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❛ ᴛʜᴇ ᴘ. ᴘᴀɴ ᴇғғᴇᴄᴛ​​​​​​​​​​. ❜ ° . ༄
- ͙۪۪˚   ▎❛ 𝐓𝐖𝐎 ❜   ▎˚ ͙۪۪̥◌
»»————- ꒰ ᴍʏ ғᴀᴍɪʟʏ ʜᴀs
ᴘʀᴏʙʟᴇᴍs ᴡɪᴛʜ ʏᴏᴜʀs ꒱


❝ THE ONLY THING THEY LACKED
MORE THAN GRIT WAS ANY
REGARD FOR ONE ANOTHER ❞

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Eight sets of matching tennis shoes pounded on the speeding treadmills as The Sparrow Academy worked out after their fight with the rival siblings. Christopher spun in the air next to Marcus as their leader began to give the rundown to the team.

"The big one is strong but slow, possibly stupid—"

Deianira cut him off with a scoff. "He is stupid, Marcus. There's no doubt in my mind that he is."

Her brother ignored her and continued: "some sort of. . . simian hybrid."

"Who took the little jumpy guy?" Sloane asked.

"Me," Jayme answered smugly. "Just gave him a spanking and sent him to school."

"Hey-oh!" Alphonso cheered. He lifted his hand from the handle of his treadmill and offered a fist bump to the brunette. Christopher gave his own encouragement to the sixth sibling.

"The skinny one is the weak link," Fei put in.

"Au contraire, sister-dearest," Deianira disagreed. "The blonde teen is their weakest link. I took her out in minutes."

"I think they're in competition with each other to be the lamest siblings," Ben conceded with his sisters. "Unless his superpower is hiding behind couches shouting 'where's my daddy?' and hers is some sort of weird fucking heart eyes for me."

It's guilt, the brunette corrected him in her head. She didn't bother to say anything aloud, though, and let her brother misinterpret the look. Ben turned to their Number One. "Enough post-gaming. They disrespected us, Marcus. We need to be out there finding these freaks and taking 'em out."

"Oh, you mean like this?" he returned. The brunet stopped his machine and used the remote to switch the video feed. A playback of Sad Girl's white power exploding from her chest showed on the TV screen. Deianira rolled her eyes as she watched her siblings be blown backwards from the force. (She'd skipped out on the fight early seeing as how there wasn't much for her to do when it was seven— sorry, six— to eight.)

Her siblings slowed their treadmills down to pay more attention to what Marcus had to say. Before he could continue, though, she just had to make a dig at the others. "You guys seriously couldn't have stood your ground? How hard is it to defeat a single girl when there were at least three of you in the room?"

Marcus gave her a stern look. "And where were you, Number Eight? You're supposed to be our siblings' support."

She scoffed. "I'm not their keeper. All of them are expected to be able to hold their own in a fight. If they can't do that then maybe I should have a different number."

"Maybe you should," the man— surprisingly— agreed with her. "After all, you're not even here right now."

The brunette sighed. "Damn. How were you able to figure that one out?"

"Your illusion is sloppy," he told her critically. "Your sneakers are nearly see-through and you're about half an inch off the ground. Unless Sloane's using her power on you that should be impossible."

"Alright, Captain Sherlock. What're you gonna do? Make me run an extra ten miles?"

"Possibly. Or I'll demote you."

Deianira rolled her eyes. "Oh, no! A demotion, how horrifying! What a terrible consequence to go from number eight to. . . number eight!" Her comment earned her chuckles from her siblings. Sloane gave her copy a half-exasperated, half-indulgent look.

Marcus just shook his head. "You need to be a more prominent part of the team, Deianira. All of your slacking off has made something like this happen. Besides our Number Eight's laziness, can someone explain how you got your asses handed to you in thirty seconds? Do you have any idea what would happen to our reputation if anyone had seen that?" He raised his voice at the end to shout at them in frustration.

The brunette had her illusion-self turn off the machine and raise her hand to examine her nails with boredom. "Careful, Marky. If you yell too much you might have a coronary."

