Umbrella Academy fic: Thicker Than Blood (10/13)
PART ONE
PART TWO
PART THREE
PART FOUR
PART FIVE
PART SIX
PART SEVEN
PART EIGHT
PART NINE
PART TEN
PART ELEVEN
PART TWELVE
PART THIRTEEN
-o-
This part, at least, was something Diego had familiar with.
As a lone vigilante, he’d often made his way home in subterfuge. True, in those days, he’d used the cover of darkness. Today, the sun was out, but the feeling of sneaking through the crowd was all the same. Diego had to drive slow to cut through the traffic, and though a few news trucks honked, they were only too happy to fill the void he was leaving. In his experience, people rarely looked for heroes.
It was also a thing of familiarity to drive away from a crime scene. That part had always driven Patch crazy, and it had been a recurring argument between them. There was a reason she’d finally resorted to tasing him. He had a habit of taking what he wanted without asking.
At least, he used to.
He had to hold onto the idea that everyone was capable of change. Even him.
And change was here, for whatever that was worth. As familiar as fleeing under the oversight of the police was to him, coming home was almost alien. Sure, he’d always slunk back to the gym, shuffled his way back to his boiler room to fall into bed and sleep alone. But that wasn’t home. That wasn’t welcoming and safe. There had never been anyone there to help him out.
By the time he got back to the mansion, however, Pogo was already waiting at the door. His mother was a step behind him, wringing her hands anxiously.
Jobs, as it turned out, always ended at some point.
Family, on the other hand, never did.
Killing the engine, Diego undid his seatbelt. He glanced back at Vanya. “Come on,” he said, opening his door. “Get him up.”
By the time he opened the door, she had maneuvered Five into an upright position. Five mumbled something, but his head tipped back and his eyelids fluttered closed again. Diego easily swung him up, lifting him up into his arms like you might carry a child.
Well, an actual child.
Were Five conscious, he would not have tolerated. Which was all the more reason to hurry.
From the other car, Allison had pulled Klaus out and handed him to Vanya. She struggled to get Luther out the door, but he seemed to be a little steadier when he stood. Allison still had to guide him in, but when Diego crossed over to the doorway where Pogo and his mother were waiting, each of his siblings was right behind him.
This job had been a disaster, no doubt.
But there was still hope for the family.
“Everyone’s alive, but we’re going to need complete medical checks on everyone,” Diego reported, carrying Five through the door while Pogo held it open. Their mother fell into step beside him, her anxious eyes on Five.
Behind him, Allison came limping through with Luther. Vanya was helping a distracted Klaus right behind. Pogo closed the door, locking it, as they entered into the back way.
Diego didn’t wait to be directed to one of the designated medical areas. They had repurposed one of the main floor rooms, making it more accessible for situations just like this.
“There was some kind of bomb, something that sent a pulse out and knocked us out,” he said. Five was small, but Diego was winded. He was more than ready to ease the small, limp body onto one of the waiting examination beds. “But there was also some kind of drug used -- for Klaus certainly, but I’m not sure about the rest.”
Allison had brought Luther to the next bed, staying close to him while he sat with his eyes closed. Vanya was trying to keep Klaus from leaving the room.
Diego pursed his lips, turning to Mom. “And oxygen deprivation was involved,” he said, knowing that he was leaving a lot of details out. But that was the beautiful thing about Mom: she always knew her priorities. “Everyone was still breathing, but Five and Luther haven’t been fully conscious.”
Mom nodded. She could soft and sweet; she could also be incredibly to the point. “Let’s get oxygen masks for everyone, just as precaution.”
Pogo hobbled toward one of the cabinets to retrieve them.
“We will want to run blood work, and Klaus may benefit from IV fluids to help push the drug out of his system,” she said, already gathering her own supplies. “We’ll do a simple assessment first to see if more tests are needed.”
Pogo had produced the oxygen masks and canisters and was starting to hand them out.
“Come now, children,” she said. “Put them on. Put them on.”
Allison complied before putting one on for Luther. Vanya managed to get on one Klaus before wearing one herself. Their mother took one for Five, gently lifting his head to slip it underneath before Pogo held one out for Diego.
“No,” he said. “I’m fine.”
“I’m afraid I must insist,” Pogo said.
“It didn’t affect me,” Diego tried to explain.
“Don’t argue, dear,” his mother said, touching him on the arm. “Your color is bad. This obviously has affected you.”
With that, she busied herself once more, producing a penlight before leaning over Five and opening his eyes. She shone the light at him several times before using her fist to rub at Five’s sternum. He stirred, mewling slightly, and Diego remembered to breathe for the first time in an hour.
He took the mask, slipping it over his face. He could feel the cold rush of oxygen as it entered through his mouth and filtered into his lungs.
When he breathed out, the warm air fogged up the plastic casing.
True, Diego didn’t have to breathe.
It sure as hell felt better when he did.
-o-
Diego had hated the tedious parts of the job. He had never had a chance as a cop because his innate restlessness made it impossible for him to tolerate things he deemed unimportant. He hated waiting; he hated paperwork. He hated procedure, policy and generally doing things the “right” way. He had always believed that it was better to go out and catch the bad guys. Everything else was wasting time.
Part of him still felt that way, even if he could keep it in check now.
All the same, he didn’t feel that way this time.
He still remembered the man -- Guillermo. He remembered Guillermo’s intricate plans. He remembered how Guillermo had successfully captured the Umbrella Academy. Diego would like to claim some credit for his family being alive, but he knew he had little do with it. Guillermo could have killed them all outright, Diego included. The only reason they were alive was because Guillermo wasn’t done with them yet.
Rather, he wasn’t done with Diego yet.
The claim that they were long lost brothers was a hard one to swallow, harder still to deny. Maybe that, more than anything, was the reason Diego wasn’t ready to do with it yet.
He wasn’t ready to deal with it at all.
Not the questions.
Especially not the answers.
All things considered, then, Diego was happy to endure the tedious part of this job. He was okay with inaction. He stood, just out of his mother’s way, while she tended to each and every sibling.
Five was assessed first, and his mother was pleased to report that Five’s vitals looked strong and that he was responded to stimuli. If anything, he appeared to be exhausted, and she hooked him up to fluids to try to replenish his depleted supply. No doubt, the lack of oxygen had only been compounded with his stymied efforts to free himself. Five’s powers were more taxing than the rest of theirs, and the fact that he had worked himself into unconsciousness only suggested just how hard he had struggled to get free from Guillermo’s box.
Luther had fared somewhat differently. He had been without oxygen the longest, and that was the sole reason for his sluggish return to consciousness. He was able to respond to questions, but even throughout the exam, he was prone to drifting off until Allison squeezed his arm. He would be fine, their mother concluded, but she would want to watch him for a day just to be sure.
Klaus was a more complicated case, though his condition was not more pressing. The fluids helped him sober up marginally, but they would have to wait on the blood work to see what he was dosed with. He would require the most long term care, as best their mother could determine, only to prevent a risk of relapse. She drew up preventative measures for detox as a precaution, but they would see how he fared after he sobered up throughout the course of the night.
Vanya was fine, though her blood pressure was elevated. Their mother suggested sedatives, but Pogo immediately contramanded her. “Some rest, perhaps,” he said soothingly. “Would anyone care for some tea?”
Allison was also fine, though the way she stuck like glue to Luther’s side showed just how much this incident had affected her. She was the first one to ask -- the only one, really -- what the hell had happened. “That guy. Was it the same on from before?” she demanded, and her anger was justified. She had a right to know. “Did you know him after all?”
Diego stumbled for an answer. For all that he’d been a leader today, he had no response to this. He fumbled a moment longer before his mother mercifully intervene. “Diego, darling, it’s your turn.”
“I’m fine,” he said before he could think otherwise. He wet his lips, furrowing his brow. “I wasn’t -- I didn’t -- I’m fine.”
She looked down her nose at him, all business now. “Nonsense,” she said. “Protocol dictates that everyone is examined after a mission. You told me that rule yourself. Remember?”
Diego did.
He let out a shaky breath, and smiled apologetically to Allison. “We’ll talk about it,” he promised her. “Later.”
Before Allison could question him further -- and rightly so -- his mother took him by the arm and whisked him off.
-o-
Diego didn’t realize his mom had taken him elsewhere until he was sitting on a kitchen chair with a penlight in his eyes. He wondered if her programming had taught her to sense when privacy was needed. Or maybe she just knew him well.
Putting the penlight away, she hummed a little. Then, picking up a stethoscope, and smiled. “Breathe normally, please.”
It was something of a ludicrous request somehow. It had been a long, weird, hard day. And Diego didn’t even need to breathe. What was any of this going to accomplish anyway?
His lack of response had her tsking her tongue. “I need to make sure everything is working,” she instructed primly. “Take a deep breath.”
“But Mom, I don’t even need to breathe,” he reminded her. “Remember? It’s one of my powers.”
She didn’t look exasperated because that certainly wasn’t within her programming. But there was something in her smile that suggested it all the same. “Need cannot be reduced to simple biological imperative,” she reasoned. “Need is also emotional, psychological, cognitive, spiritual.”
At that, Diego scoffed. “You think I should breathe for spiritual reasons?”
“Diego, I don’t pretend to know your spiritual beliefs, but I support you in every possible way,” she said. “But since you still have lungs and a beating heart, I do need you to breathe.”
To that, he had no response. Well, no response except a clean, full breath of air.
She had the stethoscope poised against his chest. As he exhaled, she nodded, moving it around. “Good,” she coached. “And again.”
He obeyed with no fuss this time, complying with inhalation and exhalation as she listened to his lungs. Stepping back, she appeared pleased.
“Very good,” she said, sounding genuinely proud of him. She was practically beaming. “Do you see how much better you feel after a few good breaths? I can tell already that your vitals are stabilizing. Your blood pressure has dropped and your mood has lightened. All because you can breathe, not because you have to.”
She was right; he did feel better. He felt a lot better. He would have attributed this to her mere presence, but her delineation of physical changes carried more weight than he expected. All the shit that had happened today, and he was still breathing. There was something revolutionary to him suddenly about a simple biological given. Breathing was a choice. Survival was a pursuit.
He was still breathing.
Better yet, his family was still breathing, too.
Every last one of them.
Well, not counting Ben. When Klaus finally sobered up, no doubt Ben would be back to remind Diego that that was okay. He had made his choice.
And now, against the odds, Diego had made his.
Mom rustled about for a thermometer, soothing in her singsong voice. “Now, darling,” she coaxed. “Just keep breathing for me. Just keep breathing.”
Diego hadn’t succeeded at much today.
But, as he inhaled and exhaled once more, it somehow felt like something of an accomplishment after all.
-o-
Diego, as expected, was given a clean bill of health. Mom was thorough, of course, but there was nothing wrong with Diego. He didn’t have more than a scratch on him. Whatever had been used in the blast had been transient or benign, and it showed no lingering effects on him.
Thus being cleared for normal activities, his mother had recommended a good meal and some rest.
Diego declined both.
