Shadows & Mirrors // f.hargreeves fanfic

:::: Thirty-Two ::::

Nova was tired. All she wanted to do was sleep. Her ribs still ached and her ankle still throbbed. But now her head was spinning. She leaned heavily into Five who wrapped his arm around her waist. Luther said something but Nova's always sharp eyes caught sight of movement by the entryway. Her gaze narrowed at the woman leaning against the arch studying each of the Umbrellas carefully. Recognition dawned on her and she quickly nudged Five's side.

"What?" He whispered and she tilted her head towards the woman. She felt him tense beside her. Now Five never knew Nova when she was in her mid-twenties to early thirties but he had seen mission logs from her time at the commission during that time. He knew immediately that the woman leaning against the arch was an older version of Nova. "Oh shit."

"And who are the weirdos on the balcony?" Diego yelled suddenly bringing Nova and Five's attention back to the conversation.

"They are the Sparrows," Hargreeves responded smugly. Before a trembling shook the house. Five's arm tightened around Nova's waist steadying her. "My children."

"I'm sorry." Five began as he turned both him and Nova slightly to face Hargreeves. "What do you mean, your children? That's not possible old man."

"Of course it is! I think I'd know, wouldn't I?" Hargreeves said and Nova tilted her head studying the other Sparrows as they joined Ben on the main parlor floor.

"Hold on a second, is she one of your children?" Nova suddenly interrupted as she raised an accusing finger in her older-selves direction.

"Of course, she's one of his children and she has a name shortstop. It's Manuela, now stop pointing at my sister or I will cut your finger off." Ben snapped in Nova's direction. Suddenly Five turned to Ben with a deathly glare.

"If you harm so much as a single hair on her head I will have no problem turning you into sushi, Ben." Five growled and Nova squeezed his arm gently silently telling him to stand down even though he remained tense.

"Wait so everyone can see Ben too, right?" Klaus asked.

"Cute hat Sundance," Ben responded sarcastically.

"They call themselves the Umbrella Academy, a group of scheming, perfidious malcontents who accosted me in the fall of 1963 when I was away on business in Dallas. Be warned, they claim to be my spawn." Hargreeves said directly to the Sparrows.

"Claim?" Alison asked before turning to her brother, "Look, Five, what the hell is going on?"

"I don't know yet but it's concerning." Five responded carefully.

"Um, I would just like to say I most definitely do not claim to be his spawn," Nova interjected as she glared at Hargreeves.

"Is he telling the truth?" Marcus asked.

"Not the part about us being perfidious," Vanya responded.

"No, we're amateur-fidious at best," Klaus added.

"Well, we're not really perfidious just really bad at communication," Nova corrected.

"Yeah, that," Diego agreed while nodding toward the girl.

"But we are his children," Vanya said steering the conversation back on topic. "This is our house."

"Yeah, yeah. We, uh...We grew up here. Except for Nova, she lived here for like a few years before she disappeared," Luther said.

But as Nova looked around while ignoring Luther's comment, she began to notice little differences in the parlor, like the color of the throw pillows, was different and the position of certain statues had changed. She realized they must've messed up the timeline more than she thought. Not to mention the alternate version of herself was standing only a few feet away and neither of them was experiencing any sort of paranoid psychosis.