He glared furiously at her. "How many times do I have to tell you not to call me that?" Before she could respond, he carried swiftly on: "I mean, we haven't faced decent enemies for years. This could be good for us. Good for business. But only if we're smart with our next move."

Fei put her hands on her hips and she let out a heavy breath as Reginald entered the room. He cleared his throat to gain their attention. "You summoned, Number One?"

"Sit." The older man did as he was told. "You spent time with these people. What's your assessment?"

"Unimpressive. Neanderthals on a day pass. Cried too much and showered too little. The only thing they lacked more than grit was any regard for one another."

"No loyalty," Ben observed. "We can use that."

Marcus nodded. "Good. Give a full report to Christopher." The seventh member made a sound of agreement.

Reginald stood. "Still, I wouldn't underestimate The Umbrella Academy. Yes, their skills are as lacking as their hygiene, yet—somehow— they saved the world in 1963. Had they not, none of you would be standing here now. Perhaps I misjudged them." Christopher spoke up again and moved closer to their father-figure. "Yes, yes, I'm going."

☂︎ ☂︎ ☂︎

When Alexa finally awoke, her eyes blinked open to a pitch-black room. At first, she thought that maybe she was still unconscious but a cool hand in hers slowly brought her to awareness. The bed underneath her body wasn't hers— not the one she'd owned in her apartment in 2019, nor the one from her room in Dallas. Its mattress was rather thin and she could feel some of the springs poke against her back. The sheets that covered her body were thin and more on the scratchy side than anywhere close to a rich thread count.

Her eyes squinted against the blackness as she tried to peer into the room but she found that the action caused her head to burst into pain. She let out a sound of discomfort and used her free hand to rub her temple. The noise was nearly covered up by the snores that emanated from somewhere to her left but Five had always been a light sleeper. At the disturbance, he roused from his drowsy state and (foolishly) tried to make out the blonde's sheet-covered form. "Lexa?" he whispered into the— mostly— quiet room.

Even though she recognized his voice— she'd recognize it anywhere— she still returned the question. "Five?"

He squeezed her hand in response. "It's me. How are you feeling?"

Alexa took stock of her current conditions before she came to a conclusion: "like shit."

The boy let out a sigh and leaned back in his chair. "You're not the only one. Is there anything that you need?"

"Some Advil or something would be amazing right about now," she answered. She felt him tense— as if he were preparing to blink away to get the requested item— and her grip on him tightened. "Don't go," the blonde whispered.

"How am I supposed to help you if I can't get it?"

Although his question was entirely practical, she couldn't imagine anything worse than him leaving. In a quiet voice, she said: "I don't even know where we are."

Oh; her apprehension was entirely understandable. He relaxed back in his chair. "I guess being knocked out for a few hours would leave you out of the loop. Uh, sorry. I didn't think about that. We're staying in a place called Hotel Obsidian— Klaus' suggestion as you can probably tell. We're gonna lie low for a little while to see what this new timeline has in store for us." He paused. "Do you remember anything that happened?"

Alexa made an effort to recall the previous events before she'd been knocked out. Despite the effort causing her mind to twinge with pain, she answered: "we left 1963 at night. . . we landed in our home and the date was April second, so we stopped the apocalypse. . ." She didn't speak for a moment as she tried to remember more. "Um. . . Dad's alive. Ben's portrait is above the mantel instead of yours and—" Her eyes widened (and she winced at the action.) "There's another academy! And. . . and Ben's alive." The last word was spoken almost reverently.

"Do you remember anything else?" Five pointedly didn't address her last comment.

"Uh. . . not really."

He nodded, though she couldn't see it. "Well, Dad decided to adopt seven other children because of how unimpressed he was with us in Dallas. They weren't too chuffed about us showing up in their quote-unquote home. Klaus tried to make nice with Ben, who didn't appreciate his efforts. You tried to protect us with your shield but one of their members— maybe their Number Eight— was able to disintegrate it with her power."

"What? But my shields are supposed to be invincible!"

"Invulnerable," he corrected her swiftly. "And yes, but apparently their Number Eight has different abilities than yours. I wasn't able to get a good reading of them but I believe that they have something to do with illusion and reality."