Instead, he made his way back to the infirmary. It was easy to see that his siblings were waiting for him. Allison and Vanya straightened when he approached. With a groan, Luther sat up in bed. Klaus was finally coherent enough to come to attention, and though Five looked ready to pass out at any given moment, he was seated doggedly on the edge of his cot, all but scowling under his unkempt head of hair. Even Ben was back, though decidedly less visible than usual, floating anxiously at Klaus back.
They were beaten, battered and anxious. They were looking at Diego for answers.
They were looking for Diego to lead them still.
All that had happened.
All that he had failed to mitigate.
And they still trusted him.
It was almost too much; he almost wanted to keep on walking right out the door like he was 18 and ready to head out on his own all over again. But that wasn’t how this worked.
This wasn’t how he worked.
At least, no anymore.
“So, uh, that was a little bit worse than expected,” he ventured to start with. He had always hated when Luther tried to frame things positively, but he understood the impulse now. It was a lot easier to play devil’s advocate when it wasn’t your ass on the line. “But we did learn a few things.”
No one said anything. It was pretty clear that they weren’t sure what to say.
Diego drew a breath.
That was a novelty.
He did it again and continued. “The man in the clinic, he was the same one I met in the sub-basement on Highland,” he said, trying to keep his voice steady. “I knew that he knew us, but I didn’t realize how well he knew us. It’s pretty clear he’s been casing us a hell of a lot longer than we’ve been tailing him. I have no excuses. He had the upper hand this time. I’m sorry.”
It was an admission, and it came out easier than Diego expected. In the aftermath, it was harder to endure. His cheeks burned as he was unable to meet their gazes any longer.
Finally, it was Luther who spoke. Quiet; gentle. “Those cases were sound proof, you know,” he said. “The two of you were having quite the conversation. What did he tell you?”
In prior circumstances, Diego would have suspected judgement or malice in Number One’s voice. But Luther was hunched and small somehow. When he looked at Diego, there was a vulnerability there. Diego had to concede that maybe it had always been there; maybe he’d just never looked for it.
With another breath, he found the ability to continue. “A lot, actually,” Diego said. “Though a lot of it sounded like bullshit, so I don’t know.”
“Try us,” Allison said. Though she was pressing, she wasn’t working against him. She was with him. “Maybe we can figure it out together.”
Diego couldn’t imagine that was true.
Then again, he couldn’t imagine it to be true in any other context.
He shrugged, almost to himself, and went on. “According to him, the murdering, sadistic bastard, he’s my brother.”
That wasn’t an answer they expected.
Which was good.
It was still an answer Diego was having a hard time reconciling.
After all, his brother? His blood relation?
The idea that such a thing existed was something he had not been prepared to deal with. The idea that such a thing existed and was bent on death and destruction was a whole new level of shitty.
“Wait,” Klaus said. “Am I imagining things? Because I thought your brothers were here, in this room.” He glanced behind him, assuring himself of Ben’s presence. “All of them. We’re all here.”
“Not his adopted sibling,” Five concluded on his behalf. He was looking at Diego critically. “His birth sibling. I mean, we all have some blood relations somewhere. The notion that we have birth siblings is not out of the question. The odds aren’t even unlikely.”
“Sure, but none of the rest of us have had our birth families hunt us down in a trail of murder and destruction,” Ben said. “Did he explain what he wanted?”
As if this conversation couldn’t get harder.
Or weirder.
He could still remember the conversation, every sordid and expected turn. He wanted to think he imagined it, but Diego wasn’t lucky in that way. Diego wasn’t lucky at all. If anything, this shit was par for the course.
“Yeah,” Diego said. “Apparently, he wanted to spend time with me.”
“So he killed a bunch a people and kidnapped us?” Vanya asked, clearly confused. “I don’t understand.”
“He thought that was the only way to get my attention,” he said, conveniently leaving out the part about Guillermo’s failed attempts to initiate contact. “He thought he had to use the job to get to know me.”
Six months ago, Diego couldn’t have said he was wrong.
Even now, he felt a pang of guilt not because Guillermo was wrong. But because he was right.
That wasn’t the whole story, though. For all that Guillermo didn’t know him, his siblings around him did. It was Luther who spoke next. “That still didn’t explain what he wanted,” he said. “All that work, all that planning. That was more than an introduction.”
Life was easier when Luther was nothing but a big dumb oaf. Of course, life was easier when Diego was appropriately disconnected from his family. And mostly life was easier when he didn’t have unknown psychotic siblings running around trying to ruin his life.
He wet his lips and forced himself to breath. “He captured you to offer me a choice,” he said. “I could pick you. Or I could pick him.”
Allison made a face, like the notion was ridiculous. “And he really thought you might pick him? After he went around killing people?”
“That would be the opposite of what you would do,” Klaus said. “Your violent, sure. But you’re just as much of a do-gooder as Luther.”
For once, Diego wasn’t even offended by the comparison.
This was, by all accounts, a really weird day.
“Well, he did offer to change sides,” Diego said. “Said we could do the job, do it the way I wanted.” He hesitated, that feeling of guilt returning. It wasn’t his fault that this maniac had come for them. But it sort of felt like his fault that this madman thought it would work. “He thought that he could use the job to make me see that I should choose him.”
Five, though still shaky, looked unabashedly fascinated. “A quantitative assessment would suggest that it’s not a bad strategy,” he said. “He identified a primary motivator and attempted to leverage it. It’s not without merit.”
“Sure, but Diego would never trust a guy like that,” Ben said.
“And Diego would choose family,” Vanya said, like it was a given. “Diego knows his priorities.”
She said it, and no one questioned her.
No one except Diego himself.
“Of course,” Five said, matter of fact. Like Diego hadn’t just sat there while Five had drowned a few weeks ago. Like Diego hadn’t let them all twist in cases while he tortured himself over a decision that they assumed was foregone. “I was only saying that this guy -- brother or not -- has done his research. He applied sound reasoning to his approach. But he failed because he failed to grasp the real weight of family.”
“He was making an offer without realizing the irony,” Allison commented, somewhat wry.
“Yeah, that would be way more fascinating if he hadn’t just tried to kill us,” Klaus said.
“The point still stands,” Vanya said. “This guy knows a lot about us.”
“But not the most important things,” Ben said.
Luther, shakily, got to his feet. He was taller than Diego, but this time they were still looking eye to eye. “No, the important thing is that Diego made a choice,” he said, sounding inexplicably grateful. “And now we’ve got to make the choice to be here for him while we figure out what’s next.”
The job.
For all that Diego had learned in the last few months, he couldn’t deny that the job still called to him. Even now.
Shit, especially now.
Suddenly, it was hard to breathe.
Emotions were a hell of a thing.
Water couldn’t drown him. Asphyxiation wouldn’t work.
But emotions?
His whole damn throat was closing up.
“We’ve got to start with who this guy really is,” Diego said tautly, blinking rapidly a few times to keep his emotions in check. He managed a small, stunted breath. “That’s the only way to figure out what he really wants?”
“You think he’s lying?” Vanya asked.
“He’s got to be lying,” Ben added.
“Not according to the odds,” Five mused.
“It doesn’t matter if he’s lying or not,” Diego said. “But until we know his full story, we’re going to be a step behind.”
“Okay,” Allison said, more pragmatic than ever. “Then what can we do?”
Diego stared at her for a moment, a little at a loss. A few hours ago, he had made a choice to save them.
Now, here they were, making the choice to save him right back.
Five told him that was just what families did, but Diego hadn’t believed.
Not until now.
“You name it,” Luther said, sounding steadier than ever. “And we’re there.”
Anything he wanted.
And Diego needed to give back.
With resolve, he nodded back at them. “We’ll get there,” he said. “But for now, I just want you to rest. All of you.”
“But the job--” Luther started to object.
Diego shook his head, cutting him off. “Will still be there tomorrow.”
-o-
It took a little bit of work to get his siblings to settle back down. Part of him wanted to put them back in their own beds, but Mom seemed intent on monitoring them. Well, a few of them. But if Luther, Klaus and Five were staying, then you better believe that Allison, Ben and Vanya were staying, too.
Diego was also staying.
More or less.
See, his family needed to rest, yes. But his family also needed answers. They needed Diego to get them answers. And this was about what his family needed more than anything.
So, after seeing his siblings all collected to rest, Diego slipped his way out with a few words about getting a bite to eat. He was hungry, this was true, but he took the long way to the kitchen until he found himself in Pogo’s office.
They had upgraded Pogo’s living quarters substantially since their father’s death, and they had allotted him one of the main rooms to use as his own private office. Whereas Reginald had been strict and secretive, Pogo was open and inviting. Grave as he was that night, he still welcomed Diego in with a smile.
“I’m glad to see you looking much better, Master Diego,” he said. “Though I would think that Grace would have you resting. Ever since we reinstated her protocols, she has been extra vigilant I think.”
Loitering in the doorway, Diego shrugged. “The others are,” he said. “I had a few things to do first.”
Pogo gave a small, knowing sigh. “You met him again,” he said. “The man from Highland Street.”
“The man who says he’s my brother,” Diego clarified. His voice wasn’t unkind, but the edge to it was still pointed and purposefully so. “I want to call him crazy, but…”
He shrugged one shoulder, unable to commit to the end of that phrase.
Pogo smiled limply. It almost looked like a grimace. “But you believe him. That he is your part of your biological kin.”
Diego pursed his lips. The next question was a given, but now that he was here, he found that he didn’t want to ask it. “Is he? Could he be my brother?”
Pogo chewed on the inside of his lip. “I think perhaps you should sit down.”
Well, shit, Diego thought as he crossed over to one of the chairs. His day was probably about to get worse.
-o-
Of course there were records of each sibling’s birth family. There were names, addresses, photos and other basic information. The files had been compiled impeccably, though they had not been maintained in over a decade. Reginald had wanted some basic security measures, and he had thought it prudent to be confident that some biological records remain intact for the sake of medical necessity.
This information had never been shared with the children. Diego had never asked, but he knew several of the others might. He had never been curious about a family would could sell him at a profit; the others could be sentimental.
To that extent, the story did check out. Diego did have a biological brother named Guillermo. He had been five years old at the time of Diego’s miraculous birth. His mother had died by drug overdose some years later, and Guillermo’s whereabouts were lost among other family relations in Mexico. When the records stopped nearly 13 years prior, evidence suggested that Guillermo had low level ties to one of the local cartels. He was deemed an inconsequential security risk.
“There is no evidence that he has tried to contact us in any way during your life,” Pogo explained. “There were no red flags.”
“Until he decided to commit mass murder at a mall,” Diego muttered, fiddling with one of his knives. “Why didn’t you tell me this after the attack on Highland?”
“You never thought he was your brother,” Pogo reasoned. “You weren’t even convinced the attack was linked to you specifically. The list of potential threats against the Umbrella Academy is vast, Master Diego. Please understand that I had no way of knowing.”
Diego’s heart was pounding, but he swallowed back his aggression. He knew Pogo was right.
Diego hated when other people were right. It just sucked. “But surely, a guy with this level of obsession, you had to have some hits.”
“I was entirely forthcoming with you,” Pogo said. “I traced the recent security breaches to shell corporations. These organizations and their affiliations would be too large to narrow down any specific individual. Maybe if I’d had some suspicion that he was your brother, I could have worked the connection from the opposite direction, but with the information I had, there was no way to know.”
