Chapter Text
“Everybody ready?” Five asked looking around. He could almost feel the nerves radiating off his siblings. Five caught Luther’s eye as he nodded.
“Yea, yea. Let’s do this,” Luther agreed, ready to get back.
Five nodded, looking around again and catching the glance between Allison and Vanya. He knew, on some level, that they were leaving behind more than he ever had during a mission. But, by staying here they were -- they all were -- messing with the timeline. They needed to get back to their own time, they needed to avert the apocalypse once and for all. They needed to move on and stop clinging to the past. They needed to do this and do this now.
“Okay,” Five said, looking at the briefcase to make sure the correct time, date, and location were listed. Confirming all was correct for the third time he looked around at his siblings again before he pushed the button.
“--Wait!” Klaus yelled. Five jerked, looking up and around, his gaze landing back on Klaus with an eyebrow raised, waiting, his finger hovering right above the button. The rest of his siblings had matching expressions of exasperation.
A quick array of emotions flitted across Klaus’ face, “Agh, just a sec,” he yelled as he scurried through the group to grab something from the porch. Five watched him exasperated and ready to leave.
“Fifty bucks if we leave him here,” Diego muttered to Five as Klaus ran back to the group with a black cowboy hat in his hands.
“Wouldn’t have wanted to forget this beauty,” Klaus explained as he placed it on his head and ran his fingers over the brim, “Okay, ready,” he said as he grabbed hold of Luther’s and Vanya’s hands and looked at Five expectedly like Five was the one slowing down the group.
Five was definitely exasperated.
He looked around at the group again, everyone had linked hands and were holding on to him. It was now or never. Five was ready to leave. He needed to leave. Without checking the briefcase again, sure it was the same as before, he pushed the button. The group disappeared in a flash of blue lightning.
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Diego stumbled to get his footing. He felt like his whole body had just been sucked through a straw. He doubled over, groaning and grasping his head, praying that the overwhelming sense of nausea would ease up. Ugh, and Five did this voluntarily, he thought. That man was weirder than he thought.
Sure, Diego hadn’t been dropped from thin air onto the asphalt in middle of nowhere Dallas this time -- so, that’s a plus -- but still, time travel fucked with his body. He guessed that the briefcase was marginally better. Marginally.
Speaking of Five, he was being damn quiet.
Diego steeled himself, and his oncoming migraine, as he lifted his head to look at the group. Now that he thought of it, his siblings were being far quieter than they ever had been before.
He raised his head, blinked a couple times, and squinted at the blank space around him.
This couldn’t be right.
“Five,” he yelled, turning around, “Klaus? Vanya?”
Diego was turning so fast he stumbled over his feet and barely righted himself.
“Allison? Luther?!”
He was breathing faster, turning in circles quicker and quicker, making his nausea worse.
This couldn’t be right.
“F-FIVE!” He screamed, panic edging into his voice. Wildly looking around. It was getting harder to breathe. He gasped and doubled over again. Hands gripping his knees. Okay, okay, okay. Everything was okay. He needed to calm down. Hyperventilating wasn’t going to help anyone.
Okay, he needed to assess the situation. So, what happened? Last thing he remembered was being on the farm with everyone else, getting ready to use the briefcase to travel back to the future. Heh, he laughed. Back to the future. They’re regular McFly’s. He’ll have to tell Luther the joke later. Speaking of Luther… he was most definitely with the group before. They should all be here now.
But, they didn’t all arrive in Dallas the last time together did they, Diego remembered. Maybe the same thing happened now? Where they just flung across the timeline again?
That was the whole reason to use the briefcase though… so this wouldn’t happen. Or at least… that’s what he thought the whole reason was.
So, okay… no real leads there.
So, where was he?
He quieted his breathing a bit to try and listen before he stood up again. He could hear police sirens, car horns, the general hustle and bustle of a city. Cool, that told him nothing.
He steadied himself, gripping his knees until his knuckles turned white, took a deep breath, exhaled and stood up straight. Looking around for good this time, not in a bout of panic.
Goddamnit.
He was in some damn alleyway again.
He was going to murder Five. Cool cool cool.
Well, it wasn't like he was going to gain any info staying here. Time to explore. Please god, don’t let him be stuck in the 60s again.
He walked out of the alley, into a bustling city and immediately felt home. It was loud, there were too many people, and the cars were all modern. Thank god.
