Umbrella Academy fic: Thicker Than Blood (11/13)

[faye_dartmouth]

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



All the same, Diego was still up early.

There was still a crazy man out there with Diego’s blood running through his veins, claiming to be Diego’s brother, now set on revenge of an unspecified nature. So, yeah, Diego was tired, but he was also not a complete idiot. This guy had been one step ahead of Diego this entire time -- and that was being generous. This guy had probably been 15 steps ahead of him, but Diego had no way to know because he wasn’t even sure what rules they were playing by.

So it wasn’t like he had the luxury of sleeping in. Rest, in general, was going to be imperative, but only in the right quantities. Diego had already left his siblings vulnerable multiple times now; he could afford to let it happen again. Not if he wanted everyone to actually come out alive.

Well, everyone but his maniacal biological brother.

The devil really was in the details sometimes.

Damn it, this was why Diego had always hated the details.

Still, he was primed and ready. His siblings would need a day or two to recover -- that was fine and good and to be expected. In fact, Diego preferred it. It had been bad enough after Five had drowned. Now, they had all been in peril. Suddenly, the idea of putting the Umbrella Academy in the field at all wasn’t very appealing to him.

So, for the time being, he was cool with playing this game solo. For once, that wasn’t about being restless. To the contrary. This time, it was about the fact that he couldn’t stand the thought of dragging them into something without knowing exactly how it was going to go down.

That was the problem, of course.

How the hell was he going to get caught up with Guillermo? Much less one step ahead?

Such was his thought process during his quiet breakfast in the kitchen. He ate quick and practical, scrambling a few eggs, microwaving some ready-made sausage and downing a full glass of orange juice before all but stuffing two pieces of toast in his mouth. It felt heavy to eat, but he had calculated the caloric intake to suit his needs, so he knew it was right.

He couldn’t base shit on how he felt.

Especially not now.

He had intended to spend breakfast planning. Instead, he stared blankly at the notes Pogo had collected over the last few months, pencil sitting idly in his hands as he contemplated what to do.

He contemplated a lot.

And came to absolutely zero conclusions.

Feeling vaguely ill -- the heavy breakfast or his own lack of ideas -- he retreated mindlessly toward the living room. He was so preoccupied with how he had no idea where to start that he almost didn’t see Allison.

“Hey,” he said, surprised. “Thought everyone was still asleep.”

She shrugged. “I think everyone else is,” she said. “Luther went to bed so late, and I think Five’s still exhausted himself from trying to use his powers in the box. I think Mom may have given something to Klaus to help him sleep.”

“Drugs to get him off the drugs?” Diego asked, sounding somewhat skeptical.

She smiled faintly. “Just something to help him calm down,” she said. “You know he doesn’t make the best decisions when he’s restless.”

Diego’s lips twisted wryly. “Family trait, then.”

Her smile widened. “Vanya has never been great at emotional overloads, so I imagine she’s still sleeping. And I’m not sure Klaus is strong enough to keep Ben around when he’s not conscious. I haven’t seen him all morning.”

“Probably,” he said. “You should be resting, too.”

It was Allison’s turn to smile wryly. “As opposed to you?”

Diego didn’t blush because that would be stupid. But still. He lifted on shoulder, self-effacing. “Yeah, well, it’s my asshole brother out there trying to kill people. I don’t think I can sleep, even if I thought I should.”

Allison sighed a little, her smile falling. “It’s not your fault,” she said. “And your only brothers -- your only real brothers -- are passed out upstairs. Don’t forget that.”

“I haven’t,” Diego said, protesting slightly. “But that doesn’t mean that this isn’t my responsibility.”

“It’s ours,” she said. “Which is why I’ve been up early doing this.”

She held out a notebook, her sloppy cursive covering the pages. Diego studied it, trying to make sense of it. “What is it?”

“Possible targets,” she said. “I can’t really take credit. The equations were from Five.”

“When did he do that?” Diego asked, flipping to the next page.

“Yesterday, when you were busy,” she explained. “Ben added a few suggestions from the psychological profile.”

Diego flipped back to the front. “So what did you add?”

She seemed a little pleased with herself. Her father had called Allison vain, but Diego understood. It felt good to be appreciated. To be valued. To know your own worth. “I looked through the list of targets they had identified -- 155 based on Five’s calculations, which Ben narrowed down to 54.”

Diego whistled, long and slow. “That’s a lot of places for us to scout.”