Feeling weary, Diego rubbed his forehead with his free hand, the knife resting idle in the other. “He always talked like he knew me, but I didn’t know,” he said. He looked up, shrugging helplessly. “Maybe I suspected. But I didn’t want to know.”
This time, Pogo’s mouth turned up sympathetically. “It’s understandable,” he said. “Unfortunately, it is unavoidable now.”
Diego nodded, sitting up a little. He was grateful for the natural turn in conversation. “So what can we do about it?”
Pogo rocked back in his chair, eyebrows raised. “What would you like to do about it?”
Unexpectedly, Diego had an answer to that question. He had a lot of answers to that question. Because, sure, he was bad with family. But he was damn good at the job. “First, I want to confirm this is our guy. Work it backward, like you said. Track Guillermo from the last known point to see if we can verify that this is him. Once we know it is, we can establish how he’s gotten to this point and better understand his capacity.”
Pogo nodded along. “You still need to know motive.”
“He’s a crazy asshole,” Diego said. “What other motive is there?”
Pogo adjusted himself in his seat a little. “Some assholes are like your brother Five. Other assholes commit acts of wanton terror. The definition is broad, I think.”
“Fine,” Diego said, rolling his eyes. “He wanted me to go with him.”
“So, family,” Pogo said. “ A strong motivator tied to emotion.”
“So?”
“So, you were willing to sacrifice everything for your family,” Pogo said. “You need to know if Guillermo, should this person so prove to be, is of the same mind.”
“This guy is nothing like me,” Diego said, chest puffing out defensively.
Patiently, Pogo folded his hands over his stomach. “Your family grounds you. It has unhinged your brother,” the butler continued. “If you are willing to go so far in one direction, you must ask how far he is willing to go in the other?”
“You mean we need to know his next move,” Diego said. “Bastard’s been one step ahead this whole time.”
Pogo nodded along in agreement. “My research will never get you ahead of him. I can only hope to bring you to even ground,” he said. “It is up to you to figure out his mindset well enough to guess his next step before he makes it.”
Diego snorted. “Is that all?”
“It is a tall order, I grant you that,” Pogo said. He ducked his head a little to the side. “Fortunately, I do think you have an advantage.”
Raising his eyebrows, Diego huffed. “Yeah? What’s that?”
“He is working in the absence of family,” Pogo pointed. “You are surrounded by yours.”
With that, Diego had to concede that Pogo had a point.
A really, really good point.
-o-
It was tempting, naturally, to get right to work. That was what Diego would have done before.
He wasn’t doing this alone, however.
No, he needed to make time to breathe.
Instead of retiring to his own bed, he crept back up to the infirmary, where the rest of his siblings were still asleep. He stood there, watching them breathe for a moment. It was funny to watch, the way their chests rose and fell. Something so easy to take for granted; something that meant everything.
How close had Diego come today? How close had they all come?
His own breath staggered just thinking about it.
Everyone needed to breathe. Even Diego.
This job was harder than he anticipated -- and it had almost cost him his family. That said, his family was why he was going to finish it. No matter what.
He sighed, dragging a chair from against the wall. He sat down in it heavily, and tried not to think about crazy people. He wondered if this was how Luke Skywalker felt, one hand gone, screaming in agony because his father was the bad guy. That shit made you crazy.
And then it had to make you better.
Settling back, Diego focused on his own breathing. As he matched it to his sibling’s, he felt his heart rate start to even out. Out there, somewhere, his biological brother was plotting his revenge.
Here, in this room, Diego was with the only family that mattered.
Blood was thicker than water.
But choice was stronger than obligation.
Justice would be revenge.
Diego closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep.
-o-
The next day, Diego was open to taking things slow. He wanted Luther and Five to recuperate. He wanted to let Klaus sufficiently detox so Ben could coalesce. He figured time would help Allison and Vanya emotionally calibrate. Slow and steady would win the race.
His face, as it turned out, disagreed.
Proactively.
Luther wanted to train. Allison wanted to contact the police for additional information about the scene. Klaus wanted further background checks on the lot of them, and Five was keen to start running calculations about the timing of the next incident. Ben wanted to build out a better psychological profile, and Vanya wanted to hone her skills to make her more useful in specific contexts.
All that shit was shit Diego loved.
“But not today,” he said with an air of finality. His siblings were dressed, fed and assembled, but they still looked worse for the events of yesterday. Diego knew that their mother had cleared them for normal activity, but he was pretty sure normal activity wasn’t technically supposed to involve physical combat or psychological stressors.
And even if it was, he wasn’t down with that. All that time he spent restless, looking for a way out?
Now all he wanted was to lie low.
Forever, preferable.
That wasn’t the reality, however.
“Beside,” he said. “I have other commitments today.”
His siblings didn’t like that answer.
Consequently, Diego didn’t like it either.
It was, however, the only answer he could give.
-o-
Even after Diego explained his reasons, none of his siblings liked the idea of him going into the police station. Luther wanted to go in his place. Allison insisted it should be her. Klaus said maybe they should all go, and Five ventured that perhaps their father’s mentality had been correct and that they should give a simple press conference in full uniform to satisfy the masses. Ben was certain that they were best served at home, and Vanya was confused as to why the police needed to talk to them at all.
Diego knew that he could string Beaman along, not after everything the detective had done for him -- for all of them. Moreover, it had to be him. Too many voices would cloud the message, and the last thing he wanted was to make the Umbrella Academy more of a target than it already was. He had been at point on this one; he was the one whose long lost family was on a murderous rampage; he had made the promise to Beaman.
This wasn’t Diego running away.
This time, Diego was stepping up.
“Be careful,” Luther coached him in genuine concern. “If you need anything--”
“Dude, we’re not the bad guys,” he said. “Beaman is my friend, and we’ve helped the cops.”
“Still, they’ll be looking for inconsistencies,” Allison warned. “They will want to see a lie.”
“I’m not going in as a suspect,” Diego reasoned.
Klaus chortled. “Everyone’s a suspect, always,” he said. “There is no way to innocently go into a police station unless you are a jelly doughnut.”
Diego made a face.
Five shook his head and intervened. “The point stands,” he said. “If the cops don’t have any suspects in custody after yesterday, they’ll be keen to make an arrest -- any arrest -- to appease the public. They won’t care about the details.”
“That’s not how this is,” Diego said. “I mean, I appreciate the concern and all--”
“Plus, that madman is still out there,” Ben said. “We don’t know when he’ll strike.”
Diego sobered somewhat, suppressing a shudder. The thought of a repeat incident was ever present in his mind. The idea that it could be soon was a reality he couldn’t escape. But he wasn’t ready -- none of them were ready. Yesterday had been too jarring. Diego’s only hope was that it had been jarring for Guillermo as well.
“He wanted me to choose him,” he said. “I think he thought I would. He’ll still be reeling. He needs to rebuild just like we do.”
“Still,” Vanya said. “You have to promise us you’ll call if you need anything. I think Pogo probably has legal credentials if need be.”
The thought of it made Diego grin. As unsettling as it was to picture his siblings attacked while he was out, the thought of a monkey showing up as his legal representation was amusing. Beaman thought he knew Diego’s weirdest shit, but the dude had no idea.
“Things are going to be fine,” he said.
“And how can you be so sure?” Luther asked.
“I can’t be,” he said. “But that’s called hope, right? That’s a thing we do now? Hope?”
Allison smiled. Klaus blinked wide, credulous eyes. Five’s discerning brow relaxed slightly and Ben beamed effervescently. Vanya nodded along. “Yeah,” she agreed. “I think it is.”
-o-
It was nice having his siblings on board with his plan.
That was about the only thing nice about the plan.
Actually going down to the station to submit himself to any and all interrogation?
Yeah, that sucked as much as you might have guessed.
Still, Diego was a guy who said what he meant. That had always mattered, but it seemed to matter more now. Or maybe the stakes were just high enough to make the sacrifice meaningful. Whatever the case, Beaman met him at the front door and offered him both an apology and a thank-you.
“Thank God you’re here,” Beaman breathed, taking him by the arm and leading him past the waiting room and front desk. It was busier than Diego remembered; overflowing, in fact. The desk staff looked nearly overwhelmed. “I was worried you wouldn’t come, so thank you for keeping your word.”
“You know I’m good for what I say,” Diego said, watching as a handcuffed woman yelled profanities at a uniformed officer. “The place seems busy today.
“You think?” Beaman asked crisply. He shook his head, skirting another skirmish as he made his way back into the desk area. “It’s all gone to pot, man. All of it. I swear, every low life in the area has come out of the woodwork after these attacks. It’s all we can do to keep control.”
This wasn’t the first time Beaman had made such stark claims, and Diego had always believed him. Seeing it first hand, however, drew a much darker picture. Guilt churned in his stomach -- for not doing more. For not being more. “Shit,” he said. “I didn’t realize.”
“I know,” Beaman said. “Which is why I’m going to apologize now.”
They drew to a stop by his desk, and Diego couldn’t help but look at Patch’s old seat. It was cleared of her personal items. A new nameplate was positioned askew on the edge, and someone else’s family was smiling in the frames on the desk. “Apologize?” he said, trying to bring his attention back to Beaman. “For what?”
“Everyone wants answers. We’re under a ton of pressure,” he said. “Now, I’ve convinced my superiors not to process you as a suspect, but you are the key witness. And they will be looking for anything in your story. So, be careful, man.”
“I thought the key was to be honest,” Diego said.
“Be both, if possible,” Beaman recommended.
Diego made a face, somewhat vexed. “Is it actually that bad?”
Beaman grimaced. “Honestly?” he said. “I think it’s worse.”
-o-
Beaman was right. It was worse.
Diego was asked to tell his story three distinct times to three different detectives. Then, he was asked to retell the story to the precinct captain before being subjected to three rounds of questioning, which were conducted two three pairs of detectives at overlapping intervals. It was an interrogation in everything but name, and the only thing that kept it that was was Diego’s ongoing cooperation.
It wasn’t easy to keep his temper in check -- the circular questioning, designed to draw out untruths was starting to piss him off -- but he knew this wasn’t about him. These detectives didn’t seem to know that yet, but his cooperation was the only thing that was ever going to convince them.
Besides, he did have good intel, and he was forthcoming about a lot of it. He was doing all this to protect his family, but Guillermo wasn’t his family. So Diego had no qualms identifying the bastard by name and providing credible evidence about his connections to Mexican cartels for the cops to follow up with. Normally, he preferred doing shit alone, but trust had to be a two-way street. That was how it had been with Patch; that was how it was with Beaman.
The rest of the force would benefit from that trust.
And if it brought the bastard down faster? Then, Diego was all for it.
Sure, Diego was a proud guy, but there wasn’t any room for pride anymore. Not with this. Maybe not with anything.
Diego was ready to be a team player.
He was ready to take one for the team.
He was ready to sit still and take a deep, deep breath.
And wait for whatever the hell happened next.