Alexa sighed. "Great. Just great." A sudden thought occurred to her and she froze. "What happened after I was knocked out?" (Five had been suspiciously silent about that part of the story.)

He cleared his throat. "We, uh, fought."

She stilled as her heart suddenly pounded loudly in her chest. Her ears thrummed with her pulse as she breathed out: "everyone-everyone made it, right? No one got irrevocably hurt?"

Five squeezed her hand again as he reassured her: "everyone got out. Allison and Vanya are in a separate room while Klaus, Diego, Luther and I are sharing one."

The blonde let out a breath of relief. If any of her siblings had been seriously injured while she'd been unconscious, their injuries would be on her. How was she supposed to protect her siblings if she was so easily defeated in the first five minutes of the fight? Any wounds that her siblings had acquired were still her fault, but at least none of them were fatal. She hadn't failed them entirely.

"I'm sorry," she said quietly.

He frowned. "What are you apologizing for?"

"I-I should have been stronger. I should've been able to fight harder, withstand more—"

"Lexa," he cut her off gently. "It's not your fault. We were all already tired when we got there. They just caught us off guard. You'd already used your power a lot earlier that day—"

"I know," she interrupted him this time. "But it's still my job to protect you all, especially in an unknown timeline. If I'm unconscious for hours on end and someone gets hurt, that's on me."

"Well, if you're going with that reasoning, it's also my fault."

"What do you mean?"

Five shrugged. "I know how to operate a Commission briefcase. I should've foreseen that something like this could happen and planned for it."

"You couldn't have," Alexa protested. "It would be impossible to know how much the timeline had changed over fifty or so years—"

"Do you see where I'm going with this?"

She shook her head against her pillow. "It's different. We didn't time travel using your power."

"I suppose that's true," he allowed. "But none of us blame you for what happened, Lexa, so you should try not to feel guilty about it. I know that's easier said than done but I promise that no one holds you responsible for the fight."

The blonde let out a breath. "Alright," she agreed reluctantly. "I'll try not to think about it too much." They fell into silence for a few moments before she spoke again: "Fi?"

"Yeah?"

This time, she squeezed his hand. "I'm glad you're here. I. . . I didn't expect you to be."

He smiled slightly, pleased that he could surprise her. "I know." He wished that he could meet her eyes but opted for returning her gesture instead. "When I promised that I would stay, I meant it, Lexa. I'm not going to leave you behind again."

Alexa was glad that it was dark so that he couldn't see the pink flush her face had acquired at his words. She decided to change the subject before he could fluster her further. "Um. . . am I in your bed?"

Five cleared his throat again. "Uh. . . yeah."

She shifted on the mattress to move closer to the wall and scrunched her eyes shut as the pain in her head flared up again. Luckily, it dispersed when she finished moving. The blonde patted the now-empty space next to her. "Share with me."

He raised an eyebrow. "Are you inviting me to share my own bed?"

She let out a soft giggle. "Well. . . I guess when you put it like that. . ."

His expression softened at the sound. He didn't tease her further and rose from his chair to take her suggestion. The bed dipped further as he added his weight to it but neither of them minded as he tucked himself in next to her. Then— predictably— she shifted one last time to roll on top of him. In her very familiar position, she lowered her head to the crook of his neck and he resisted the urge to shiver as he felt her gentle breaths against his skin.

He focused on wrapping his arms around her waist and— to distract himself— he asked a question that had been plaguing him for decades. "Lexa?"

"Mmm?"

"Why do you sleep like this?"

Her voice was already growing heavy as she asked, "sleep like what?"

Five felt his ears warm as he clarified, "on top of me."

He felt (more than saw) her shrug. "Except for me, people are most vulnerable when they sleep."










A/n: I decided not to write the Umbrella/Sparrow fight scene for a couple of reasons: one, we all know how it went and not much was changed since Alexa was knocked out early on and two: I don't like writing fight scenes so to save myself that trouble I just skipped over it, lol. I did want to mention that— at least for this version universe of my TUA fanfics— my headcanon is that when Five saw Dolores under Jayme's hallucination power, she had blonde hair because Five modeled her after Alexa.