Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

School.
Five was going to have to attend school.

A truancy officer had shown up at the Academy’s doorstep, and had insisted that he be enrolled. Public or private, but he had to get some sort of education. Apparently his uniform wasn’t enough to convince them.

Diego, who had been pinned as Five’s father, much to both of their distaste, had argued with the officer, but with no backing evidence, had to relent. Five would be put in school as soon as possible.

When Five had first heard the news, he had rebuked the idea strongly, but even he knew that he would have to go, no matter how much he shouted, or spat, or swore.

They submitted the enrollment forms the following Saturday.
When Five had first stepped inside the school, a list of thoughts ran inside his mind.
First of all, it was filthy. A thin film of dust covered the trophy cases in the hall, and the desks inside the office. He made sure to touch as little of it as possible.

Second, the children attending were clearly dunces. Assignments, artworks and posters were posted along the walls in the hall, and they were messy, simple and inaccurate. Five had to withhold a scoff as the staff member guided Diego, himself and Klaus (who had volunteered to play the part of Five’s other parental figure, to everyone’s horror) through the corridors.

Lastly, there were clearly too many students in the school’s system. The empty classrooms were crammed with tiny desks and chairs, the hallways lined with too many and too small lockers. He grimaced and glared at his ‘parents’, who’d made the decision to send him to this particular school, just because it was close to the Academy. They paid no attention to him. Klaus was making conversation with their guide, talking about how happy he and Diego were that Five would finally be able to make friends his own age. It was over the top, sure, but he didn’t think that she noticed. If she did, she didn’t comment. Diego was following closely, fiddling with Patch’s rabbit foot keychain and making the occasional comment or asking a question about how things were run at the school.

Five was then asked to complete a test, in order to see where he stood academically. He was given two hours to fill it out.
He finished in fifteen minutes.

The teacher supervising was visibly impressed, and appeared to also be somewhat suspicious. He walked out of the testing room before she could ask any questions. If she thought he had somehow cheated that was her own problem.

Within two hours, Five had been formally enrolled, therefore signing his fate.

When they returned, Allison had walked up to him, scribbling something down into her notebook. “Need new clothes.” Klaus read aloud. “What, for you?” He asked, puzzled. Allison sighed and pointed at Five. “Guess I forgot about that.” Diego muttered. Klaus clapped enthusiastically. “Ooh, you should let me come!”
Allison started writing again. “We should all go.”
Five frowned at that. The last thing he wanted was a family outing. However, there was no arguing. Everyone had already split up. He huffed in exasperation, before turning and jumping in a warped pool of blue neon.

He reappeared in Vanya’s apartment, the sound of her playing Stravinsky greeting him. “Hey.”
Vanya jumped, her bow skipping. “Jesus, Five. Learn to knock, why don’t you?”
“Sorry that I startled you. Allison wants us to go clothes shopping.”
“She wants us all to come?”
“Yeah. You coming?”
Vanya walked over to her bow case, beginning to clean up. “Sure. I needed to go outside today, anyways.”
Five nodded, and then was gone.

The department store seemed intimidating. Klaus practically dragged them in, barely able to contain his excitement. Five had been wearing his uniform and suits forever, and didn’t know how to dress casually. He unconsciously gravitated towards the school uniforms department, but Klaus grabbed his wrist and pulled him towards the other sections. He wanted Five to experiment and “find his style”. “I know you’re an grandpa, Five, but you look like a kid again, and you can finally dress however you like.”
Diego leaned in close to Five. “Just humour him, Five. Otherwise we’ll never hear the end of it.” With a roll of his eyes, Five allowed Klaus to run around and pick out clothes for him. He was pulled down aisles and departments. Mens, womens, outerwear, footwear, athletics, youth. They looked through them all.

Eventually, Five found himself in the changing rooms. He stood in front of the mirror in the small stall, trying on the clothing that his siblings had picked out for them. Luther, who had proclaimed that he didn’t know the first thing about clothing or fashion, was ferrying them to Five’s stall. He called out the name of whoever picked the articles of clothing, and they all had their own distinct style of clothes they chose for him.