-o-
It was night by the time Diego was finally allowed to leave. This probably had more to due with the fact that cops were exhausted, but he was grateful all the same. In an effort to be more mature and responsible, he thanked the detectives for their time and told them to call if they needed anything. He wasn’t entirely confident that he would be so obliging if they did call, but it certainly made a nice end to a shitty day -- from their perspective, anyway.
Any doubt Diego might have had about whether or not he had done the right thing giving up a day of investigation with his family was resolved when Beaman walked him back to the front door. There, the detective hesitated, drew a breath and shook his head. “The story you told us is incredible.”
“What? You doubt me, too?” Diego quipped.
“No, no,” Beaman said. “I know better than that by now.”
“So?” Diego said. “What’s the surprise for?”
“Just that you told it. You came here. You played by the rules,” Beaman said, sounding vaguely in disbelief.
Diego swallowed hard. He could remember the last time he was with Patch in this station. “Yeah, well,” he said. “I guess I finally figured out that playtime is over.”
Beaman smiled sadly. “You have to be careful, Diego.”
“Dude, careful’s not really the name of the game,” Diego reminded him.
“I know, I do,” Beaman said. “But I know there are still parts you’re not telling me, and you have to know there are parts the cops aren’t telling you.”
Diego frowned, not doubtful but uncertain.
Beaman leaned forward, lowering his voice. “It’s not just the locals that are getting out of hand,” he said. “We’ve gotten countless hits on international criminals. Hitmen, hired guns -- that sort of thing. We’ve picked up three today, got leads on half a dozen others. I mean, maybe it’s a coincidence or something--”
Diego swallowed, grave. “Not likely,” he said.
“It’s like they’re sharks, sensing blood in the water,” Beaman said, shaking his head. “Suddenly, the whole city has a target on its back.”
That sounded dire enough. The fact that the target was painted on Diego and the city -- along with his family -- was nothing but collateral damage only made it worse. “Make sure you question them for connections to anything that’s going on,” he suggested. “There’s no way to know. Maybe they’ve been hired for a reason.”
A shadow darkened Beaman’s expression. “And somehow you made me feel worse about the situation.”
Diego chuckled without humor. “Did you miss the part where a crazed madman willingly murdered dozens of people just to draw out the Umbrella Academy?”
“Unfortunately, no,” Beaman returned. “And I know it’s naive but I can’t help but hope that the worst has passed. Maybe this psycho will take no for an answer and just move on.”
The hope was naive, but that only made it harder to hear. Then again, maybe hope was good. Maybe it was the best thing, knowing that hope persisted in the world, even after so much loss and heartache. Patch would have had it, that was for sure.
Diego wasn’t sure if he did.
For his sake -- not to mention the city’s and his family’s -- he was going to have to try.
Finally, he offered his hand to Beaman. “You know how to reach me if something new comes up.”
Beaman took the outstretched hand and shook it. “Same goes for you, brother.”
Diego smiled wryly.
All the information he’d gleaned today, and he thought that last comment might yield the most interesting tidbit of all.
Families of choice, as it were.
The hardest thing.
Damn it, the best thing.
-o-
He stopped for a bite to eat on his way back. This was a necessity; he was hungry. If it gave him a little time to think on his own, then that was a happy coincidence.
As for the question of whether or not Diego believed in coincidences?
Well, the evidence spoke for itself.
-o-
Needless to say, it was late when he got back.
Late, late.
He suspected his siblings would be asleep. He had hoped so at any rate.
His siblings, though, weren’t for doing what was expected.
They also weren’t big on doing things easy.
So Diego wasn’t surprised to find a few lights on. He crept through the entryway, getting sidetracked to the living room. There, he found all the lamps on, casting eerie shadows with the stuffed animal heads still hung on the walls. He would have guessed it was Five burning the midnight oil or Klaus scuttling restlessly about. Even Allison, timing a west coast call to Claire or Vanya reading a book.
Instead, it was Luther.
Predictable, by the book Luther. Doing something unexpected and against the protocol they had all agreed upon. Sleep, they had agreed, was imperative to success. Not to mention the act that Luther was still under strict orders from Mom to recover.
Yet, there he was.
He looked downright relieved to see Diego. Getting to his feet, it seemed to take some restraint for Luther not to cross over to him. He got the sneaking suspicion that his oaf brother wanted to hug him.
“I was starting to get worried,” Luther said, words all in a rush. His cheeks flushed. “I told the others it was fine, they should sleep, but I was about to head over there myself.”
Diego threw off his jacket, slumping tiredly into a chair. “That would have been unnecessary.”
“To make sure you’re okay, I don’t think so,” Luther said.
Diego gave him a half lidded look. “We would still be there if you showed up,” he said. “They would have wanted both our statements to compare against each other. You would have gotten us arrested for all your good intentions, big guy.”
Luther’s response was a little put off. “But we didn’t do anything.”
Diego lifted his brows. “That’s cute that you still think that matters.”
Luther huffed somewhat, sitting back down to face Diego. “I’m not going to say that caring about you is stupid,” he said. “Even if sometimes you make me feel like it is.”
Diego waved his hand through the air. “Okay, okay,” he relented. “I get the sentiment, I do. But it was fine. Nothing out of the ordinary happened. I shared our intel in the name of goodwill. It earned us some credibility, at least for the time being. They can’t suspect anything more until they start following up, and that’s going to take some time.”
Luther frowned, now seeming mildly disconcerted. “Did you tell them he’s your brother?”
“I was forthcoming, not stupid,” Diego said. “Maybe they piece it together on their own; I don’t know. But that’s easy enough to feign ignorance.”
“You think they’ll buy that?” Luther asked.
Diego arched his eyebrows in return. “We’re a family of adopted superheroes. If they can buy into the fact that we’re the good guys, then I think they’ll buy that much.”
Luther considered that. “I don’t really like lying.”
Diego snorted. “You mean since Dad sent you to the moon and told you it meant something when it didn’t?”
Paling, Luther flattened his lips. The tension, once familiar, return between them, and Diego felt chagrined. It was a comment to be expected from him, and Diego started to realize that he hated that a little.
Or maybe a lot.
Sure, that was how they had used to be. Family had been all about snide comments and snarky responses. Shit, they’d made it their business to be assholes to each other.
But that wasn’t how Diego wanted it anymore.
Things hadn’t been perfect the last stretch, but it had been better. They had been better. He had been better.
Besides, Diego had come face to face with what a messed up family really meant. Guillermo made the issues of the Umbrella Academy seem minor.
“I didn’t mean that,” he said quickly. He sighed as he reoriented himself and checked his emotions. “I’m sorry.”
“No, you’re right,” Luther said. “I don’t like secrets. That’s why I stayed up to give you this as soon as you got back.”
Luther held out a stack of papers, tidily organized with Luther’s meticulous scrawl across the top. Frowning, Diego looked it over, skimming it to understand.
Across from him, Luther shrugged. “I know you said to lay low today, but I couldn’t stand being idle,” he said. “So I did a little research about your family. Your birth family. Biological family. Whatever.”
Diego looked up at his brother, a little awed and a little confused. “You did this? For me?”
“Well, it’s not like it’s not important for finishing this job,” Luther reasoned. “If your family is coming out of the woodworks, then we should have a full profile. It’s just smart tactical planning.”
Diego continued to stare at him, shocked.
Luther shrugged again, this time starting to blush. “Also I figured you would want to know,” he said.
Diego glanced down, shaking his head. “I don’t want to know anything about Guillermo.”
Luther pointed at the papers. “But it’s not just Guillermo. There are more people in your biological family. Aunts and uncles, cousins -- and they’re not all bad people. In fact, from what I found, most of them are really good people.”
Diego looked again, closer this time. There were a few pictures, smiling families, a little girl with pigtails, a grandfather with white hair surrounded by generations of children. A woman in business suit. A young man with a graduation cap, holding a diploma.
“A lot of them are still back in Mexico,” Luther explained. “Your aunt became a local politician, and she has worked hard to thwart the cartels. You have a cousin who just got into medical school. Your grandfather is a minister. He runs a soup kitchen that feeds thousands.”
The information was vexing somehow. It was an easy separation, to resent and hate them. For all the terrible things Guillermo had brought to Diego’s life, his existence had validated the long held perception that his family wasn’t worth shit. This information that there was more to the story, more to the family, more to him -- well, it was hard to process.
Diego was all or nothing, so these damn shades of gray were about to drive him crazy.
“We could contact them,” Luther suggested.
“For information on Guillermo?” Diego asked.
Luther blinked, a little surprised. “Well, yes,” he said. “And also just so you can get to know them. I mean, it’s your family, Diego.”
Diego lowered the papers. “I have a family,” he said, holding them back out to Luther. “These people in Mexico, they’re strangers. Sources of information, maybe. But strangers.”
Luther took them back. “So, you don’t want to call them?”
“I’m not looking to chitchat,” Diego said. “There’s a madman out there looking to kill innocent people in order to get to me. Protecting my actual family is the only priority.”
This made Luther look down at the sheet again, somewhat thoughtful. “You want me to follow up then?”
“Sure,” Diego said. “Like I said, they could provide some intel on what Guillermo is up to. Who he may be working with. What targets he might pick. You could talk to Ben and Five, work on building up the personality profile.”
“Yeah, if that’s what you want,” Luther said. He swallowed, and then he hesitated. “That’s really what you want?”
“I’m not sure any of this is what I want,” Diego said with a wry lilt in his voice. “But it seems like there’s not a lot of other choices.”
“There are choices, Diego,” Luther returned steadily.
Diego glanced at the papers, still clutched in Luther’s hand. Then, he met his brother’s gaze again. “Yeah, that’s the point,” he said. He reached out, clapping his brother on the arm. “Now let’s get some sleep. We’ve got to hit this job early tomorrow. No more time to waste.”
Luther tucked the papers away and nodded in agreement. “You got it,” he said. “We’ll hit it, bright and early.”
It was a resounding agreement. Not of a Number One and a Number Two. But equals.
Brothers.
A concept Diego used to define by absence.
Now he understood by choice.
-o-
Sleep was still a novel concept, but Diego did what he could. Honestly, he was beat. In the past, he had incurred far more serious physical damage. In comparison, this job had hardly had any personal damage. Yet, the emotional toll was impossible to ignore. In fact, he felt more exhausted than ever.
Some of that was the tedious nature of playing by the rules at the police station. Some of that was the stress of seeing his siblings in danger. Some of it was even the shock of what his biological brother was capable of doing.
And really, if he was going to be honest with himself, some of it was playing Number One. He has never thought about that. He hadn’t needed to. As Number Two, he had always been left wanting. He had always been so preoccupied with the fact that he couldn’t do the job that he had never thought about whether he wanted to. Plus, he had never wanted to give Luther the benefit of anything. It was easier to pretend Luther was incompetent or overly dramatic. He had never allowed his brother the notion that this job was hard.
It was hard. Not the planning or the work in the field. But the weight of responsibility. That shit was encompassing, it sucked every ounce of energy he had and still demanded more. He had once told Klaus that revenge would let him sleep like a baby. He had been wrong. It wasn’t revenge. Closure didn’t mean shit.
No, sleeping like a baby came from actual exhaustion.