Cool, so not the 60s. Plus one. For a hot minute, Diego wondered if maybe the whole 60s was just a fever dream.
“Hey asshole, watch it,” someone yelled as they ran into him, aggressively body checking him, “Move or get out of the way.” Diego tripped over his feet, still not entirely back to 100%.
“Don’t be such a dick, man,” Diego growled, righting himself and shoving the dude who had almost bowled him over.
“Today is not the day, asshole,” asshole-dude growled right back, a fist swinging for Diego’s face. Diego might not be feeling 100%, but his skills were second-nature to him. He side-stepped, dodging the fist, grabbed the man’s arm, twisted, and kicked the elbow up in a clean break.
Asshole-dude yelled in pain. Diego shrugged. Okay, so breaking asshole-dude’s arm probably wasn’t the best move for him to have made… but sue him. His nerves were frayed and his reflexes loaded. Diego quickly apologized and started walking away, noticing cops walking his way.
“Shit,” Diego sighed looking around. Time to scram. He backtracked into the alleyway he had just come out of, moving from a quick walk to run when he heard the cops behind him.
Goddamnit, his luck really was shit, he thought as the alleyway turned into a dead in.
“Stop! Get on the ground! Put your hands up where I can see them! GET ON THE GROUND!” the cops were shouting at him, a dizzying array of different commands. It would have been hard to focus on their commands in the best of times, but Diego really still wasn’t 100%.
What did catch his attention was the steel glint of guns being drawn as he turned around with his hands above his head. Fuck, Diego thought.
“Okay, fellas, let’s cool off --,” Diego began, drowned out by the quick, loud pop of gunfire. Diego froze, stunned. Were the cops really shooting at him after a small altercation with some random dude on the sidewalk?
He didn’t have a lot of time to question it. He eased back into his training with a breath and quickly sliced his hand in the air redirecting the bullet… shit bullets… to the brick wall by his side.
The gunfire stopped for a moment as the cops stared at him, obviously stunned. Then the yelling began again, this time tenfold. Diego couldn’t really hear what they were saying, but he made out the word ‘Mexican’, ‘thug’, and ‘backup’ and didn’t want to stick around to see what would happen next. He grabbed two of his closet blades and threw them at the cops, angling the curve to disarm them. It bought him a couple seconds to figure a way out.
He glanced up at the deadend, realized there was a dumpster situated perfectly, and took a running leap for it as he parkoured his way over the wall.
He knew this city like the back of his hand and he was headed home.
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Across the United States, at the same time as Diego crash-landed, six other individuals had, what doctors could only guess, strokes of some sort that resulted in temporary memory loss, odd memory gain, and, in some instances, hallucinations.
Luther Harris was about to speak with a group of eighth-graders at the National Air and Space Museum as part of their Eighth Grade Field Trip. He had just started the presentation when he doubled-over in pain.
Allison Harper was heading to a meeting with a potential client to discuss her firm’s plan to file a racial discrimination lawsuit against the client’s former employer. A migraine slammed into her like a truck just as she sat down.
Klaus Hartmann had just checked himself into a long-term care facility. Even after his most recent dosage change, he still found he was dealing with hallucinations that would not go away. He was settling into this room, unpacking books for an upcoming project when he woke up splayed out on the floor, blinking up at the ceiling in shock and pain.
Five (Finnegan) Harris has been tracking space-time anomalies after a series of recent upticks. He was just spinning up a new instance for his machine to review when he felt like his head had just been sucked through a straw and spat out the other side. He barely stayed upright, gripping the edge of the steel table as his machine indicated a huge anomaly in the very room he was in. Not a moment later and his phone began ringing.
Ben Hart had just gotten up to walk away from his wife’s headstone when he was hit by a sudden, overwhelming wave of grief. This by itself wasn’t surprising given he had just buried his wife the past weekend. The agony was all-encompassing and yet he felt a sudden wave of calm and euphoria that he hadn’t felt in ages. His stomach gurgled in, what he hoped, was agreement.
Vanya Harlanov had just finished reading a spec script for a pilot episode of a new tv series loosely based on her memoir, Living Among Miracles, about growing up as one of the miracle children. It was a good script, but there was no heart in it. Sometimes she felt the same way about the book. It just felt like something was missing. The last thing she remembered was setting her tablet down when she woke up, collapsed next to her kitchen table. Her first thought was that she needed to call Five.