YOUR NAME: Jen

CHARACTER NAME: Number Five Hargreeves

CANON/OC: The Umbrella Academy

CHARACTER AGE: 58 (appears to be 13)

OCCUPATION: Random

HOUSING: Random

CRAU?: No.

HISTORY: Number Five's wiki

PERSONALITY/FIT: It would be entirely too easy to say simply that Number Five is a crotchety old man who just happens to be trapped in the body of a thirteen-year-old boy. Don't let the shitty attitude or the innocent, boyish dimples fool you. Number Five is grumpy to be sure, but there are a lot of layers to him that require effort to peel back.

First and foremost, Number Five is guarded. Spending his young life in a dysfunctional family that was run by an emotionally unavailable and controlling father and was always more of a crime-fighting team than a family at all, it's easy to see why. The others might think that they were numbered based on their father's favoritism, but Number Five has always thought that was laziness and lack of interest on their father's part and they'd simply forced themselves into those roles -- Luther had taken to leadership because Number One suggested he ought to; Vanya had taken to letting the rest of them isolate her and make her feel less than because Number Seven was an afterthought of a name -- and, given that belief, it's hard for a man to allow himself to outwardly feel things. When one's father can't even be bothered to name them, it sets a precedent that they don't really matter, in Number Five's opinion. His sarcasm and outwardly antagonistic attitude are his defense mechanisms for feeling like nothing he ever did was enough, growing up.

When he wanted to try jumping through time and was continuously shut down by Hargreeves, it only reinforced to Number Five that Hargreeves felt he wasn't ready; wasn't good enough to try something so advanced and no matter how much he practiced and insisted that he was ready, he was turned down again and again. Competing for the attention (forget affection) of their father was sort of a given for the Hargreeves children and Luther, Allison, and Diego had always been better at it than Five had been, so he learned a long time ago to resort to being forceful, insistent, and impossible not to be heard. Even all these years later, he resorts to these tactics to get his way or to make himself feel superior in a situation where he might feel like he's losing his footing.

Number Five is dry and matter-of-fact, being blunt and honest while using just a hint of smugness when delivering information to others. His intellect is the only thing that makes him feel like he can compete with others. Given his current situation, he is a fifty-eight-year-old man going through puberty for the second time, surrounded by siblings who are several years his junior but have had more time to grow as adults. All of them are emotionally stunted, of course, but Number Five is the only one whose physical appearance matches his emotional age. His body is a constant reminder that he isn't even as smart as he wants to be; the reason for his body being thirteen while he's several decades older is because of a mistake he made in his calculations.

While his younger sibling, Klaus, chooses to medicate his powers away with narcotics, Number Five chooses to wash his own fears down with alcohol, caffeine, and a healthy dose of willful delusion. Number Five is secretly terrified of being alone. After spending decades alone in an apocalypse, eating whatever he could find to survive and having only a mannequin torso and head to talk to, it would make less sense if he didn't fear loneliness as much as he does. And yet, in an effort to keep from having to suffer the loss all over again, Number Five pushes his siblings away with rude comments, condescension, and a complete and total lack of communication until absolutely necessary. He perpetuates his own fear and then tries to ignore it by only allowing himself to grow close to his mannequin; the only "person" in his life who can neither return nor reject his affections. She's safe, so giving her up was his way of accepting his fate when he believed that they might fail to end the apocalypse.

Under all of the prickly exterior, though, Number Five cares very deeply for his siblings and feels especially close to and protective of Vanya. He risked his life trying to jump back through time to end the apocalypse specifically to save his brothers and sisters whom he had not seen in over forty years. It's fine with him that he abuses them because they all, in his opinion, tend to perpetuate their father's abuse by projecting it onto one another, but the second someone or something else threatens them, he becomes fiercely prepared to stand between the effort and the outcome. Repeatedly he makes decisions that put himself at risk in order to change things from hurting them and even took a deal from the Handler to go back to the Commission — putting a delay on his attempt to save his siblings and the world — in order to spare Luther, Klaus, and Diego from Hazel and Cha-Cha. In fact, before actually going with her, Number Five goes out of his way to move the trajectory of a frozen bullet to keep it from hitting its intended target: Luther.

Number Five can be an acquired taste. He's difficult to deal with because he's surly, cold, and calculating, but he's willing to use his boyish charm to his advantage whenever he can, so he's manipulative when he needs to be, as well. He's cocky and arrogant, but not even to a fault because, for the most part, he's not wrong when he makes suppositions, accusations, or suggestions that will lead to success. That said, once he starts to care about a person, he'll be a little more gentle (a little) and while he might not treat them with kid gloves, he'll certainly take on an outsider who poses a threat, without hesitation.

POWERS: The Boy umbrella (canon — TV/comic)

Spatial jumps
Number Five has shown to be extremely gifted and one of the most powerful of his siblings. Number Five has the ability to teleport both short and long distances, which he used frequently to evade Hazel, Cha Cha, and the Temps Commission. Despite being able to travel at will, multiple travels within a short time exhausted Five frequently, and the Handler noted that "even you [Five] have limits."
Space-Time Manipulation
Also an extension of his ability to travel spatially, Five is able to jump through time at will too. Five, however, had not mastered this ability, and the first time he used it, he accidentally traveled to the end of the world, unable to find his way back. Despite being less adept at time travel, Five is a quick study and in The White Violin, he was able to travel through time and take his siblings with him; something he had never done before.
Super-Killer
During his time at the Commission, Number Five was altered to be the perfect killer. He possesses the best practices of all of the best and most deadly serial killers in all of history. He's a trained and highly skilled assassin; don't let the dimples and boyish appearance fool you, Number Five is dangerous as hell.

IC INBOX: https://solipsistically.dreamwidth.org/409.html

OOC CONTACT: mistojen

ICON: https://v.dreamwidth.org/13571967/3581975