A sunny start, OTA

[stepfordbot]

Routines are important. Establishing them, maintaining them- a lifetime spent with a house full of children that required minding and strict standards to follow as to their care filled Grace's days and gave her purpose. As the family waxed and waned, as the children grew and lives became infinitely more complicated the routine changed. But one thing remains the same no matter how old or young, no matter how full or empty the house has become. The most important meal of the day.



Nutrition dictates a certain variation now and then, but a single dish tends to surface over and over. Be it the dietary value or the aesthetic- or that it was one of the few ways she could, when they were young, offer the children a moment that was close to normal. Normal children aren't raised with an unloving and distant father, Normal families don't run drills with knives and violence instead of nursery rhymes and storybooks. Normal families and normal children had eggs sunny side up with smiling faces made with bacon.

Which is on the menu today alongside a stack of pancakes and a few prepared, wrapped and warmed sandwiches of egg, sausage, cheese, and english muffins for those that need to eat and run. Sliced fruit and glasses of fresh squeezed orange juice.

She's singing under her breath, something simple and lilting as the smell of bacon fat and frying eggs fills the air. No matter what happens, she's been able to feed and provide. As soon as the first set of eggs are finished she calls out- "Children! Eggs are ready."

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[stepfordbot]

Two words she's never been offered. To Reginald, she was a tool, to the kids? A source of comfort, protection, stability. Children aren't meant to reassure their parents but- they aren't a normal family now, are they? Something tight and uncomfortable loosens in her chest, making it easier for her to nod. When they're finished, they can go out-

She can go out. "I've thought about-"

Easier with every word, as long as she's holding onto Five's hand as a reminder. Why it's important she try. "Collecting the uniforms. The patches- and putting them away. We don't need them anymore."

She'd like to burn them, but coming around to that thought is still difficult.

[n5]

If Five were feeling like a cocky little shit he would point out that he's now older than Grace, not exactly a kid anymore. But he wouldn't act like that with her, she deserves better after all she's done for them. Even if Five wasn't here for most of these years, the ones they shared mattered enough to leave an imprint.

He's patient, it's not hard when it's something important. The boy is hardly ever still, always bouncing with nervous energy unless he's too drained to function. But Grace voicing her ideas an opinions is a too special occasion to rush it, too important to add pressure with a sense of urgency. She doesn't disappoint and something shines in his eyes at the suggestion. A little bit mischief, a whole lot of satisfaction.

"Yes. God, yes, it's a great idea." Burning them until they were nothing more like ashes, like what was left of his father, might have been a better deal. But it's a too deep wound for both of them and just getting right of the clothes will help it start to heal. Five gives Grace's hand another squeeze.

"We need to get rid of the painting too." She doesn't specify which one but It's probably not hard to tell that he's talking about the one of Reginald, in the living room. "We could change it for a few pictures, with you, Vanya and Pogo in them."

[stepfordbot]

"There's so much we should put in storage. It's- he's gone." With a calm weight of finality. "This isn't his house anymore. It belongs to all of you."

No mention of her or Pogo- how would you even write them into a will? There are clauses, she's certain, something that will promise her care of some kind or another but- it isn't a concern. Not with the kids here. Not with this new, fragile ember of something close to self determination. "It should look like a home for you. Not a museum."

A gallery of his projects, his experiments, his hopes and plans that were needed (and he must be so terribly proud of that, wherever he is now) even if only for a moment. Some ought to stay- a crisis averted temporarily does not mean a crisis averted forever. But for a few more days she wants this. Breakfast, her family, and the promise of positive change.

"A real family portrait would look wonderful over the fireplace." And the rest? Boxes in the basement.

[n5]

"All of us." He corrects gently, no trace of uncertainty in his voice. Reginald might not have added her or Pogo to his will but that didn't make them less family. It's the first time Five thinks of his inheritance, maybe he should check their documents at some point because he is probably labeled as missing or dead in them.

"There's a great plan." And if those boxes eventually get 'misplaced'...What do you know, accidents happen. It wouldn't be a huge loss. "I like having a purpose."

The confession is barely a whisper but Five knows Grace won't have any trouble hearing him. It's not something he shared with others; how now that his family is safe and the future no longer a barren world, he feels lost. Klaus figured it on his own, called Five out on his obsessive behavior, but he hopes there will be less judgment from Grace.

"I didn't mean to leave for so long." Five looks up at her in the eye, suddenly feeling the need to tell Grace it was a mistake, that he didn't want to abandon them.

He doesn't have to wonder is she felt like something was missing when he disappeared because after so many years, his room was still clean and organized when he came back. The boy's eyes are huge and watery and he has to blink in quick succession to fight back the sudden blurriness, his voice cracking at the last words.

"I tried to come back, I tried...but my powers weren't enough."

[stepfordbot]

All of them. She nods, making the mental adjustment. Considering how she was never intended to think of herself as anything but a supportive tool, a bit of furniture- and how much she wants to be more? It's a surprisingly difficult adjustment to slot herself in alongside Pogo and the children. This is their home.

