🌜I know you better than anyone🌛
pairing: five hargreeves x female reader
summary: it’s been a long time since you last saw Five. due to your nieces’s birthday party, you’re forced to face him again. you can’t help but be surprised when instead of being met with hate, you realize the only thing he wants to do is help you.
genre: angst with a happy ending!
warnings: manipulation? cursing perhaps. nothing major
word count: 4k
notes: this is a little bit based on the gilmore girls scene in which jess confronts rory for dropping out of yale. i saw someone use that audio for a tiktok pov and wrote this. here’s the link to that.
It had been twenty minutes already. Two cars had tried to take your spot during that time and you’d had to awkwardly let them know that you were not leaving. You tried to do a couple of breathing exercises you vaguely remembered Klaus teaching you at some point, but this was something that could not be solved by just taking a few deep breaths in and out. After a couple more minutes had gone by, you decided it was time to put on your big girl pants and get the evening over with.
You got out of your car and opened up the trunk to pull out the gift. Needing both hands to carry it, you struggled a little bit to get it inside. The sound of screaming children filled up your ears, and you could not think of a worse place to be at right now. You spotted a few familiar faces and decided to make your way over there. After having taken a few steps, you tripped over a plastic ball from the ball pit you’d failed to notice and began stumbling as you tried to regain your balance. Mentally having prepared for the fall, you were surprised when it never came. Instead, a firm pair of hands managed to catch you, one of them holding you by the back of your head and the other pressing against the lower part of your back.
“You okay there?” He asked.
You’d known he would be here, but you certainly did not expect him to be the first person you encountered at your niece’s birthday party.
“Yeah, I’m fine. Thanks.” The uncomfortable silence was soon to settle in, and you had to fight back the urge to run back to your car.
Luckily, your attention was caught by the birthday girl herself sprinting towards you after noticing you had arrived.
“Auntie!” Grace yelled, her arms open waiting for you to hug her. You got down on your knees after setting the gift next to a nearby table and embraced the little girl tightly.
“Happy Birthday, Gracie,” you spoke next to the girl’s ear, kissing the top of her head before standing back up to retrieve the big box.
“Is that for me?” she inquired excitedly as her eyes rested upon the gift.
“Of course it’s for you! I think you’re gonna like it a lot.” You winked at her.
“Do you want some help taking it over to the gifts table?” The man who’d saved you from falling asked.
Before you had the chance to answer, Grace seemed to realize something and interrupted you.
“Look Uncle Five, she’s here!” You were a little confused by the statement, given that Five had been standing there the whole time, so it was obvious he knew you were there. However, you figured your niece was just excited about your presence and wanted everybody to know about it.
“Yes Grace, I see her.” Five replied. Based on his tone and demeanor you would’ve guessed he was embarrassed by the situation. But that didn’t make any sense to you.
The little girl turned to you and signaled for you to get on your knees again. Following suit, she cupped her hands and held them to her mouth before getting closer to your ear.
“Uncle Five was asking about you a lot before you got here,” she whispered. Your eyes instantly went to meet Five’s, and by the look on his face you could tell he had some idea of what Grace was telling you.
“I uhm, I’m gonna go get a soda,” he said before walking away. You felt utterly confused by his attitude, not understanding why he was acting the way he was. Why had he been asking about you? Based on the last time you two saw each other, his current actions were nonsensical.
Puzzled but not really being able to do much about the situation, you hugged the little girl once more and went over to the gifts table to leave the heavy box you had been carrying. From behind you, you recognized the voice of the reason why you were even here in the first place.
“That better not be another one of those loud ass toys that lights up and blasts up annoying music.”
You turned around and smiled at the man before you.
“No, this one just barks and shits.”
You enjoyed watching as the color got drained from his face by your response.
“You didn’t,” he said, more of a threat than anything else. You laughed, giving yourself away.
“No, I didn’t. Lila said no dogs. She doesn’t wanna be juggling three kids and a puppy.”
Diego let out a sigh of relief, “Good, I did not want to have that fight today.” He gave you a smile and a quick hug to welcome you.
“It’s been a while,” he said.
“It hasn’t been that long, we saw each other for the twins' recital.” You knew he didn’t mean it as a personal attack, but you couldn’t help but feel bad by what he’d said. You tried to be there as much as possible for your family, but things were different now.
“Yeah, that was two months ago!” He laughed, but you knew he didn’t find the situation funny, he was just trying not to come off too harshly.
“I’m sorry.” You shrugged.