Vanya picked things that were the closest to what Five was used to wearing. Plain button-ups, solid colour polos, pants and shorts. But she also threw in a couple things that were slightly outside of his comfort zone. Hoodies, T-shirts and flannels were thrown in with his ever-growing pile of things to try on, and he began to wonder if having no limit on the number of articles you could have in the changing rooms was a mistake on the store owner’s part. Though, he did find that he enjoyed some of them. He placed the ones he wanted on the rack in the stall and passed the rest back out to Luther, who took them back and returned them to the desk out front.

Diego had given him a selection of edgier clothing. Leather jackets and pants, boots and gloves, V-neck shirts and ripped jeans. He barely took anything from the stack, to Diego’s dismay, but not surprise. He only took two pairs of black jeans, the only ones that weren’t scuffed or torn.

Allison’s choices brought him trendy and conventionally stylish clothes. He admittedly liked quite a few of them. They weren’t too outlandish or gaudy, and suited Five just fine. She’d brought a collection of monochrome pullover sweaters, turtlenecks and blazers, as well as some dressier jeans and pants with some simple but fashionable shoes to go with them.

Klaus, unsurprisingly, brings him the boldest and most experimental clothing. Five is bewildered by how many of these clothes he actually likes. Klaus has given him floral button-downs and T-shirts, beachy tank tops, shorts, skirts and a few dresses. Five spots a pair of heels in the clothes, and gives them a toss across the stall. He doesn’t have any interest in tripping because of a pair of shoes that could potentially harm his feet, anyways. He grabs a few items from the rack and tries them on. He ends up taking a black skirt that ends just below his knees, a navy short-sleeved button down with a tiny white and teal flower stitched on the breast pocket and a red one with paper planes patterned neatly across it. There’re a number of other similar shirts that he takes, too. He also grabs a black T-shirt with red on the waist, collar and sleeves.

Five takes a moment to ask Luther to get his siblings to bring him some pyjamas. He wanted something other than the itchy, stiff Academy-mandated nightclothes, to sleep in.

He leaves with a sizable bag filled to the brim with his new clothes. He takes the bag up to his room and begins to unpack it, folding the clothes and placing them in his wardrobe. Footsteps approach and he turns to see Vanya. She brings him a steaming mug of coffee, and sits next to him on his bed. “Hey, Five. We didn’t talk much earlier, so I wanted to do that now.”
“What is there to talk about? I’m going to school with a bunch of children.”
Vanya nods. “Yeah. Yeah, I know.”
“They’re all idiots.”
“They’re kids, Five. You’re much older than they are.”
“I knew more at age six than what they’ll ever know.”
Vanya elbows him lightly. “You were also at the mercy of Reginald Hargreeves.”
There was a brief pause as Five took a slow sip of the coffee, a murmur of resignation slipping past his lips.

After dinner that night, Five shut himself in his room. The rest of the Hargreeves sat at the table as they watched him walk off. “Kinda acts like a moody teenager, doesn’t he?” Klaus remarked, kicking his feet up on the table. Diego shoved them off, and started helping Grace clear the table. “I don’t know, I think he’s luckier than the rest of us. He gets a second chance at being a normal kid, and he’s just pissing all over it.” He huffed, scrubbing at a plate. Allison swirled her wine glass, staring into it. “He never wanted that as much as we did.” She wrote.
“I wonder why he didn’t. I mean, Dad was just as, if not more, hard on him as he was with us.” Luther said, putting his plate in the sink with more force than was necessary, splashing Diego, earning him a glare and a frustrated mutter of something along the lines of, “If you’re gonna be an asshole, you should do the goddamn dishes every once in a while.”

Five stood in the middle of his room, staring at the empty spot on his chair where Dolores used to sit. He wished that she was still there, but he’d thought that she would be better off where she belonged. In retrospect, he should’ve thought more carefully. The employees have probably mistaken her for trash, just a broken mannequin that some kid pulled off the street. He felt a deep, burning regret when he thought about his mistake. He should’ve kept her with him, or even found a safe place just for her. It was too late to fix his mistake now, though, he thought to himself, but the regret lingered, festering in a pit in his stomach.