ATLAS // Five Hargreeves

[#29] Shrapnel Stitches

THE ACADEMY DOOR FLUNG OPEN and Diego began to yell out orders that didn't make any sense.

Five lay between them, Allison carrying his legs while Diego slung his arms over Five's torso, carefully bringing him into the Academy and not bothering to hide their urgent, scared expressions. After all, he was bleeding all over the carpet and that was never going to come out.

"We should have taken him to the hospital!"

"A kid with a shrapnel wound might ask questions." Five mumbled back.

"Yeah, well so does the murder shrine in Harold Jenkins' attic." Diego retorted, and neither of his siblings decided to ask him how that was relevant.

"I'm literally bleeding out, can we forget about peabrain's attic for a minute?"

"I'm just saying."

Gently, they set him down on the couch and he fell slightly limp. Allison ran a hand through her hair, starting to panic as she eyed the wound carefully. "He's still losing blood, what do we do?"

Diego sighs, shaking his head. "We gotta get the shrapnel out."

Allison nods in agreement and Diego opens his mouth to speak again, only for him to do a double take, his head snapping towards the stairs, where a woman walks past, a contented smile on her face. His jaw slackens and his eyes squint.

"Diego?" Allison says in exasperation, watching him stand up and walk towards her. "Where are you going?!"

Diego ignored her, instead gently reaching out to the woman and touching her hand to get her attention. Grace turned around with a bright smile.

"Mom?"

"Oh!" Grace says, happily. "Diego, dear. Hello!"

"W-What are you doing here?" Diego asks, his eyes wide. He was certain that she had been shut down. As if he had remembered something, he looked down at her arm and gently flipped it over, taking note of the stitches. "How are you still walking around?"

Grace grinned as though she had been waiting to answer it for a while.

"One foot in front of the other. Why, how do you do it?"

...

FIVE HAD NEVER BEEN good with needles – that was usually a job given to Number Four – but when he was asleep, the small silver stitches were able to slip in and out of his skin with a simple ease, the bullet once lodged in his stomach now resting on his bedtable and glinting like a nuisance.

Grace rested over him, tucking his chin in the duvet and smiling softly as she remembered how often she used to tuck her children in as a child. At least with Number Five's current appearance, she could pretend to be the loving, needed mother once again. She liked it more than she remembered.

Allison and Diego also delved back into a role they hadn't been in for a long time, although they weren't as satisfied with the predicament as Grace. Concerned, worrying siblings had never been their favourite characters, but when their older/younger brother gets shot in the stomach and passes out in the attic of a psychopath who could potentially end the world, they found themselves easily stressing out.

"Did you get anything?" Allison says with a deep sigh, reminding herself that it was necessary to move forwards.

Diego shrugged and pursed his lips, walking up the steps to meet her outside of Five's room. "There's no answer from Vanya's, and the receptionist at her music school said that she was a no-show for her lessons today."

Allison didn't respond, her shoulders seeming to sag slightly and her spine relaxing as she turned her gaze back to Five, who's eyebrows were scrunched in a dream that undoubtfully contained isolated-ash from the apocalypse and flashes of fire.