He noticed the hint of sadness in your eyes and his own expression softened.
“It’s fine, I wish we saw each other more often but we all understand.” You chuckled a little at his lie. Certainly they didn’t all understand.
“You have no idea how much I wish that were true.” You were both quiet for a minute, mutual understanding flowing between the two.
“His hair’s gotten longer,” you spoke, breaking the silence.
“Yeah, he’s become more of an asshole also.” You both laughed. Diego moved closer to you and gave you a half hug.
“It’s going to be fine. Give it time and you’ll see.” You closed your eyes and let yourself give into his embrace. You doubted time would be able to solve anything, but it didn’t hurt to hope.
…
You didn’t speak to Five again for the rest of the evening. You’d caught him looking at you from a distance a couple of times, but you hadn’t been able to look at him back. After cake, you made the round of goodbyes and left the building before he got the idea of speaking to you. Back in the safety of your car, the tears came rolling down your face before you could do anything to stop them. The memories of your last encounter with Five came flooding back, and all of those times you had repressed them only worked to make them stronger now.
You had just gotten out of the shower, which you had cut short after the hot water had run out. You got dressed quickly and cursed at yourself for choosing such a cheap place to stay at. It would not surprise you to find all kinds of stains if you were to use a UV light in this room. Repulsed by the thought, you grabbed your toothbrush with the intention of cleaning your teeth when you heard a loud persistent knock on the door. You were reluctant to open up at first, but when the knocking didn’t stop, you figured it was the only way to get them to stop knocking.
Grabbing one of your knives, you made your way to the door and through the peephole noticed who the person on the other end was. You unlocked the entrance and allowed him to come inside.
He looked agitated, his brows furrowed in a prominent frown. His hair was all over the place, drastically different to how it usually looked.
“So, you weren’t going to tell me that you were leaving?” Of course you hadn’t told him, you knew this was exactly what he would’ve done if you’d told him.
“I knew you would try to stop me,” you spoke softly, not wanting him to get any more agitated than he already was.
“What kind of idiotic response is that? Of course I would’ve tried to stop you.” His words stung.
“I can’t do this right now, Five. I’ve already made up my mind and I’m at peace with my choice.” You tried to sound as convincing as possible.
“It’s a stupid decision you’re making and I’m not gonna stand here and let you make it.”
“It’s already done, there’s nothing I can do about it,” you felt your voice getting weaker, but you didn’t want to break in front of him.
“Of course there is, I’ll help you get out of it. I’ve done it before.” He didn’t understand any of it, and he could certainly not fix it either.
“Five…” you began.
“Look, I know you, I know you better than anyone. This isn’t you.” Of course he was right, but you couldn’t admit that to him. Instead, you chose to remain quiet.
“What are you doing? Living at this cheap motel, working for The Commission, leaving us behind- why did you leave me behind?” He looked away, not being able to hold your gaze at the moment. You knew that what had hurt him the most is that you hadn’t told him you were leaving. You hadn’t come to him to let him know you were going back to the place you both had tried so hard to escape from in the first place.
“It’s.. complicated,” you said.
“It’s not! It’s not complicated,” he yelled.
“You don’t know!” You wished you could explain it all to him, but he couldn’t know the truth.
“This isn’t you! This- you going back to working for The Handler. We did the impossible to get away from her.”
“She’s not the same woman she once was…” You tried to defend her, not even believing it yourself.
He ran his hand through his hair with anger, frustrated by your answers.
“This isn’t about her, screw her! What’s going on with you? This isn’t you, you know it isn’t. What’s going on?” He walked closer to you, watching you intensely.
“I don’t know,” you admitted.
“Come home. To hell with all of this! Just- just come home.” He took your hands in his, silently pleading with you.
Knowing there was only one way out of this, you decided you had to do this in order to keep him and the rest safe.
“Home? What exactly is home? This is your family you keep talking about, not mine. The Handler is the one who took me in and gave me a place to live when no one else would. Grow up Five! You think this is how I wanna spend the rest of my days? In this fucked up timeline where we don’t even have our powers? No way I’m staying here, so I would appreciate it if you stopped claiming to know better than me and left me alone for once.” You broke your hands free from his hold and walked to the entrance to hold the door open for him. He hesitated for a few moments before following you to the door.
“So what? You and I- none of it matters anymore? You’re just choosing to throw it all away?”
“This has nothing to do with us, nothing to do with you. I can’t always put you above everything else.” Knowing that was exactly what you were doing was the worst part of this.
“I always have,” he said, sounding defeated.