In short, that night, Diego had never slept more soundly.
PART TWO
PART THREE
PART FOUR
PART FIVE
PART SIX
PART SEVEN
PART EIGHT
PART NINE
PART TEN
PART ELEVEN
PART TWELVE
PART THIRTEEN
-o-
This part, at least, was something Diego had familiar with.
As a lone vigilante, he’d often made his way home in subterfuge. True, in those days, he’d used the cover of darkness. Today, the sun was out, but the feeling of sneaking through the crowd was all the same. Diego had to drive slow to cut through the traffic, and though a few news trucks honked, they were only too happy to fill the void he was leaving. In his experience, people rarely looked for heroes.
It was also a thing of familiarity to drive away from a crime scene. That part had always driven Patch crazy, and it had been a recurring argument between them. There was a reason she’d finally resorted to tasing him. He had a habit of taking what he wanted without asking.
At least, he used to.
He had to hold onto the idea that everyone was capable of change. Even him.
And change was here, for whatever that was worth. As familiar as fleeing under the oversight of the police was to him, coming home was almost alien. Sure, he’d always slunk back to the gym, shuffled his way back to his boiler room to fall into bed and sleep alone. But that wasn’t home. That wasn’t welcoming and safe. There had never been anyone there to help him out.
By the time he got back to the mansion, however, Pogo was already waiting at the door. His mother was a step behind him, wringing her hands anxiously.
Jobs, as it turned out, always ended at some point.
Family, on the other hand, never did.
Killing the engine, Diego undid his seatbelt. He glanced back at Vanya. “Come on,” he said, opening his door. “Get him up.”
By the time he opened the door, she had maneuvered Five into an upright position. Five mumbled something, but his head tipped back and his eyelids fluttered closed again. Diego easily swung him up, lifting him up into his arms like you might carry a child.
Well, an actual child.
Were Five conscious, he would not have tolerated. Which was all the more reason to hurry.
From the other car, Allison had pulled Klaus out and handed him to Vanya. She struggled to get Luther out the door, but he seemed to be a little steadier when he stood. Allison still had to guide him in, but when Diego crossed over to the doorway where Pogo and his mother were waiting, each of his siblings was right behind him.
This job had been a disaster, no doubt.
But there was still hope for the family.
“Everyone’s alive, but we’re going to need complete medical checks on everyone,” Diego reported, carrying Five through the door while Pogo held it open. Their mother fell into step beside him, her anxious eyes on Five.
Behind him, Allison came limping through with Luther. Vanya was helping a distracted Klaus right behind. Pogo closed the door, locking it, as they entered into the back way.
Diego didn’t wait to be directed to one of the designated medical areas. They had repurposed one of the main floor rooms, making it more accessible for situations just like this.
“There was some kind of bomb, something that sent a pulse out and knocked us out,” he said. Five was small, but Diego was winded. He was more than ready to ease the small, limp body onto one of the waiting examination beds. “But there was also some kind of drug used -- for Klaus certainly, but I’m not sure about the rest.”
Allison had brought Luther to the next bed, staying close to him while he sat with his eyes closed. Vanya was trying to keep Klaus from leaving the room.
Diego pursed his lips, turning to Mom. “And oxygen deprivation was involved,” he said, knowing that he was leaving a lot of details out. But that was the beautiful thing about Mom: she always knew her priorities. “Everyone was still breathing, but Five and Luther haven’t been fully conscious.”
Mom nodded. She could soft and sweet; she could also be incredibly to the point. “Let’s get oxygen masks for everyone, just as precaution.”
Pogo hobbled toward one of the cabinets to retrieve them.
“We will want to run blood work, and Klaus may benefit from IV fluids to help push the drug out of his system,” she said, already gathering her own supplies. “We’ll do a simple assessment first to see if more tests are needed.”
Pogo had produced the oxygen masks and canisters and was starting to hand them out.
“Come now, children,” she said. “Put them on. Put them on.”
Allison complied before putting one on for Luther. Vanya managed to get on one Klaus before wearing one herself. Their mother took one for Five, gently lifting his head to slip it underneath before Pogo held one out for Diego.
“No,” he said. “I’m fine.”
“I’m afraid I must insist,” Pogo said.
“It didn’t affect me,” Diego tried to explain.
“Don’t argue, dear,” his mother said, touching him on the arm. “Your color is bad. This obviously has affected you.”
With that, she busied herself once more, producing a penlight before leaning over Five and opening his eyes. She shone the light at him several times before using her fist to rub at Five’s sternum. He stirred, mewling slightly, and Diego remembered to breathe for the first time in an hour.
He took the mask, slipping it over his face. He could feel the cold rush of oxygen as it entered through his mouth and filtered into his lungs.
When he breathed out, the warm air fogged up the plastic casing.
True, Diego didn’t have to breathe.
It sure as hell felt better when he did.
-o-
Diego had hated the tedious parts of the job. He had never had a chance as a cop because his innate restlessness made it impossible for him to tolerate things he deemed unimportant. He hated waiting; he hated paperwork. He hated procedure, policy and generally doing things the “right” way. He had always believed that it was better to go out and catch the bad guys. Everything else was wasting time.
Part of him still felt that way, even if he could keep it in check now.
All the same, he didn’t feel that way this time.
He still remembered the man -- Guillermo. He remembered Guillermo’s intricate plans. He remembered how Guillermo had successfully captured the Umbrella Academy. Diego would like to claim some credit for his family being alive, but he knew he had little do with it. Guillermo could have killed them all outright, Diego included. The only reason they were alive was because Guillermo wasn’t done with them yet.
Rather, he wasn’t done with Diego yet.
The claim that they were long lost brothers was a hard one to swallow, harder still to deny. Maybe that, more than anything, was the reason Diego wasn’t ready to do with it yet.
He wasn’t ready to deal with it at all.
Not the questions.
Especially not the answers.
All things considered, then, Diego was happy to endure the tedious part of this job. He was okay with inaction. He stood, just out of his mother’s way, while she tended to each and every sibling.
Five was assessed first, and his mother was pleased to report that Five’s vitals looked strong and that he was responded to stimuli. If anything, he appeared to be exhausted, and she hooked him up to fluids to try to replenish his depleted supply. No doubt, the lack of oxygen had only been compounded with his stymied efforts to free himself. Five’s powers were more taxing than the rest of theirs, and the fact that he had worked himself into unconsciousness only suggested just how hard he had struggled to get free from Guillermo’s box.
Luther had fared somewhat differently. He had been without oxygen the longest, and that was the sole reason for his sluggish return to consciousness. He was able to respond to questions, but even throughout the exam, he was prone to drifting off until Allison squeezed his arm. He would be fine, their mother concluded, but she would want to watch him for a day just to be sure.
Klaus was a more complicated case, though his condition was not more pressing. The fluids helped him sober up marginally, but they would have to wait on the blood work to see what he was dosed with. He would require the most long term care, as best their mother could determine, only to prevent a risk of relapse. She drew up preventative measures for detox as a precaution, but they would see how he fared after he sobered up throughout the course of the night.
Vanya was fine, though her blood pressure was elevated. Their mother suggested sedatives, but Pogo immediately contramanded her. “Some rest, perhaps,” he said soothingly. “Would anyone care for some tea?”
Allison was also fine, though the way she stuck like glue to Luther’s side showed just how much this incident had affected her. She was the first one to ask -- the only one, really -- what the hell had happened. “That guy. Was it the same on from before?” she demanded, and her anger was justified. She had a right to know. “Did you know him after all?”
Diego stumbled for an answer. For all that he’d been a leader today, he had no response to this. He fumbled a moment longer before his mother mercifully intervene. “Diego, darling, it’s your turn.”
“I’m fine,” he said before he could think otherwise. He wet his lips, furrowing his brow. “I wasn’t -- I didn’t -- I’m fine.”
She looked down her nose at him, all business now. “Nonsense,” she said. “Protocol dictates that everyone is examined after a mission. You told me that rule yourself. Remember?”
Diego did.
He let out a shaky breath, and smiled apologetically to Allison. “We’ll talk about it,” he promised her. “Later.”
Before Allison could question him further -- and rightly so -- his mother took him by the arm and whisked him off.
-o-
Diego didn’t realize his mom had taken him elsewhere until he was sitting on a kitchen chair with a penlight in his eyes. He wondered if her programming had taught her to sense when privacy was needed. Or maybe she just knew him well.
Putting the penlight away, she hummed a little. Then, picking up a stethoscope, and smiled. “Breathe normally, please.”
It was something of a ludicrous request somehow. It had been a long, weird, hard day. And Diego didn’t even need to breathe. What was any of this going to accomplish anyway?
His lack of response had her tsking her tongue. “I need to make sure everything is working,” she instructed primly. “Take a deep breath.”
“But Mom, I don’t even need to breathe,” he reminded her. “Remember? It’s one of my powers.”
She didn’t look exasperated because that certainly wasn’t within her programming. But there was something in her smile that suggested it all the same. “Need cannot be reduced to simple biological imperative,” she reasoned. “Need is also emotional, psychological, cognitive, spiritual.”
At that, Diego scoffed. “You think I should breathe for spiritual reasons?”
“Diego, I don’t pretend to know your spiritual beliefs, but I support you in every possible way,” she said. “But since you still have lungs and a beating heart, I do need you to breathe.”
To that, he had no response. Well, no response except a clean, full breath of air.
She had the stethoscope poised against his chest. As he exhaled, she nodded, moving it around. “Good,” she coached. “And again.”
He obeyed with no fuss this time, complying with inhalation and exhalation as she listened to his lungs. Stepping back, she appeared pleased.
“Very good,” she said, sounding genuinely proud of him. She was practically beaming. “Do you see how much better you feel after a few good breaths? I can tell already that your vitals are stabilizing. Your blood pressure has dropped and your mood has lightened. All because you can breathe, not because you have to.”
She was right; he did feel better. He felt a lot better. He would have attributed this to her mere presence, but her delineation of physical changes carried more weight than he expected. All the shit that had happened today, and he was still breathing. There was something revolutionary to him suddenly about a simple biological given. Breathing was a choice. Survival was a pursuit.
He was still breathing.
Better yet, his family was still breathing, too.
Every last one of them.
Well, not counting Ben. When Klaus finally sobered up, no doubt Ben would be back to remind Diego that that was okay. He had made his choice.
And now, against the odds, Diego had made his.
Mom rustled about for a thermometer, soothing in her singsong voice. “Now, darling,” she coaxed. “Just keep breathing for me. Just keep breathing.”
Diego hadn’t succeeded at much today.
But, as he inhaled and exhaled once more, it somehow felt like something of an accomplishment after all.
-o-
Diego, as expected, was given a clean bill of health. Mom was thorough, of course, but there was nothing wrong with Diego. He didn’t have more than a scratch on him. Whatever had been used in the blast had been transient or benign, and it showed no lingering effects on him.
Thus being cleared for normal activities, his mother had recommended a good meal and some rest.
Diego declined both.
