(y/n) - your name

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I sigh softly as I watched the scenery move by me, the New York streets and sky-high buildings soon turning into open fields and long empty stretches of road. I could feel Five staring at me but I didn't feel like talking, closing my eyes to just rest until we stopped. I sit up as he opens the door for me, getting out and I jump out as well after him, Luther staying in the car as ordered by the smaller brother. I narrow my eyes at Five when he grabs my hand and pulls me back behind the car, his own eyes narrow on me and I rip my arm free from his grip.

"(Y/n)-"

"-what's with the grabbing? What do you want-"

"-are you ok?" He softens and I tense up, sneering at him as those words ring in my head.

"It's none of your fucking business!" I snap with hatred for those words and he grinds his jaw.

I move to walk away but I gasp when he grabs my waist and pins me against the back of the car. "You're not leaving until you tell me." I shove him away, crossing my arms in defeat knowing he can and will stop me if I tried to leave again. I lean back against the trunk and sigh out in annoyance, trying to calm down my own unchecked anger.

"I'm fine. Don't worry about it." I grit out and Five frowns at me, pursing his lips together like he doesn't believe me.

"How can I not worry about you when you were crying." He mumbles and I look at him in surprise but I shake it off.

"It's normal. Just a brief moment of weakness I get every now and then. It's nothing." I shrug it off, just wanting this conversation to end already.

"It's not nothing that you feel like a burden (y/n)." I glance at Five, glaring at him but he looked at me softly and held arms gently.

"You listened in to Vanya and I's conversation!?" I hiss at him.

"I know it was wrong but I was worried about you. You started crying and I wanted to know why."

"It was none of your business Five! I can handle myself. You don't need to worry about me-"

"-stop telling me that!" Five suddenly leans his hands up and I hold my breath when he holds my neck, his thumbs brushing against my jaw and my eyes widen from how softly he was holding me. "I worry about you all the damn time and I hate thinking that maybe I'm doing something wrong or I'm hurting you." He says, hurt in his eyes.

"Five, you don't need to care about me-"

"-but I do! I do! I care about you so much that you're all I think about! Not even about the damn apocalypse!"

"Then just stop caring about me! I'm not worth it! I'm not worth anything! I'm not important, especially when there's an apocalypse coming. When everything is fixed, I'll be gone and back in my own universe. I'll be a long-lost memory like I'm supposed to be. I won't have to be in your lives anymore and I'll finally stop hurting you. Stop hurting everyone." I look away but Five tilts my head back to look up at him.

"You're not hurting anyone (y/n). None of this is your fault. You are not the cause of this." He takes a step closer to me and my breath hitches, him brushing away the stray tears that escaped as he leaned his forehead on mine. "And my god will I never forget you. You will never be a long-lost memory for me. I want you in my life (y/n)." My heart races from his words, trying to process them but I couldn't and I didn't want to believe them. I knew one way or another I would be gone and it wouldn't be fair to him to leave him hurt.

"Five..." my voice cracks as I hold the car behind me to just hold up my shaking self as my legs wavered, holding the other hand on his chest to push him away. Or not, I didn't know what I wanted to do. I wanted to stay with him but I can't get close to him. To anyone here. I'm just going to hurt them if I disappear.

"I want you here with me. I don't want you to be a dream. I don't just want you to be a memory. I care about you so much. I need you here. I need you here in front of my eyes." My heart races and my breathing quickens as he steps as close to me as possible, one hand holding my waist as the other moves to hold my hand on his chest. I couldn't handle this, couldn't handle the surge of emotions and I squeezed my eyes shut as I shook in his arms.

"...Why..."

"Please don't leave me." Five's voice cracks and I tear up, opening my eyes to see he had his squeezed shut to hold back his tears. "I don't think I could handle you being gone..."

"Five..." The crying boy in front of me suddenly hugs me, a hand in my hair and the other wrapped around my waist. I froze with my arms up in the air, unsure of what to do and he squeezed me tight. I slowly move my arms around him, hugging him back as I lay my head on his shoulder.

"You are important to me (y/n). Please, please don't say you're worthless 'cause you're precious to me..."

"...Ok..." Five lets out a sigh of relief and hugs me tightly as I squeeze him back. I feel him press a hesitant kiss on top of my head, not letting me go. And I think I need him to not let me go, feeling free in his arms as whatever weight there was on my shoulders drifted away, I melted in his arms and he holds me tighter as my arms droop down around him, picking me up and taking me back to the car doors.

Five sets me down and gives me a shy smile seeing that I had stopped crying, wiping my cheeks. "There she is." I blush at his words and we move to wait in the car with Luther. It was a couple of minutes of awkward silence until Five spoke up. "You know, I never enjoyed it."

"What?" Luther asks.

"The killing. I mean, I was... I was good at my work, and I... I took pride in it. But it never gave me pleasure. I think it was all those years alone." Five says softly, and I flush when I feel his hand brush against mine on the seat between us. "Solitude can do funny things to the mind..." he turns to me when I brush his hand back with my pinky, looking at me with such soft eyes.

"Yeah, well, you were gone for such a long time. I only spent four years on the moon, but that was more than enough. It's the being alone that breaks you." Luther says, a heavy sigh leaving him. "You think they'll buy it?" he asks his brother as the fake briefcase sits in the passenger seat.