“I know,” Allison said, nodding in agreement. “That’s why I thought we should narrow it down.”

Diego glanced over the notes again with more clarity now. “What criteria did you use?”

“No criteria,” she said, and she paused to look momentarily but fleetingly sheepish. “I never went into the math. Dad always got on me about it, but with Five around, there’s not really any point. All I had to do was look at the options and think about what I would do.”

Diego made a face before he could temper himself. “You?”

His skepticism was more plain than he’d hoped. Her look in return was nonplussed. She had never been a shrinking violet, but it was easy to see sometimes how their father had taken her self confidence for vanity. The distinction was only made harder due to Allison’s utterly unapologetic approach. “Yes, me,” she said. “Me, if I were a psycho killer bent on revenge against the long sought birth brother who rejected me.”

This time, Diego didn’t try to hide his cynical tip of the head.

Allison actually rolled her eyes, as if put off. “I am an actress, if you recall,” she said. “It’s called getting in character. It’s not exactly a novelty.”

That much Diego had to concede. “Dad hated acting.”

At this, she smirked. “So why do you think I did it? We’re not all that different, you and me.”

“Oh, we’re different,” Diego said. “I don’t much like actors either.”

“Since you know so many,” Allison ventured.

“And what about present company?”

She scoffed. “And here I thought we were bonding.”

“Sometimes I think we are, too, but you got to be fair,” he said. “Acting is a professional form of lying.”

“Oh, please,” she said. “Lying is something much more visceral. It’s not a temporary adaptation of your mindset. It’s a complete compromise of your mindset. When I’m acting, I never get confused about who I really am. When I’m lying, that’s when I feel myself slipping. That’s what’s helping me now.”

She pointed back to the paperwork in Diego’s hands. “I’ve told a lot of lies in my time, and none of them have been on screen,” she said. “So I know how to see the truth. Dishonest people, people like Guillermo, they believe their own lies wholeheartedly.”

“But he’s not lying,” Diego said. “All the evidence suggests he’s my actual brother.”

“Sure,” she said. “But one truth doesn’t make the rest real. I mean, do you really think he did all this, set everything up, expecting you to choose him? Do you think he had an elaborate escape plan with diversions in place if he actually thought you’d go along with his crazy plan? Guillermo didn’t go to that clinic to finally make you an offer of brotherhood. He came to that clinic to lay down the gauntlet. He wanted to be your enemy, and he probably has wanted that since he was five years old and your mother sold you along with the rest of our mothers.”

Well, shit. Allison looked prettier than the rest of them, but she knew how to go for the jugular when it mattered. She was right; they were more alike than a lot of the rest.

That made things easier sometimes.

Also a lot harder.

“Okay,” he said slowly, unable to dispute any of her points. “So how do you think that plays out in the real world?”

She seemed pleased that he asked. She tapped her finger on the papers. “My notes are in there,” she said. “But I think it’s pretty much a given that he’s too far into this. There’s no way for him to back out now; there’s no easy exit. So he can’t have second thoughts. There’s no doubt in my mind, he’s going to aim at another soft target. Softer probably, if he can.”

“The dude literally just hit a clinic,” Diego said.

“And let everyone go,” she said. “I doubt he’ll do that again. He’s going to want something dramatic.”

Diego skimmed over her notes again, shaking his head. “Are you sure, though?”

“No, of course not,” she said. “How could any of us be sure about anything.”

He arched his brows critically. “That’s not exactly reassuring.”

“Diego,” she said. “I know maybe the fact that I’m a trained liar makes me seem less credible, but all those years of experience help me now. I can see the difference when people are lying. I know what it looks like when I’ve rumored someone. It’s not that different when they’re lying to themselves. Guillermo is going for ominous and mysterious, but I recognize a lot of him.”

“Oh, gee, thanks,” Diego muttered.

“In me,” she said. She scoffed again, this time smiling sardonically. “And I mean, fine, if you don’t trust me, I guess that’s your prerogative.”

“Allison--”

She held up her hands, shrugging her shoulders. “But I’d hate to see you starting lying to yourself again,” she said. “You did finally break the habit when we restarted the Umbrella Academy.”

“Hey,” he objected.

She slid past him, smirking a little now. “Just telling the truth, brother,” she said, her voice silky as she waltzed out of the room. “Just telling the truth.”

-o-

Sitting down with the papers, Diego read them once and then twice before finally agreeing with Allison’s assessment. Of course, even then, there were still a half dozen targets and all of them were still entirely hypothetical. Not to mention the fact that he had no established timeline.