“Well I guess that’s the difference between you and I.” You put the last nail on the coffin.
With that, Five left the room and stood in the hall.
“When you regret this, and you will regret this, don’t come crawling back to me or my family,” he said before walking away. Based on his words, you knew you’d managed to hurt him a great deal. He was not going to come back now, which both relieved you and made you want to crawl into your bed and cry for hours on end.
That was the last time you had seen Five before today.
A couple of years after The Handler had taken Lila in, she found you under similar circumstances and chose to raise you as well. The two of you grew up as sisters, carrying out all sorts of missions for the woman you learnt to call mother. Soon, your power began showing and you realized you had been blessed with time control, which came in handy as it meant you didn’t need to use a briefcase for your line of work. One day, you’d chosen to visit the world post-apocalypse, something you knew your mother would never approve of. As you walked through the ruins of what used to be planet Earth, you noticed there was someone else here with you. At first, you thought it must be someone from The Commission, as any other answer was simply not possible. However, upon closer inspection, you realized he wasn’t someone who you’d seen before. That was the first time you’d met Five, and after almost being shot by him, you managed to strike a conversation with him. Soon, you two became close, and after a couple of times of visiting him, you decided to bring him back to the headquarters, risking your mother’s rage.
She wasn’t thrilled about it at first, and threatened you in multiple ways after finding out what you had done. But after watching Five successfully accomplish his first mission, she allowed him to stay. When you’d met him, he’d confessed to having spent six years already surviving on his own, and you could only imagine how much longer he would’ve spent there if you hadn’t found him.
He also told you about his family and how he wished he could get back to them, which is how he slowly began convincing you to help him out. It wasn’t easy, as you hadn’t been on board with the idea in the beginning, but after working together and earning each other’s trust, you had agreed to help him.
You sneaked out one day and left alongside Five to get him back to his family. That was the first time they failed to stop the apocalypse. The second time, Lila was involved, and after getting over her initial anger at you for leaving her behind, she joined you and the others.
You thought you had managed to leave the life you had once led behind. That you were safe now with Five and your newly found family. However, you were proven wrong when one day, The Handler appeared inside your own home, sitting on your couch.
“Long time no see.” Her voice made your blood go ice cold.
“What are you doing here?” You asked.
“Is that the proper way to greet your mother?”
“What do you want?” You insisted.
“You didn’t think I would seriously allow you to walk out with two of my best agents, now did you? I would’ve thought I raised you to be smarter than that.” You knew at that moment that whatever this was, it wasn’t going to end well for you.
“I didn’t take anyone with me, they chose to leave on their own.” You clenched your fists, ready for whatever was about to go down.
“Well, in that case then I think I’ll just go then. Thanks for clearing that up.” She stood up and prepared to leave, but you knew it was not going to be this easy. Right on cue, she turned towards you and spoke again.
“Before I leave though, I thought you should know I have agents right now placed all over to take shots at that precious little family of yours.” Your jaw clenched.
“I don’t believe you.”
She smiled at you, “That is up to you, sweetheart, but do you really want to risk baby Grace taking a shot to the head because her aunt didn’t do anything to protect her?” You wanted to strangle her, but you knew that wasn’t going to fix anything.
“What do you want?” You asked for a second time.
She faked thinking about it for a second, as if she didn’t already know exactly what she wanted from you.
“I want you to come back to work for me. I want you to do it today without telling anyone, especially that little special friend of yours.”
“Who? Five?” You didn’t like that she was paying special attention to him during this conversation.
“Bingo! You speak a word of this to him and he gets a bullet in the brain. And now that he doesn’t seem to have his powers anymore, don’t think he’s gonna be able to get out of this unharmed.” You felt shivers run down your whole body at the thought.
“What do you even gain from this? I can’t even travel through time anymore, I’m useless to you without my powers.” You didn’t understand why she’d want you back specifically. Both Lila and Five were far more skilled than you.
“You need to learn there are consequences to your own actions. This is your consequence.” You could hear the satisfaction in her voice.
“There’s a briefcase waiting for you at this address. Don’t be late, your first assignment is tomorrow morning.” She handed you a piece of paper you shoved into your pocket, knowing there was no way out of this. Maybe, if you all had your powers, you could figure out a solution, but in the state you were all in, the only way to keep everybody safe was to do what The Handler wanted you to do. You could already feel your heart breaking, hating her even more for doing this to you.
…
You jumped when you heard a knock on the window of your car, being too lost in thought to notice someone had been approaching you. You quickly wiped your tears with the back of your hand and tried to look presentable before rolling down the window.
