ATLAS // Five Hargreeves

[#12] Action Movie Bleeding

FIVE WAS BORED.

Honestly, he was really goddamn bored, and slightly afraid that if he spent one minute longer starting at the four walls of a clinic, he was going to lose his fucking mind.

Stakeouts were about as exciting as sitting on a park bench for nine hours, and that was literally what he was doing. Flicking over radio stations, he felt as though he knew every irritating personality of each host and their faux joy, and all of the popular songs felt as though he were swallowing nails and licking a cheese grater. Even Delores was quiet, seemingly silent at the back of the van.

He was tired, exhausted and in need of a bloody good coffee, but much to his despair, he came up empty-handed.

See, the problem consisted in the fact that Five didn't like waiting. He wasn't a patient person, and especially when the end of the world was coming, he couldn't just sit around and watch the same old woman walk past and not know where she was. Another issue presented itself in the realization that Five, inevitably faced with boredom and impatience, tended to get distracted.

Whether it was through his thoughts, or things that caught his attention, he found it hard to keep focused on a door that opened once every hour and revealed someone that was useless to his whole operation.

But he couldn't get distracted.

A part of him, intrigued and curious, kept flicking his eyes around him and analyzing each person that passed, each person that looked a little bit like her. At one point, around an hour ago, he had seen someone that he was sure resembled Atlas more than she resembled herself, and just as when he was about to walk out and confront her, she was greeted by her grandmother and they walked off to play at the park.

It wasn't like he wanted her to be there, watching him with beady eyes, in fact he preferred it when she wasn't, but Five didn't like knowing that she was doing something, somewhere, that he didn't know about. Because whenever Atlas did anything, it was usually dangerous. 

Plus, she made interesting company. Infuriating, but interesting nonetheless. She understood everything he said, and did, which wasn't like anyone else he had ever spoken too. Nobody was as smart as him.

Luckily for him, he was soon presented with a solution as to knowing what just what Atlas was getting up to in her absence through the form of an unexpected visitor, who caught sight of his van while she was out grocery shopping and decided to tell him about the recent news, just to warn him.

"Five?" Vanya said, hesitantly knocking on the window of his van and allowing him to pull down the glass. "Five, what are you doing here?"

Unfortunately, her arrival had clashed with the moment he had been waiting hours for, and Dr. Lance arrived outside the building. His eyes narrowed, trying to dismiss Vanya as to get on with what he needed.

"I was just minding my own business."

"Oh, well..." Vanya said, shifting uncomfortably. "I just thought you should know that we were attacked, last night. At the Academy."

Five shrugged, still trying to look past her and towards the doctor. "Is anybody dead?"

"No."

"Then why are you telling me this?"

"I-I just thought you'd want to know." Vanya said, awkwardly. "You know, just to keep your eye open, that's all. They seemed pretty serious."

They.

Five's attention snapped back towards her. "Who?"

"The guys that attacked the Academy."

"Yes, but who were they?"