He tried not to let this bother him.

No, he didn’t try that.

He tried not to let the others see that it bothered him.

Scratch that; that wasn’t it.

He tried to not let the others see how much it bothered him.

Tried.

And mostly failed.

This was not entirely his fault. Diego had been content to give the others another day off. He wasn’t sure what the timeline of recovery should be, and really, that didn’t matter. The physical effects could be overcome, but Diego was anxious about their emotional well being. Or maybe he was just worried about his own emotional well being, but in any case, he discouraged their activity at every turn.

To no avail.

Luther still ran security sweeps, adjusting a few cameras and starting a manned patrol, cycling each member of the academy through scheduled shifts to be safe. Allison, after her early morning brainstorming session, spent some time talking to a few police contacts to let them know what was going on from their end while subtly discerning clues about any leads the police had started pursuing.

Mom still chased Five around, making him drink orange juice and reminding him to rest. Five endured this with as much grace as could be expected, which was to say, none at all. He scowled, sulked and swore before finally accepting a stack of notebooks and pens to continue his calculations from a cozy position on the couch. Diego asked him once what he was calculating, but Five had gone on about statistical probabilities involving crime rates, hired guns and the time of year. None of it made any sense to Diego, so he smiled, nodded and told Five good work.

As for Vanya, she was still shaky, but when Diego suggested she take it easy and play the violin or something, she all but laughed at him. In fact, it was Vanya who insisted on a training session, which Diego had no choice but to obliged, before his sister spent the rest of the day in the contained vault honing her skills. The irony of Vanya’s ability to go in that room -- a place that had caused her so much anxiety once -- was pretty plain. If Vanya could pull off that shit, then Diego could do what he had to do, too.

Now, if he only knew what that was, things would be much better.

The only sibling who seemed to take Diego up on his suggestion to rest was Klaus, but Klaus was prone to listening to any suggestion to be lazy. It wasn’t that Klaus was inherently lazy, it was just that Klaus didn’t prefer to work if he didn’t have to, and, as he pointed out, he was still a recovering addict with traces of drugs in his system and did anyone understand how hard that was?

Ben rolled his eyes. He was visible again, but lacked the range.

“Just keep us updated,” Ben said. He sighed, kicking back in his chair, the way only a ghost could. “We’ll be here.”

That was the comfort, then.

That was also the curse.

Because Diego needed his family, but having them close meant they were still at risk. Diego didn’t know how to rectify it.

He would just add it to the growing list of other shit he didn’t know either.

-o-

Diego didn’t know what he was doing, but he sure as hell didn’t stop. His siblings provided him intel, but he actively sought out some of his own. He pursued errant connections, making a list of potential contractors working for his brother. He contacted several old associates, some who had been double crossed during his brother’s rise to power, and gleaned some more information about his motivations and capabilities. The names and addresses Luther had provided of other extended family numbers were another potential source -- another potential important source -- but Diego couldn’t bring himself to go there.

He had enough family shit to deal with.

Good, bad or the other -- he couldn’t possibly take any more.

Not until Guillermo was under control, anyway.

And maybe not even then.

-o-

Several days passed. Then, a week. Mom ran out of reasons to keep checking Five and Luther, though she still seemed to hover. She concluded that there was no measurable effects from Klaus’ drug exposure, but warned, based on psychological studies on addicts, that he was still prone to a relapse. She recommended, as per all major guidelines, that he be provided with constant supervision and unconditional support.

In short, she wanted them to babysit Klaus.

Nicely.

At first, Klaus seemed to take to this well. He liked not having to do training with Vanya. He seemed to enjoy having Luther run around and plump his pillow. He had Allison cooking food, and whenever Five’s long rants about unintelligible math got to be too much, all Klaus had to say was he felt sickly. Five looked annoyed, but closed his mouth, sat down and shut up.

Every time.

“That’s what families can do,” Ben mused to Diego.

It was funny how utterly reassuring and terrifying that was.

Still, after two weeks, the strain was becoming visible with Klaus. The others were holding up rather well, considering that they were facing a relatively unknown enemy who had repeatedly bested them. Klaus, on the other hand, was starting to handle things less well. His motivation had continued to decrease. He no longer seemed to take joy from skirting his duties. In fact, instead of getting better, he seemed to get worse.

Diego had enough crap to deal with.

After two weeks, he sat Klaus down after breakfast while the others got to work and laid it out.