"Well, what I do know is that they're desperate. It's like a cop losing his gun. If the Commission finds out, they'll be in deep shit. Oh, not to mention the fact that they'll be stuck here until they get it back."

"Well, I should hold onto it. In case they make a move on you."

"Okay, Luther, but be careful. I mean, I've... I've lived a long life, but... you're still a young man. You got your whole life ahead of you. Don't waste it." I chuckle at the look Luther gives Five, unsure if he should be offended or not.

All three of us soon hear the running of a car engine and look across the road in front of us in the far distance and see the two assassins. "Show time guys." the boys nod and we get out of the car, Five taking hold of my hand to squeeze it as it drives past us. It stops a few feet away from us and he lets go, walking halfway to meet up with Hazel and Cha-Cha as I was with Luther. They talk for a while and Cha-Cha goes to the payphone to call the Handler while Five comes back to us.

"Now what?" Luther asks us.

"You better get ready for a fight to break out 'cause of three certain idiots." I pipe up and Five looks at me, brows furrowed.

"Who-" We suddenly hear an ice cream machine and I smile as I lean forward to see the ice cream truck driving down the road.

"Those three idiots." I point out and walk to the side of the road to make sure I don't get in the way of Hazel and Cha-Cha when they start shooting at the truck. "Prepare to start dodging bullets!"

"Weeee!" I chuckle as Klaus and Ben wave at us, them driving right past us while Diego yells out to his brother to go faster. Five quickly hides behind Luther who was protecting him when Klaus runs over the assassin, everything suddenly stopping soon after. I look around and blink at how everything was highly saturated, like the dial cranked up to ultimate and it was making my eyes hurt behind my glasses.

Huh, I'm not frozen. Cool.

Five pops out from behind Luther and I walk up to him, his brows furrowed in confusion when he saw that I wasn't frozen but I put a finger to my lips so he can keep quiet about me. "Neat trick isn't it." I groan loudly when I hear that grating voice!

"That bitch is here. I never expected to meet her in person. I thought that I would only when I'm dead and in hell."

"Hello, Five. You look good, all things considered." The Handler was here and we walked up to her

"It's good to see you again." I stand beside Five and he subtly glances at me just to make sure everything was ok before facing his employer.

"Feels like we met just yesterday. Course, you were a little bit older then. Congratulations on the age regression, by the way." I stood closer to Five, suddenly feeling a little suspicious. "Very clever. Threw us all off the scent."

"Ah, well, I wish I could take credit. I just miscalculated the time dilation projections, and... Well, you know. Here I am."

"Physics continues to haunt me even in this universe." I mumble softly, getting war flashbacks from taking Physics as a course back in high school. The Handler suddenly turns her head and looks directly at me, a wide grin on her face.

Please don't tell me she can see me.

"Five-"

"-you realize your efforts are futile. So why don't you tell me what you really want?"

"I want you to put a stop to it." 

"You realize what you're asking for is next to impossible, even for me. What's meant to be is meant to be. That's our raison d'être."

Five suddenly pulls out a handgun and I raise a brow at how hot that was. "Yeah? Well, how about survival as a raison?" he mocks with a smile, holding that gun aimed right at the Handler.

The Handler smiles wider if that was even possible and I get creeped out by her. "I'll just be replaced. I'm but a... small cog in a machine." She starts walking closer and I stan behind Five, not liking how it looked like she could see me. "This fantasy you've been nurturing about summoning up your family to stop the apocalypse... is just that. A fantasy." she walks around us like a predator and I move closer to Five, afraid that somehow if the Handler walked into me, she would know I was there. "I must say, though, we're all quite impressed with your initiative, your... stick-to-itiveness, really quite... quite something. Which is why we want to offer you a new position back at the Commission, in management." she stops in front of Five and she scoffs.

"Sorry, what's that now?"

"Come back to work for us again. You know it's where you belong." 

I really don't like how she gets closer to us...

"Well, it didn't work out too well the last time."

"But you wouldn't be in the correction division any longer. I'm talking about... the home office. You'd have the best health and pension, and an end to this ceaseless travel." The Handler slowly creeps closer to Five and I inch away from her, hiding behind him. "You're a distinguished professional in... schoolboy shorts. We have the technology to reverse the process. I mean, you... can't be happy like this." she lowers Five's gun but he moves his hand behind his back to keep a hold of me.

"I'm not looking for happy..." he mutters out and I squeeze his hand.

"We're all looking for happy." I grimace when the Handler grazes Five's cheek with her hand. 

Pedophile alert!

"We can make that happen. We can make you... yourself again."

"And what about my family?"

"What about them?"

"I want them to survive."

"All of them?"

"Yes, all of them."

"Well, I'll see what I can do. Do we have a deal?" The Handler holds out her hand.

"One thing." Five walks off first to move the bullet away from hitting Luther and the Handler looks in his direction before looking back right at me.

Shit, can she actually see me!?

I look down and see that I'm not making any shadows from the strange burst of saturated world.

Does she know about me!?

Of course, she does!? She has the infinity switchboard!

She must've seen Five having conversations in the air with a girl named (y/n)!

She must've even seen what happened before Hazel and Cha-Cha came.

Five comes back, quickly glancing at me but looks back at the Handler. I don't say anything, for fear that she might actually hear me. I hold on to the back of Five's blazer as he shakes the Handler's hand, a bright blue light engulfing all three of us.

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