Instead, he made his way back to the infirmary. It was easy to see that his siblings were waiting for him. Allison and Vanya straightened when he approached. With a groan, Luther sat up in bed. Klaus was finally coherent enough to come to attention, and though Five looked ready to pass out at any given moment, he was seated doggedly on the edge of his cot, all but scowling under his unkempt head of hair. Even Ben was back, though decidedly less visible than usual, floating anxiously at Klaus back.
They were beaten, battered and anxious. They were looking at Diego for answers.
They were looking for Diego to lead them still.
All that had happened.
All that he had failed to mitigate.
And they still trusted him.
It was almost too much; he almost wanted to keep on walking right out the door like he was 18 and ready to head out on his own all over again. But that wasn’t how this worked.
This wasn’t how he worked.
At least, no anymore.
“So, uh, that was a little bit worse than expected,” he ventured to start with. He had always hated when Luther tried to frame things positively, but he understood the impulse now. It was a lot easier to play devil’s advocate when it wasn’t your ass on the line. “But we did learn a few things.”
No one said anything. It was pretty clear that they weren’t sure what to say.
Diego drew a breath.
That was a novelty.
He did it again and continued. “The man in the clinic, he was the same one I met in the sub-basement on Highland,” he said, trying to keep his voice steady. “I knew that he knew us, but I didn’t realize how well he knew us. It’s pretty clear he’s been casing us a hell of a lot longer than we’ve been tailing him. I have no excuses. He had the upper hand this time. I’m sorry.”
It was an admission, and it came out easier than Diego expected. In the aftermath, it was harder to endure. His cheeks burned as he was unable to meet their gazes any longer.
Finally, it was Luther who spoke. Quiet; gentle. “Those cases were sound proof, you know,” he said. “The two of you were having quite the conversation. What did he tell you?”
In prior circumstances, Diego would have suspected judgement or malice in Number One’s voice. But Luther was hunched and small somehow. When he looked at Diego, there was a vulnerability there. Diego had to concede that maybe it had always been there; maybe he’d just never looked for it.
With another breath, he found the ability to continue. “A lot, actually,” Diego said. “Though a lot of it sounded like bullshit, so I don’t know.”
“Try us,” Allison said. Though she was pressing, she wasn’t working against him. She was with him. “Maybe we can figure it out together.”
Diego couldn’t imagine that was true.
Then again, he couldn’t imagine it to be true in any other context.
He shrugged, almost to himself, and went on. “According to him, the murdering, sadistic bastard, he’s my brother.”
That wasn’t an answer they expected.
Which was good.
It was still an answer Diego was having a hard time reconciling.
After all, his brother? His blood relation?
The idea that such a thing existed was something he had not been prepared to deal with. The idea that such a thing existed and was bent on death and destruction was a whole new level of shitty.
“Wait,” Klaus said. “Am I imagining things? Because I thought your brothers were here, in this room.” He glanced behind him, assuring himself of Ben’s presence. “All of them. We’re all here.”
“Not his adopted sibling,” Five concluded on his behalf. He was looking at Diego critically. “His birth sibling. I mean, we all have some blood relations somewhere. The notion that we have birth siblings is not out of the question. The odds aren’t even unlikely.”
“Sure, but none of the rest of us have had our birth families hunt us down in a trail of murder and destruction,” Ben said. “Did he explain what he wanted?”
As if this conversation couldn’t get harder.
Or weirder.
He could still remember the conversation, every sordid and expected turn. He wanted to think he imagined it, but Diego wasn’t lucky in that way. Diego wasn’t lucky at all. If anything, this shit was par for the course.
“Yeah,” Diego said. “Apparently, he wanted to spend time with me.”
“So he killed a bunch a people and kidnapped us?” Vanya asked, clearly confused. “I don’t understand.”
“He thought that was the only way to get my attention,” he said, conveniently leaving out the part about Guillermo’s failed attempts to initiate contact. “He thought he had to use the job to get to know me.”
Six months ago, Diego couldn’t have said he was wrong.
Even now, he felt a pang of guilt not because Guillermo was wrong. But because he was right.
That wasn’t the whole story, though. For all that Guillermo didn’t know him, his siblings around him did. It was Luther who spoke next. “That still didn’t explain what he wanted,” he said. “All that work, all that planning. That was more than an introduction.”
Life was easier when Luther was nothing but a big dumb oaf. Of course, life was easier when Diego was appropriately disconnected from his family. And mostly life was easier when he didn’t have unknown psychotic siblings running around trying to ruin his life.
He wet his lips and forced himself to breath. “He captured you to offer me a choice,” he said. “I could pick you. Or I could pick him.”
Allison made a face, like the notion was ridiculous. “And he really thought you might pick him? After he went around killing people?”
“That would be the opposite of what you would do,” Klaus said. “Your violent, sure. But you’re just as much of a do-gooder as Luther.”
For once, Diego wasn’t even offended by the comparison.
This was, by all accounts, a really weird day.
“Well, he did offer to change sides,” Diego said. “Said we could do the job, do it the way I wanted.” He hesitated, that feeling of guilt returning. It wasn’t his fault that this maniac had come for them. But it sort of felt like his fault that this madman thought it would work. “He thought that he could use the job to make me see that I should choose him.”
Five, though still shaky, looked unabashedly fascinated. “A quantitative assessment would suggest that it’s not a bad strategy,” he said. “He identified a primary motivator and attempted to leverage it. It’s not without merit.”
“Sure, but Diego would never trust a guy like that,” Ben said.
“And Diego would choose family,” Vanya said, like it was a given. “Diego knows his priorities.”
She said it, and no one questioned her.
No one except Diego himself.
“Of course,” Five said, matter of fact. Like Diego hadn’t just sat there while Five had drowned a few weeks ago. Like Diego hadn’t let them all twist in cases while he tortured himself over a decision that they assumed was foregone. “I was only saying that this guy -- brother or not -- has done his research. He applied sound reasoning to his approach. But he failed because he failed to grasp the real weight of family.”
“He was making an offer without realizing the irony,” Allison commented, somewhat wry.
“Yeah, that would be way more fascinating if he hadn’t just tried to kill us,” Klaus said.
“The point still stands,” Vanya said. “This guy knows a lot about us.”
“But not the most important things,” Ben said.
Luther, shakily, got to his feet. He was taller than Diego, but this time they were still looking eye to eye. “No, the important thing is that Diego made a choice,” he said, sounding inexplicably grateful. “And now we’ve got to make the choice to be here for him while we figure out what’s next.”
The job.
For all that Diego had learned in the last few months, he couldn’t deny that the job still called to him. Even now.
Shit, especially now.
Suddenly, it was hard to breathe.
Emotions were a hell of a thing.
Water couldn’t drown him. Asphyxiation wouldn’t work.
But emotions?
His whole damn throat was closing up.
“We’ve got to start with who this guy really is,” Diego said tautly, blinking rapidly a few times to keep his emotions in check. He managed a small, stunted breath. “That’s the only way to figure out what he really wants?”
“You think he’s lying?” Vanya asked.
“He’s got to be lying,” Ben added.
“Not according to the odds,” Five mused.
“It doesn’t matter if he’s lying or not,” Diego said. “But until we know his full story, we’re going to be a step behind.”
“Okay,” Allison said, more pragmatic than ever. “Then what can we do?”
Diego stared at her for a moment, a little at a loss. A few hours ago, he had made a choice to save them.
Now, here they were, making the choice to save him right back.
Five told him that was just what families did, but Diego hadn’t believed.
Not until now.
“You name it,” Luther said, sounding steadier than ever. “And we’re there.”
Anything he wanted.
And Diego needed to give back.
With resolve, he nodded back at them. “We’ll get there,” he said. “But for now, I just want you to rest. All of you.”
“But the job--” Luther started to object.
Diego shook his head, cutting him off. “Will still be there tomorrow.”
-o-
It took a little bit of work to get his siblings to settle back down. Part of him wanted to put them back in their own beds, but Mom seemed intent on monitoring them. Well, a few of them. But if Luther, Klaus and Five were staying, then you better believe that Allison, Ben and Vanya were staying, too.
Diego was also staying.
More or less.
See, his family needed to rest, yes. But his family also needed answers. They needed Diego to get them answers. And this was about what his family needed more than anything.
So, after seeing his siblings all collected to rest, Diego slipped his way out with a few words about getting a bite to eat. He was hungry, this was true, but he took the long way to the kitchen until he found himself in Pogo’s office.
They had upgraded Pogo’s living quarters substantially since their father’s death, and they had allotted him one of the main rooms to use as his own private office. Whereas Reginald had been strict and secretive, Pogo was open and inviting. Grave as he was that night, he still welcomed Diego in with a smile.
“I’m glad to see you looking much better, Master Diego,” he said. “Though I would think that Grace would have you resting. Ever since we reinstated her protocols, she has been extra vigilant I think.”
Loitering in the doorway, Diego shrugged. “The others are,” he said. “I had a few things to do first.”
Pogo gave a small, knowing sigh. “You met him again,” he said. “The man from Highland Street.”
“The man who says he’s my brother,” Diego clarified. His voice wasn’t unkind, but the edge to it was still pointed and purposefully so. “I want to call him crazy, but…”
He shrugged one shoulder, unable to commit to the end of that phrase.
Pogo smiled limply. It almost looked like a grimace. “But you believe him. That he is your part of your biological kin.”
Diego pursed his lips. The next question was a given, but now that he was here, he found that he didn’t want to ask it. “Is he? Could he be my brother?”
Pogo chewed on the inside of his lip. “I think perhaps you should sit down.”
Well, shit, Diego thought as he crossed over to one of the chairs. His day was probably about to get worse.
-o-
Of course there were records of each sibling’s birth family. There were names, addresses, photos and other basic information. The files had been compiled impeccably, though they had not been maintained in over a decade. Reginald had wanted some basic security measures, and he had thought it prudent to be confident that some biological records remain intact for the sake of medical necessity.
This information had never been shared with the children. Diego had never asked, but he knew several of the others might. He had never been curious about a family would could sell him at a profit; the others could be sentimental.
To that extent, the story did check out. Diego did have a biological brother named Guillermo. He had been five years old at the time of Diego’s miraculous birth. His mother had died by drug overdose some years later, and Guillermo’s whereabouts were lost among other family relations in Mexico. When the records stopped nearly 13 years prior, evidence suggested that Guillermo had low level ties to one of the local cartels. He was deemed an inconsequential security risk.
“There is no evidence that he has tried to contact us in any way during your life,” Pogo explained. “There were no red flags.”
“Until he decided to commit mass murder at a mall,” Diego muttered, fiddling with one of his knives. “Why didn’t you tell me this after the attack on Highland?”
“You never thought he was your brother,” Pogo reasoned. “You weren’t even convinced the attack was linked to you specifically. The list of potential threats against the Umbrella Academy is vast, Master Diego. Please understand that I had no way of knowing.”
Diego’s heart was pounding, but he swallowed back his aggression. He knew Pogo was right.
Diego hated when other people were right. It just sucked. “But surely, a guy with this level of obsession, you had to have some hits.”
“I was entirely forthcoming with you,” Pogo said. “I traced the recent security breaches to shell corporations. These organizations and their affiliations would be too large to narrow down any specific individual. Maybe if I’d had some suspicion that he was your brother, I could have worked the connection from the opposite direction, but with the information I had, there was no way to know.”