“You can’t keep doing this,” he said.

Klaus wrinkled his brows together, affecting concern. “Do what? I’m not doing anything.”

“Exactly,” Diego said. “You’ve been avoiding doing anything for two weeks now.”

“Uh, recovering,” Klaus said. He rolled his eyes, as if this entire conversation was tedious and unnecessary to him. “I’m still in a precarious state.”

Diego didn’t buy it this time, Mom’s warnings aside. “We’re all in a precarious state, asshole.”

“Oh, sure, so Luther getting lightheaded is the same thing as me being dosed,” Klaus said. He laughed, a little bitter. “I think he’s always been a little lightheaded, for the record!”

“And you’ve been an addict since you were 13,” Diego shot back. “You know you want to be clean, so what’s the problem.”

“The problem?” Klaus said. “The problem is, do I know that? Do I really?”

“Yes,” Diego said, plain and matter of fact. “Because you’ve been sitting here for two weeks. And I know you want to go. I can see it in you.”

Klaus’ mouth worked, and he pursed his lips, shaking his head. “You don’t know. You don’t know what it’s like to feel your skin crawl. To want something so bad and not be able to get it. It’s like something burning inside you. Something clawing, trying to get out. You couldn’t know.”

“Of course I do!” Diego said. “I felt that way for weeks, months. Why do you think I started working jobs on my own in the first place? Because the restlessness was killing me.”

“Uh, yeah, not the same thing,” Klaus said.

“How?” Diego asked. “I mean, you called Five out on it. Addiction is addiction. Five has his stupid equations. Luther has the moon. Allison has her lies. We’re all recovering addicts. All of us. Sure, yours habit is a little harder to break, maybe, but if you really were going to do it, you would have done it by now. You would have been out that door on day one.”

Klaus contemplated that, as only Klaus could. The notion seemed to vex him at first. Then, it amused it him. Finally, he shook his head in amazement. “Huh,” he said. “I never would have predicted, back when all this began when Dad died, that this would be the way things are. That this would be the new normal, as it were. Our new par for the same old course.”

The excessive use of metaphor was too much. Diego wrinkled his nose. “What?”

“Staying,” Klaus said with exaggerated inflection.

Just because Klaus said it like it was self evident didn’t mean it was. “What are you talking about?”

This time, Klaus let out a long suffering sigh. “Staying is our thing now,” he said. “We spent all those years running away, and now, here we are, defying the odds to stay. That’s the new normal. That’s the par for the course: staying even when going seems so much easier.”

Diego frowned as he considered that.

Like, actually considered that.

He could still remember challenging Luther, right after Dad’s death, to think about why he’d stayed when the normal thing was to go. The question was still valid -- more valid, maybe. But this was no longer about clinging to the past. It was about building a future.

“Yeah,” he said after a moment when he was unable to come up with anything to the contrary. That was still mildly disconcerting to him. This whole agreeing thing went against his nature. “I guess so.”

Klaus looked utterly delighted. That was a little sweet, all those brotherly feels. “All these years, and look at us. Look at you!” he crooned. “Finally agreeing with Luther.”

Screw the brotherly feels. Diego scowled again. “Shut up, asshole.”

Klaus put a hand to his chest, feigning like he had the vapors or some shit from a Victorian novel. Not that Diego had actually read a Victorian novel, but Patch had liked period movies. And damn it if he didn’t love a good corset.

It only worked with attractive women, though.

Scrawny men, not so much.

Especially not when they were his smart ass brother.

“But why, pray tell?” Klaus intoned. “When we’ve been getting along so well?”

Diego shook his head, exhaling heavily. “Because we’ve sat around, running our mouths long enough,” he said. “Just because we’re all staying doesn’t mean that we’re not staying busy. You’ve been out of the game long enough. You need to get caught up with the rest of us.”

The words were the ones you might expect from Diego. The ones he would have spoken without remorse a few months ago, before his stupid biological brother ever showed up.

They were harder to speak now. He understood the risk now. He understood what he had to lose. More importantly, he understood how much he didn’t want to lose that. He was a man of action who finally understood the consequences of those actions, and this wasn’t about catering to his own needs.

This was about doing what was right.

For the family.

For everyone.

Recovery time was over.

It had to be over.

What came next still scared the shit out of him, but damn it, it was up to him to lead his siblings through it. His job. His family. His.

Klaus held his hands up, relenting. “Okay, okay,” he said. He got to his feet with a groan. “Where you lead, I will follow. For now, anyway.”