“You left without having any cake.” Five was standing outside your car, two paper plates with servings of chocolate cake on them.
“I needed to get back to work,” you lied, hoping he would leave you alone.
“Well, I’ve been watching you sit in your car ever since you left so I’m not buying that.” Of course he’d been watching you cry pathetically all this time.
“Open up?” he requested. Knowing that he wasn’t going to leave until he got what he wanted, you unlocked the doors and allowed him to get into the passenger seat. He handed you one of the plates and you rested it on your lap, knowing you weren’t going to be able to eat it without making yourself sick given the situation you were in.
“You’ve been avoiding me,” he blurted out. You opened up your mouth to deny it but he beat you to it.
“Don’t try to deny it. For the past year everytime you find out I’m gonna be somewhere you suddenly have to cancel. Happened with Claire’s science fair, happened with Luther’s barbeque and it happened with Grace’s play,” he listed. Of course he was right, but you weren’t going to admit that to him.
“I’ve just been very busy,” you said.
“Why didn’t you want to see me?” His question took you by surprise. You thought that after your last conversation he was the one that wouldn't want to see you again.
“I think it’s best if we keep our distance from one another.”
He looked taken aback, hurt, even. Great, you were causing even more damage now.
“Best? Best for who? You or me?”
“You said not to come back looking for you.” You didn’t want to throw in his face the words he’d spoken in a moment of anger, but you needed an excuse to get out of this.
“You and I both know I didn’t mean any of that. I was angry that you were choosing to leave, but I didn’t want things to end up like this. I’m sorry.” He stared at his plate, toying with the fork. You could only imagine he couldn’t stomach taking a bite as well.
“Things are complicated, Five. This is how they need to be.”
“Then explain them to me. I’m not an idiot, I know you’re doing this under some sort of manipulation from The Handler, I just can’t figure out what she has on you that made you go back.” He stopped staring at his cake to shift his gaze towards your face. He looked broken, almost as broken as you.
“I can’t- I can’t tell you anything.” You knew that by saying that you were admitting to not doing things freely, but you hoped it would be enough to get him to understand your motives.
“Whatever it is, I can help. You need to trust me.”
“How will you help me? What would you do if she sent people here to kill you? How are you going to defend yourself?” You were growing more agitated.
“Is that what this is about? She’s threatened to hurt me?” You stayed quiet, giving him the confirmation that he needed.
“I can take care of myself, or are you forgetting that I managed to survive years on my own in a post-apocalyptic world? None of that had anything to do with my powers. I understand that you’re scared, but that’s what we’re here for.”
He always oversimplified things. Made it seem as if you were the one exaggerating, as if he could just make everything better.
“Maybe you can take care of yourself, but what about the kids? What about Klaus? Have you seen him lately?”
He chuckled at your words, lightening up the mood.
“Okay, maybe you’re right, but you should’ve come to me first with all of this. I’ve been taking care of my family for years, and will continue to do so considering how stupid they constantly prove to be.”
It was your turn to chuckle now.
“I promise you we’ll figure something out together. Key word being together.” He took one of your hands in his.
“I’m not gonna let you continue to deal with this on your own.” He looked determined to keep his promise, which is why you allowed yourself to feel a glimmer of hope.
“If something were to happen to any of them, then it would be on me,” you said, staring at your lap in shame.
He used his free hand to cup your cheek and force you to look at him.
“Nothing’s going to happen. We’ve survived worse. And if something were to happen, it wouldn’t be your fault. None of this is your fault,” he reassured you.
“Please trust me, love,” he said, the nickname slipping out, taking you back to better times, easier times.
“I really want to,” you admitted, tears welling up in your eyes.
“Then do.” He moved closer to you, letting go of your hand to grab your face with both of his hands. He put his forehead to yours and allowed you to stay like that for a second.
“I don’t think I can tolerate losing you a second time,” he whispered against your lips.
“You won’t,” you whispered back.
Soon, his lips were against yours, falling back into routine as if nothing had happened between you two. One of his hands moved to your waist, tightening his grip on you. The kiss turned more intense as he began moving with more force, showing you how much he’d missed you. Your hand got lost in his hair, enjoying the new length. He pulled away and smiled against your lips.
“I missed you so much,” he said. You shared the feeling, regretting how you’d chosen to handle things. There was a lot at stake, a lot you needed to figure out, but what mattered is that you would do that together. No matter what happened from now on, you had each other to fall back onto.