Feeling weary, Diego rubbed his forehead with his free hand, the knife resting idle in the other. “He always talked like he knew me, but I didn’t know,” he said. He looked up, shrugging helplessly. “Maybe I suspected. But I didn’t want to know.”
This time, Pogo’s mouth turned up sympathetically. “It’s understandable,” he said. “Unfortunately, it is unavoidable now.”
Diego nodded, sitting up a little. He was grateful for the natural turn in conversation. “So what can we do about it?”
Pogo rocked back in his chair, eyebrows raised. “What would you like to do about it?”
Unexpectedly, Diego had an answer to that question. He had a lot of answers to that question. Because, sure, he was bad with family. But he was damn good at the job. “First, I want to confirm this is our guy. Work it backward, like you said. Track Guillermo from the last known point to see if we can verify that this is him. Once we know it is, we can establish how he’s gotten to this point and better understand his capacity.”
Pogo nodded along. “You still need to know motive.”
“He’s a crazy asshole,” Diego said. “What other motive is there?”
Pogo adjusted himself in his seat a little. “Some assholes are like your brother Five. Other assholes commit acts of wanton terror. The definition is broad, I think.”
“Fine,” Diego said, rolling his eyes. “He wanted me to go with him.”
“So, family,” Pogo said. “ A strong motivator tied to emotion.”
“So?”
“So, you were willing to sacrifice everything for your family,” Pogo said. “You need to know if Guillermo, should this person so prove to be, is of the same mind.”
“This guy is nothing like me,” Diego said, chest puffing out defensively.
Patiently, Pogo folded his hands over his stomach. “Your family grounds you. It has unhinged your brother,” the butler continued. “If you are willing to go so far in one direction, you must ask how far he is willing to go in the other?”
“You mean we need to know his next move,” Diego said. “Bastard’s been one step ahead this whole time.”
Pogo nodded along in agreement. “My research will never get you ahead of him. I can only hope to bring you to even ground,” he said. “It is up to you to figure out his mindset well enough to guess his next step before he makes it.”
Diego snorted. “Is that all?”
“It is a tall order, I grant you that,” Pogo said. He ducked his head a little to the side. “Fortunately, I do think you have an advantage.”
Raising his eyebrows, Diego huffed. “Yeah? What’s that?”
“He is working in the absence of family,” Pogo pointed. “You are surrounded by yours.”
With that, Diego had to concede that Pogo had a point.
A really, really good point.
-o-
It was tempting, naturally, to get right to work. That was what Diego would have done before.
He wasn’t doing this alone, however.
No, he needed to make time to breathe.
Instead of retiring to his own bed, he crept back up to the infirmary, where the rest of his siblings were still asleep. He stood there, watching them breathe for a moment. It was funny to watch, the way their chests rose and fell. Something so easy to take for granted; something that meant everything.
How close had Diego come today? How close had they all come?
His own breath staggered just thinking about it.
Everyone needed to breathe. Even Diego.
This job was harder than he anticipated -- and it had almost cost him his family. That said, his family was why he was going to finish it. No matter what.
He sighed, dragging a chair from against the wall. He sat down in it heavily, and tried not to think about crazy people. He wondered if this was how Luke Skywalker felt, one hand gone, screaming in agony because his father was the bad guy. That shit made you crazy.
And then it had to make you better.
Settling back, Diego focused on his own breathing. As he matched it to his sibling’s, he felt his heart rate start to even out. Out there, somewhere, his biological brother was plotting his revenge.
Here, in this room, Diego was with the only family that mattered.
Blood was thicker than water.
But choice was stronger than obligation.
Justice would be revenge.
Diego closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep.
-o-
The next day, Diego was open to taking things slow. He wanted Luther and Five to recuperate. He wanted to let Klaus sufficiently detox so Ben could coalesce. He figured time would help Allison and Vanya emotionally calibrate. Slow and steady would win the race.
His face, as it turned out, disagreed.
Proactively.
Luther wanted to train. Allison wanted to contact the police for additional information about the scene. Klaus wanted further background checks on the lot of them, and Five was keen to start running calculations about the timing of the next incident. Ben wanted to build out a better psychological profile, and Vanya wanted to hone her skills to make her more useful in specific contexts.
All that shit was shit Diego loved.
“But not today,” he said with an air of finality. His siblings were dressed, fed and assembled, but they still looked worse for the events of yesterday. Diego knew that their mother had cleared them for normal activity, but he was pretty sure normal activity wasn’t technically supposed to involve physical combat or psychological stressors.
And even if it was, he wasn’t down with that. All that time he spent restless, looking for a way out?
Now all he wanted was to lie low.
Forever, preferable.
That wasn’t the reality, however.
“Beside,” he said. “I have other commitments today.”
His siblings didn’t like that answer.
Consequently, Diego didn’t like it either.
It was, however, the only answer he could give.
-o-
Even after Diego explained his reasons, none of his siblings liked the idea of him going into the police station. Luther wanted to go in his place. Allison insisted it should be her. Klaus said maybe they should all go, and Five ventured that perhaps their father’s mentality had been correct and that they should give a simple press conference in full uniform to satisfy the masses. Ben was certain that they were best served at home, and Vanya was confused as to why the police needed to talk to them at all.
Diego knew that he could string Beaman along, not after everything the detective had done for him -- for all of them. Moreover, it had to be him. Too many voices would cloud the message, and the last thing he wanted was to make the Umbrella Academy more of a target than it already was. He had been at point on this one; he was the one whose long lost family was on a murderous rampage; he had made the promise to Beaman.
This wasn’t Diego running away.
This time, Diego was stepping up.
“Be careful,” Luther coached him in genuine concern. “If you need anything--”
“Dude, we’re not the bad guys,” he said. “Beaman is my friend, and we’ve helped the cops.”
“Still, they’ll be looking for inconsistencies,” Allison warned. “They will want to see a lie.”
“I’m not going in as a suspect,” Diego reasoned.
Klaus chortled. “Everyone’s a suspect, always,” he said. “There is no way to innocently go into a police station unless you are a jelly doughnut.”
Diego made a face.
Five shook his head and intervened. “The point stands,” he said. “If the cops don’t have any suspects in custody after yesterday, they’ll be keen to make an arrest -- any arrest -- to appease the public. They won’t care about the details.”
“That’s not how this is,” Diego said. “I mean, I appreciate the concern and all--”
“Plus, that madman is still out there,” Ben said. “We don’t know when he’ll strike.”
Diego sobered somewhat, suppressing a shudder. The thought of a repeat incident was ever present in his mind. The idea that it could be soon was a reality he couldn’t escape. But he wasn’t ready -- none of them were ready. Yesterday had been too jarring. Diego’s only hope was that it had been jarring for Guillermo as well.
“He wanted me to choose him,” he said. “I think he thought I would. He’ll still be reeling. He needs to rebuild just like we do.”
“Still,” Vanya said. “You have to promise us you’ll call if you need anything. I think Pogo probably has legal credentials if need be.”
The thought of it made Diego grin. As unsettling as it was to picture his siblings attacked while he was out, the thought of a monkey showing up as his legal representation was amusing. Beaman thought he knew Diego’s weirdest shit, but the dude had no idea.
“Things are going to be fine,” he said.
“And how can you be so sure?” Luther asked.
“I can’t be,” he said. “But that’s called hope, right? That’s a thing we do now? Hope?”
Allison smiled. Klaus blinked wide, credulous eyes. Five’s discerning brow relaxed slightly and Ben beamed effervescently. Vanya nodded along. “Yeah,” she agreed. “I think it is.”
-o-
It was nice having his siblings on board with his plan.
That was about the only thing nice about the plan.
Actually going down to the station to submit himself to any and all interrogation?
Yeah, that sucked as much as you might have guessed.
Still, Diego was a guy who said what he meant. That had always mattered, but it seemed to matter more now. Or maybe the stakes were just high enough to make the sacrifice meaningful. Whatever the case, Beaman met him at the front door and offered him both an apology and a thank-you.
“Thank God you’re here,” Beaman breathed, taking him by the arm and leading him past the waiting room and front desk. It was busier than Diego remembered; overflowing, in fact. The desk staff looked nearly overwhelmed. “I was worried you wouldn’t come, so thank you for keeping your word.”
“You know I’m good for what I say,” Diego said, watching as a handcuffed woman yelled profanities at a uniformed officer. “The place seems busy today.
“You think?” Beaman asked crisply. He shook his head, skirting another skirmish as he made his way back into the desk area. “It’s all gone to pot, man. All of it. I swear, every low life in the area has come out of the woodwork after these attacks. It’s all we can do to keep control.”
This wasn’t the first time Beaman had made such stark claims, and Diego had always believed him. Seeing it first hand, however, drew a much darker picture. Guilt churned in his stomach -- for not doing more. For not being more. “Shit,” he said. “I didn’t realize.”
“I know,” Beaman said. “Which is why I’m going to apologize now.”
They drew to a stop by his desk, and Diego couldn’t help but look at Patch’s old seat. It was cleared of her personal items. A new nameplate was positioned askew on the edge, and someone else’s family was smiling in the frames on the desk. “Apologize?” he said, trying to bring his attention back to Beaman. “For what?”
“Everyone wants answers. We’re under a ton of pressure,” he said. “Now, I’ve convinced my superiors not to process you as a suspect, but you are the key witness. And they will be looking for anything in your story. So, be careful, man.”
“I thought the key was to be honest,” Diego said.
“Be both, if possible,” Beaman recommended.
Diego made a face, somewhat vexed. “Is it actually that bad?”
Beaman grimaced. “Honestly?” he said. “I think it’s worse.”
-o-
Beaman was right. It was worse.
Diego was asked to tell his story three distinct times to three different detectives. Then, he was asked to retell the story to the precinct captain before being subjected to three rounds of questioning, which were conducted two three pairs of detectives at overlapping intervals. It was an interrogation in everything but name, and the only thing that kept it that was was Diego’s ongoing cooperation.
It wasn’t easy to keep his temper in check -- the circular questioning, designed to draw out untruths was starting to piss him off -- but he knew this wasn’t about him. These detectives didn’t seem to know that yet, but his cooperation was the only thing that was ever going to convince them.
Besides, he did have good intel, and he was forthcoming about a lot of it. He was doing all this to protect his family, but Guillermo wasn’t his family. So Diego had no qualms identifying the bastard by name and providing credible evidence about his connections to Mexican cartels for the cops to follow up with. Normally, he preferred doing shit alone, but trust had to be a two-way street. That was how it had been with Patch; that was how it was with Beaman.
The rest of the force would benefit from that trust.
And if it brought the bastard down faster? Then, Diego was all for it.
Sure, Diego was a proud guy, but there wasn’t any room for pride anymore. Not with this. Maybe not with anything.
Diego was ready to be a team player.
He was ready to take one for the team.
He was ready to sit still and take a deep, deep breath.
And wait for whatever the hell happened next.