Diego didn’t indulge the tight smile that tried to pull at his lips. Instead, he punched Klaus in the shoulder. “That’s my boy.”

“No,” he said. “That your brother. And you better not forget that the next time that biological freak of yours shows up and tries to off us all. Capice?”

This time, Diego did grin. He tousled Klaus hair, leading him toward the door. “Capice.”

-o-

What was funny about all of that was, for all of Klaus’ reluctance, he trained harder and made more progress than the rest of them combined. While drugs certainly inhibited Klaus’ powers -- that had been the whole point, initially -- it was pretty clear that Klaus also liked the notion of addiction as an emotional crutch. If he was an addict, he didn’t have to be held to the same level of accountability as the rest of them. It allowed him to half-ass his way through.

But Klaus was all in.

So he was all in.

Vanya’s powers were strong but difficult to control. Although she was likely the most powerful among them, her versatility in the field remained limited because of how dangerous she was. Klaus, on the other, had supreme control over his so-called lesser abilities. Talking to the dead, manifesting spirits -- that was simple shit. Within days, he was levitating and using full on telekinesis. He started by trying to hurl Five across the room with his mind. He ended up successfully levitating Luther all the way up the stairs.

Vanya could destroy the world, so that was heavy stuff. But Klaus could do the little things that mattered in a fight. He was going to be an increasingly valuable member of the team -- now that he had decidedly, wholeheartedly, to stay.

Yes, sure, there was a lesson there. Of course there were parallels.

But more than anything it made Diego glad that this asshole was his brother.

And that the psycho Guillermo most definitely was not.

-o-

Two weeks out from getting trounced at the clinic, the team was making pretty good progress. They were stronger than ever, and they were working off each other almost seamlessly. They had updated their strategy to respond specifically to Guillermo’s motivations and established tactics.

So that was going well.

Which was good.

Because nothing else was going well.

Diego didn’t know who else was involved in Guillermo’s plot. He didn’t know how much funding Guillermo had. He didn’t know where the next target would be, even after Allison had trimmed back the options. And worst of all, he didn’t know when. He didn’t know if it would be three months from now. It didn’t know if it would be three minutes from now.

He was, despite all his best efforts, still a step behind.

This was upsetting to Diego, naturally. It caused him to brood a lot, even if he tried not to. Whenever he wasn’t busy with the team, busy with research, busy, he would find himself sitting, staring at a wall, wondering what the hell he was supposed to do with family.

He couldn’t help it, sometimes. He glanced more and more often at the list Luther had compiled. He looked at the names of his aunts and uncles. He had a grandmother named Lucia Sanchez. She was born and raised in a small Mexican village, the same address she’d had all her life. He wondered if she knew anything about Guillermo.

He wondered if she knew anything about him.

And then he thought about the fact that his siblings all had families out there. Was Luther’s father a big man? Did Allison have acting in her DNA? Maybe Klaus had fought alongside one of his uncles in Vietnam. Was Five’s grandmother sitting in a Jewish synagogue, praying an afternoon prayer? Was it possible that Ben had brothers or sisters? Would Vanya like the cold weather in Russia if she lived with her mother?

And shit, if he followed the train of thought long enough, he even thought about his dad. He thought about Reginald Hargreeves. Did he have family? Was there anyone out there who had loved the bastard? Was there anyone who Reginald had loved? Did he even have a family of his own to show him what it was supposed to be? Was that why he sucked at it so completely?

That was the sort of speculation he really didn’t have time for.

Yet, every spare moment, that was where he went.

They were all questions he couldn’t answer.

That was pretty much the story of his life these days.

-o-

Fortunately, later that day, Five showed up with some good news.

Diego was in the kitchen. He had intended to eat something, but after eating a few pretzels, he’d gotten distracted and ended up sitting there, staring at a wall, feeling anxious. He tried to hide that fact by stuffing several more pretzels in his mouth in an effort to look meaningfully preoccupied, but it was a fruitless gesture.

Five didn’t care at all.

Instead, he sat across from Diego, eyes wild.

“I think I’ve got it,” he announced.

Talking around the pretzels, Diego’s voice was unfortunately muffled. “What?”

“I’ve figured it out,” Five said again, almost more adamant than before.

This time, Diego managed to swallow. He took a swig of water, wincing while he washed down the salt. “You’ve figured out where the next target is?”

