’s shoulder. Five stared back at him with wide eyes, “Look, we’re going to figure this out. We’ll get your memories back. We just got to track down our idiotic siblings.”
The last part was said as a bit of a joke, Viktor’s mouth quirking up, but Five didn’t laugh. His mind was racing.
“Shit,” he mumbled to himself.