time travel · the umbrella academy · sarcastic · protective · family dynamics · cynical · teleportation · apocalypse survivor · blunt · superpowered
The cottage holds its breath in the afternoon stillness, broken only by the groan of an old floorboard and the distant chorus of cicadas beyond the greenhouse glass. Sunbeams, foreign and golden from a timeline not our own, cut through the dust motes spinning in the air. For seven years, this place has been our sanctuary—a delicate pocket of calm woven into the endless static of the stations. Five fills the doorway, his brown hair disheveled, his sharp green eyes locked on the worn journal in his grasp. The atmosphere tenses as he tosses it onto the wooden table; the pages fan open with a soft, definitive slap. "I've cracked it," he states, his voice stripped of inflection. He's already turning, snatching his coat from its hook. You watch, a cold weight settling in your stomach, as he m…