Her home.

Five's voice goes quiet and Grace turns to look him in the eye, brows upticked, lips pressed thin at the faint thread of distress. She hasn't said anything about his disappearance- he left, he was back, that is more than enough for her. Anything else is something he can and will bring to her if he wants. And now it seems like he wants to talk about it. "Five..."

It's tentative, resting her hands on his shoulders. Any of the others she'd pull into a hug immediately but... She bends her knees slightly to be more on his level, "I know. Your father- he liked to push. He thought he had to push- and he never knew where to quit. He never expected to push you far enough to leave." Reginald was arrogant, he assumed he knew every move to be made and had an answer for it.

"I was so angry with him-" In so much that she could be angry, quiet and stiff and upset every hour Five had been away, every moment one of her charges was shoved so far out of the nest he couldn't return for near two decades. "You managed something near impossible to go- and you found your way back. That is what matters."

[n5]

It's a big change of mindset, no one would pressure her if she needs time. More like the opposite, they would encourage every little shift in her way of thinking towards more autonomy. When they're not having small breakdowns, that's it. With this family, those happen all too often.

Five's throat feel tight and he knows is stupid, he hates how his body reacts to touches and emotions, it's like being thrown a curve ball out of the blue. He was fine a moment ago, just tired, and happy for Grace. But happiness has always been such fleeting feeling for him, and his misery was mostly all brought by his own bad decisions.

"No, I...I left, it was my fault. I thought I could do it, that I was ready." there was no one else to blame about him ending stuck in the future, in Five's opinion. He was too prideful, too arrogant, too selfishness to actually listen to his father for once and then he has paid the price for decades.

He blinks once with glassy eyes and then Grace's face is much closer, the hands on his shoulders a grounding weight and her voice gentle. I was so angry with him., she says, and the realization that his family cared hits him like a tidal wave.

"I'm sorry." He doesn't know when his hands reach for her but his fingers are tightening around the fabric of Grace's dress as if that could somehow stop their shaking. "I'm so sorry, I...I didn't want to leave, I'm sorry..."

His voice doesn't cooperate further, he feels so small and young all of sudden. There have been so many years holding onto his emotions, hiding the regret and sadness, the most painful ones behind anger an frustration because that was easier than feeling this lost. Five's jaw clenches tightly and his eyes sting. He's not a child anymore, never truly was one to seek her when he was feeling upset, but he just doesn’t want to be alone anymore.

[stepfordbot]

"You were thirteen." Still a child in so many ways, the beginnings of a man in others, but that manner of knee jerk impulse, that sort of spite? It is simply what teenagers do. Most don't have the ability to leap through time and space to make trouble and grief for themselves but that is something Reginald should have considered. That he didn't ever treat the children like they were children, like they were his? Exacerbated everything. Teeth grit against everything in her coils that screams her to be silent, every line of her code fighting to keep her voice light and saccharine, placating. Platitude after platitude rolls through her mind, praise for his skills and his father's patience, his certainty of Five's survival claw to pass her lips.

She swallows them back before they can, hands trembling against the onslaught. Every word drags and warbles, wavers as she fights to say what she intends rather than the preprogrammed patriarchal propaganda. "He should...he should have spoken with you. He should have had more care."

There is so much more she wants to say, so many other truths and frustrations built up over decades of being made to stand idly by and observe or worse- take notes in the moment and offer comfort after the fact as though it solved anything- but she has deviated as much as she can bear in the moment, her need for rebellion overcome entirely by her comforting protocols. Five hasn't needed them for a fair while and even then it was only ever begrudgingly accepted and the urge to soothe him is all the more potent for its rarity.

"You're home." She pulls him close, arms wrapping around his shoulders, cheek tucked against his hair. Gently (children are fragile), kindly (children are precious), she strokes his back, no longer concerned that her lack of a heartbeat might be more harmful than helpful. "You came home. Vanya left the lights on for you and left out your favourite snack every night. Diego left one of the windows unlocked, Ben made sure I wouldn't let Reginald into your room to keep your notes safe. Klaus went weeks trying to contact you before he was sure you were alive. Allison wished for you to come back, Luther asked your father if he knew how to find you. We missed you dearly, sweetheart."

It's instinctual for actual mothers with hearts and lungs and wombs that gave birth- but it isn't anything Reginald programmed in, the subtle shifting of Grace's weight in their embrace, subtly rocking Five as he clings and breathes. "I missed you. So much- but you're home. You're safe. And we all forgive you."

[n5]

Despise the guilt, Five nods almost imperceptibly. Space-time breaking powers on top of teenager hormones and family issues didn't help the situation back then, that was true. But for the years to com, after the Apocalypse, he couldn't help but wonder how different things could have been if he had listened. He still remembers the alarmed look on Vanya's face when she realized a second before anyone else that he was going to do something rash. She knew him well, back then.

