Chapter Text
Perhaps he had overestimated his childrearing ability.
No, that wasn't right. He hadn't ever deluded himself into thinking he'd be a good parent. What he had overestimated was his patience.
"Found you!" Claire cheered as she discovered his hiding place under the dining room table.
Five forced a smile as he stood up, feeling phantom aches in his middle-aged teenaged knees. "Yep, you sure did."
"Okay, now it's my turn to hide."
Five tried to think of a polite way to say, 'I would rather get every inch of my skin peeled off with an apple peeler and go for a swim in the Great Salt Lake than play another round of hide and seek'. "Are you sure you don't- um, do you want to keep playing hide and seek, or is there another game you'd like to play?" He attempted to add enthusiasm to his inflection, to convince her of the appeal of playing literally anything else.
“Hide and seek,” Claire said definitively. “There are so many places to hide here!”
She was right about that. The Hargreeves mansion provided more than enough hiding spots for a dozen people to play hide and seek, let alone two. Besides, he had wanted to spend time with his niece, right? He had spent years wanting to meet her, right?
Then again, he had spent years waiting to see his siblings again, and there had been multiple times where he wanted to strangle each one of them. But just because he ran out of patience with them didn’t mean he didn’t love them, right? So just because he had run out of patience with hide and seek didn’t mean he didn’t love Claire, right?
No, it just means you’re a sub-par uncle.
“Okay, I’m gonna count to ten!” Claire covered her eyes with her hands and began counting loudly. “One…Two…”
Five mentally let out a groan and headed towards the hall closet.