-o-
It was night by the time Diego was finally allowed to leave. This probably had more to due with the fact that cops were exhausted, but he was grateful all the same. In an effort to be more mature and responsible, he thanked the detectives for their time and told them to call if they needed anything. He wasn’t entirely confident that he would be so obliging if they did call, but it certainly made a nice end to a shitty day -- from their perspective, anyway.
Any doubt Diego might have had about whether or not he had done the right thing giving up a day of investigation with his family was resolved when Beaman walked him back to the front door. There, the detective hesitated, drew a breath and shook his head. “The story you told us is incredible.”
“What? You doubt me, too?” Diego quipped.
“No, no,” Beaman said. “I know better than that by now.”
“So?” Diego said. “What’s the surprise for?”
“Just that you told it. You came here. You played by the rules,” Beaman said, sounding vaguely in disbelief.
Diego swallowed hard. He could remember the last time he was with Patch in this station. “Yeah, well,” he said. “I guess I finally figured out that playtime is over.”
Beaman smiled sadly. “You have to be careful, Diego.”
“Dude, careful’s not really the name of the game,” Diego reminded him.
“I know, I do,” Beaman said. “But I know there are still parts you’re not telling me, and you have to know there are parts the cops aren’t telling you.”
Diego frowned, not doubtful but uncertain.
Beaman leaned forward, lowering his voice. “It’s not just the locals that are getting out of hand,” he said. “We’ve gotten countless hits on international criminals. Hitmen, hired guns -- that sort of thing. We’ve picked up three today, got leads on half a dozen others. I mean, maybe it’s a coincidence or something--”
Diego swallowed, grave. “Not likely,” he said.
“It’s like they’re sharks, sensing blood in the water,” Beaman said, shaking his head. “Suddenly, the whole city has a target on its back.”
That sounded dire enough. The fact that the target was painted on Diego and the city -- along with his family -- was nothing but collateral damage only made it worse. “Make sure you question them for connections to anything that’s going on,” he suggested. “There’s no way to know. Maybe they’ve been hired for a reason.”
A shadow darkened Beaman’s expression. “And somehow you made me feel worse about the situation.”
Diego chuckled without humor. “Did you miss the part where a crazed madman willingly murdered dozens of people just to draw out the Umbrella Academy?”
“Unfortunately, no,” Beaman returned. “And I know it’s naive but I can’t help but hope that the worst has passed. Maybe this psycho will take no for an answer and just move on.”
The hope was naive, but that only made it harder to hear. Then again, maybe hope was good. Maybe it was the best thing, knowing that hope persisted in the world, even after so much loss and heartache. Patch would have had it, that was for sure.
Diego wasn’t sure if he did.
For his sake -- not to mention the city’s and his family’s -- he was going to have to try.
Finally, he offered his hand to Beaman. “You know how to reach me if something new comes up.”
Beaman took the outstretched hand and shook it. “Same goes for you, brother.”
Diego smiled wryly.
All the information he’d gleaned today, and he thought that last comment might yield the most interesting tidbit of all.
Families of choice, as it were.
The hardest thing.
Damn it, the best thing.
-o-
He stopped for a bite to eat on his way back. This was a necessity; he was hungry. If it gave him a little time to think on his own, then that was a happy coincidence.
As for the question of whether or not Diego believed in coincidences?
Well, the evidence spoke for itself.
-o-
Needless to say, it was late when he got back.
Late, late.
He suspected his siblings would be asleep. He had hoped so at any rate.
His siblings, though, weren’t for doing what was expected.
They also weren’t big on doing things easy.
So Diego wasn’t surprised to find a few lights on. He crept through the entryway, getting sidetracked to the living room. There, he found all the lamps on, casting eerie shadows with the stuffed animal heads still hung on the walls. He would have guessed it was Five burning the midnight oil or Klaus scuttling restlessly about. Even Allison, timing a west coast call to Claire or Vanya reading a book.
Instead, it was Luther.
Predictable, by the book Luther. Doing something unexpected and against the protocol they had all agreed upon. Sleep, they had agreed, was imperative to success. Not to mention the act that Luther was still under strict orders from Mom to recover.
Yet, there he was.
He looked downright relieved to see Diego. Getting to his feet, it seemed to take some restraint for Luther not to cross over to him. He got the sneaking suspicion that his oaf brother wanted to hug him.
“I was starting to get worried,” Luther said, words all in a rush. His cheeks flushed. “I told the others it was fine, they should sleep, but I was about to head over there myself.”
Diego threw off his jacket, slumping tiredly into a chair. “That would have been unnecessary.”
“To make sure you’re okay, I don’t think so,” Luther said.
Diego gave him a half lidded look. “We would still be there if you showed up,” he said. “They would have wanted both our statements to compare against each other. You would have gotten us arrested for all your good intentions, big guy.”
Luther’s response was a little put off. “But we didn’t do anything.”
Diego lifted his brows. “That’s cute that you still think that matters.”
Luther huffed somewhat, sitting back down to face Diego. “I’m not going to say that caring about you is stupid,” he said. “Even if sometimes you make me feel like it is.”
Diego waved his hand through the air. “Okay, okay,” he relented. “I get the sentiment, I do. But it was fine. Nothing out of the ordinary happened. I shared our intel in the name of goodwill. It earned us some credibility, at least for the time being. They can’t suspect anything more until they start following up, and that’s going to take some time.”
Luther frowned, now seeming mildly disconcerted. “Did you tell them he’s your brother?”
“I was forthcoming, not stupid,” Diego said. “Maybe they piece it together on their own; I don’t know. But that’s easy enough to feign ignorance.”
“You think they’ll buy that?” Luther asked.
Diego arched his eyebrows in return. “We’re a family of adopted superheroes. If they can buy into the fact that we’re the good guys, then I think they’ll buy that much.”
Luther considered that. “I don’t really like lying.”
Diego snorted. “You mean since Dad sent you to the moon and told you it meant something when it didn’t?”
Paling, Luther flattened his lips. The tension, once familiar, return between them, and Diego felt chagrined. It was a comment to be expected from him, and Diego started to realize that he hated that a little.
Or maybe a lot.
Sure, that was how they had used to be. Family had been all about snide comments and snarky responses. Shit, they’d made it their business to be assholes to each other.
But that wasn’t how Diego wanted it anymore.
Things hadn’t been perfect the last stretch, but it had been better. They had been better. He had been better.
Besides, Diego had come face to face with what a messed up family really meant. Guillermo made the issues of the Umbrella Academy seem minor.
“I didn’t mean that,” he said quickly. He sighed as he reoriented himself and checked his emotions. “I’m sorry.”
“No, you’re right,” Luther said. “I don’t like secrets. That’s why I stayed up to give you this as soon as you got back.”
Luther held out a stack of papers, tidily organized with Luther’s meticulous scrawl across the top. Frowning, Diego looked it over, skimming it to understand.
Across from him, Luther shrugged. “I know you said to lay low today, but I couldn’t stand being idle,” he said. “So I did a little research about your family. Your birth family. Biological family. Whatever.”
Diego looked up at his brother, a little awed and a little confused. “You did this? For me?”
“Well, it’s not like it’s not important for finishing this job,” Luther reasoned. “If your family is coming out of the woodworks, then we should have a full profile. It’s just smart tactical planning.”
Diego continued to stare at him, shocked.
Luther shrugged again, this time starting to blush. “Also I figured you would want to know,” he said.
Diego glanced down, shaking his head. “I don’t want to know anything about Guillermo.”
Luther pointed at the papers. “But it’s not just Guillermo. There are more people in your biological family. Aunts and uncles, cousins -- and they’re not all bad people. In fact, from what I found, most of them are really good people.”
Diego looked again, closer this time. There were a few pictures, smiling families, a little girl with pigtails, a grandfather with white hair surrounded by generations of children. A woman in business suit. A young man with a graduation cap, holding a diploma.
“A lot of them are still back in Mexico,” Luther explained. “Your aunt became a local politician, and she has worked hard to thwart the cartels. You have a cousin who just got into medical school. Your grandfather is a minister. He runs a soup kitchen that feeds thousands.”
The information was vexing somehow. It was an easy separation, to resent and hate them. For all the terrible things Guillermo had brought to Diego’s life, his existence had validated the long held perception that his family wasn’t worth shit. This information that there was more to the story, more to the family, more to him -- well, it was hard to process.
Diego was all or nothing, so these damn shades of gray were about to drive him crazy.
“We could contact them,” Luther suggested.
“For information on Guillermo?” Diego asked.
Luther blinked, a little surprised. “Well, yes,” he said. “And also just so you can get to know them. I mean, it’s your family, Diego.”
Diego lowered the papers. “I have a family,” he said, holding them back out to Luther. “These people in Mexico, they’re strangers. Sources of information, maybe. But strangers.”
Luther took them back. “So, you don’t want to call them?”
“I’m not looking to chitchat,” Diego said. “There’s a madman out there looking to kill innocent people in order to get to me. Protecting my actual family is the only priority.”
This made Luther look down at the sheet again, somewhat thoughtful. “You want me to follow up then?”
“Sure,” Diego said. “Like I said, they could provide some intel on what Guillermo is up to. Who he may be working with. What targets he might pick. You could talk to Ben and Five, work on building up the personality profile.”
“Yeah, if that’s what you want,” Luther said. He swallowed, and then he hesitated. “That’s really what you want?”
“I’m not sure any of this is what I want,” Diego said with a wry lilt in his voice. “But it seems like there’s not a lot of other choices.”
“There are choices, Diego,” Luther returned steadily.
Diego glanced at the papers, still clutched in Luther’s hand. Then, he met his brother’s gaze again. “Yeah, that’s the point,” he said. He reached out, clapping his brother on the arm. “Now let’s get some sleep. We’ve got to hit this job early tomorrow. No more time to waste.”
Luther tucked the papers away and nodded in agreement. “You got it,” he said. “We’ll hit it, bright and early.”
It was a resounding agreement. Not of a Number One and a Number Two. But equals.
Brothers.
A concept Diego used to define by absence.
Now he understood by choice.
-o-
Sleep was still a novel concept, but Diego did what he could. Honestly, he was beat. In the past, he had incurred far more serious physical damage. In comparison, this job had hardly had any personal damage. Yet, the emotional toll was impossible to ignore. In fact, he felt more exhausted than ever.
Some of that was the tedious nature of playing by the rules at the police station. Some of that was the stress of seeing his siblings in danger. Some of it was even the shock of what his biological brother was capable of doing.
And really, if he was going to be honest with himself, some of it was playing Number One. He has never thought about that. He hadn’t needed to. As Number Two, he had always been left wanting. He had always been so preoccupied with the fact that he couldn’t do the job that he had never thought about whether he wanted to. Plus, he had never wanted to give Luther the benefit of anything. It was easier to pretend Luther was incompetent or overly dramatic. He had never allowed his brother the notion that this job was hard.
It was hard. Not the planning or the work in the field. But the weight of responsibility. That shit was encompassing, it sucked every ounce of energy he had and still demanded more. He had once told Klaus that revenge would let him sleep like a baby. He had been wrong. It wasn’t revenge. Closure didn’t mean shit.
No, sleeping like a baby came from actual exhaustion.
In short, that night, Diego had never slept more soundly.