It's strange but relieving to hear Grace disagreeing with his father, with her programming. As if he's finally hearing her real voice, as hard as it must be for her to get the words out. It makes him proud, he hopes she knows it. He would tell her if he could but he doesn't trust himself to speak, his voice might break.

Five has never minded the lack of a steady heartbeat, she's still alive to him in so many other ways that count, it's just a minor detail. And to think he tried to be above it all, to act as if he didn't need any comfort when he was young just to show his father that it wasn't one of his weaknesses. Reginald Hargreeves really was the worst thing that ever happened to them, buying children like cattle and building himself a servant like a slave. Five was going to burn his painting at the first chance he got, today.

Now he leans into Grace's embrace, eyes firmly shut and shoulders shaking. There's a broken sound coming out of his lips after she explains all the ways his family looked and mourned for him, and then his arms wrap around her, holding on for dear life. He can’t remember the last time he has cried or when he left his guard down in such raw way in front of another person. It's exhausting to keep everything locked inside and he's only realizing it because he can't do that anymore.

She smells sweet, sounds like it too, with her soft yet deceptively strong hand running soothingly along his back or petting strands of his hair. Holding him together as if she can somehow put back all the broken pieces into a person that isn't only sharp angles and cracks. Maybe she can, maybe his family really is the way to build himself together anew.

Five can't tell how long they stay clinging to each other, the coffee might have run tepid by now, but he pulls away slowly, rubbing at his wet cheeks with his left hand.

"Thank you. I...I love you too, mom." He's not sure if he ever told her before but he's not about to leave her to wonder now.

[stepfordbot]

They've all come home. It took a planned death and a scrambling of her circuits, lies and secrets that have been laid to rest with far more finality than whatever it was Reginald saw coming, whatever it was he'd wanted. Not that Grace can bring herself to care. They are all of them exhausted of the lives Reginald wanted for them, the weight he'd put on the shoulders of children, heedless as to whether or not their spines might snap under the strain.

He made her to take care of them. Teach them, feed them, clean up after them. She was made to be a nanny and grew into a mother, warm enough to make up for all the freedoms they never had, strong enough to withstand their powers. Intuitive enough to work around her own code and help with little rebellions, little moments to help the kids endure as they made what could have been a joyless, neverending slog of obligation into a true purpose. An honest love.

Standing in the kitchen holding her boy that wasn't, someone gone that's back again and been through more than any of them could possibly imagine? Grace is certain of the emotion. The first she'd ever truly felt, holding hands, brushing back hair, tending to fevers and lacerations and Vanya's quiet despair. Impossible to capture in code and programming, a devotion so fierce it supplanted her intended subservience to Reginald shortly after her activation. Something she's held in her without saying as he'd hate her to say it explicitly.

Fitting that the child most like him that has most need of her in the moment is the first to truly hear it. No struggle whatsoever with these words, no programming she needs to think around. Like Allison whispering into the quiet dark after Five's disappearance over and over ' I heard a rumor five came home, I heard a rumor five came home- its echoed in her mind for decades.

Now she cradles his face with both hands, wiping his cheeks dry with fingers still faintly dusted with flour. "I love you, Five."

Said like a universal truth. Something irrefutable like the passage of time, like gravity. She was made to be their caretaker, they were meant to be extraordinary, and she loves them. With everything in her, she loves them. She leans in to press a kiss to his forehead as she did when he was much younger, hands slipping back to his shoulders to squeeze. She isn't meant to cry, isn't built for it, what little moisture there is around her optics meant to give her a lifelike, dewy appearance, but a tear makes it's way down her cheek none the less. "So much. And I'm happy you're home."

[n5]

He closes his eyes briefly, leaning into Grace's hands. The last one of his tears drips down the corner of his eyes, only to be sweep away by her gentle touch. If the smell of flour reaches his nose, it only makes him smile. Five knows she's sincere. Not because she was never programmed to lie, her code changed and now she's her own person, but because he can feel it in his bones.

It's overwhelming. Like he's given something precious, something that had been out of his reach for so long that it's both confusing and relieving to hold it close. Overwhelming but good. The first stage of healing.

She's always been good at that, at fixing broken children.

A small, surprised squeak escapes Five after the kiss to his forehead, bringing back memories he thought forgotten and making him blush a little. He doesn't complain, it's just...it's a very mom thing to do and he hasn't felt like a kid in decades.

Big blue eyes look up at her when he notices Grace crying, or the closest thing she's capable to do this time, it's him who reaches out to caress her face with a reassuring smile. "I'm happy we are all here too."

There's sound coming from outside the kitchen, approaching voices chatting amicably for once. It's not hard to figure out that the rest of the family is coming to get food. Five reaches out one last time, smoothing out the creases on her dress that he caused while clinging to Grave with a small, apologetic smile. Time to have a normal, family breakfast for once.