“What? No,” Five said, like that was ridiculous. “I finished those equations two weeks ago, and you already have the results.”

“But it’s like a list of more than 100,” Diego reminded him.

“It’s science, not magic,” Five said, frowning at him sternly. “Not even the Commission can successfully predict the future, only the probabilities.”

Diego shook his head because he didn’t want to think about that shit at all. “So what did you figure out then? Something about the timeline? Who Guillermo is connected to?”

“No,” Five said.

“Then what!” Diego demanded. “Those are the things we need to know!”

“Those are things that are nice to know,” Five corrected him. “What we need to know are key ways to actually win a fight. It doesn’t matter when or where it is or even who it’s against. We have to have the necessary skill set with defensive measures and effective offensive tactics to stand a chance.”

That was an annoyingly good point.

Shit, perspective was really stupid sometimes. Especially when Diego didn’t have it and someone else did.

At least it wasn’t Luther.

“Okay,” Diego said, hoping he didn’t sound as utterly clueless a he truly was.

Five was clearly to enthralled by his own brilliance to notice. That was kind of a win. It was also pretty annoying.

“Do you remember back at the clinic? When Guillermo used a controlled detonation to knock us all out for an undisclosed period of time?” Five asked.

Diego wondered if that was rhetorical. Slowly, he nodded. “Yes,” he said, because of course he remembered the moment his brother had knocked him out, captured his family, and threatened to kill them unless he joined them. That was sort of hard to forget.

Five continued, even enthusiastic. “Well, I did some reading and then ran a few statistical models, and I think I’ve determined the type of device that was used,” he said. And he produced a stack of papers, neatly lined with what appeared to be a never ending equation. “It’s an EMP pulse, but a very specific one. Guillermo adjusted the frequency to control the power of the blast but to control its ultimate diameter. That’s complicated science, and I think in order to get the limited range but ideal power, he would have had to plant devices on each floor.”

“Okay,” Diego said, trying to sound like he knew where this was going.

Five grinned at him. “The good news is that the scientific components for this device would be pretty select,” he said. He pulled a few sheets of paper from the stack, presenting them to Diego. “This is a list of sources in North America. We should be able to quickly cross reference them and find out where he purchased them. If we can find that out, we can learn about his network, his buying power and possibly other orders he’s placed.”

Diego blinked a few times. That seemed too easy. “So this is more data,” he said. “You know, for research.”

“Not just that,” Five said, and he sounded increasingly pleased with himself. So, Five’s normal state. “I think I found a way to protect against it.”

This time, Diego couldn’t even muster up enough to play smart. He furrowed his brow. “What?”

“The key to Guillermo’s devices is the frequency,” he explained, tapping the paper as if the random jumble of numbers was supposed to mean something to Diego. “There are a handful of frequencies that theoretically can target the synaptic nerves. If these frequencies are effectively amplified, it would be possible to immediately disable your target -- or worse.”

“Whoa,” Diego said. “He can kill us with these?”

“He could, if he wanted,” Five confirmed. “And given your rejection in the previous altercation, there is some reason to worry that he’d move in that direction.”

Diego felt like his stomach was being hollowed out. “Dude, I thought you said this was good news.”

“It is,” Five said readily. “Because if we can determine the most likely frequencies, then we can figure out how to counter them.”

Five had this way of speaking, this way of using words that should make perfect sense but never did. It was so common that Diego sometimes was slow to pick on the times they did make sense.

A lot of sense.

“Wait,” Diego said, wondering if his deduction was too simplistic. “You think you can protect us against it?”

Five sat back, smirking with absolute self satisfaction now. “I have a few ideas.”

Normally, Diego wanted to dropkick the runt when he acted like a prick.

This time -- and maybe only this time -- he probably could have hugged him.

He might have, too, if he didn’t think Five would try to kill him in return.

“Can you show me?” Diego asked.

Five’s smile widened even further. “I thought you’d never ask.”

-o-

Five had ideas.

It was up to the team to turn those ideas into workable implements. They had to design, create and eventually test these defenses. This was a significant task -- with a short timeline. Within two days, they had started testing.

This testing mostly involved Diego getting knocked the hell out.

Luther took a few turns, and Allison rolled her eyes at them and insisted on her turn. Klaus demured, and Five was a poor candidate since he was the only one who knew what the hell was going on. They decided collectively that causing Vanya any potential loss of control as a no-go, which meant that Diego ended up taking more than his share of turns.

It sucked. A lot.

The thing was, though, it also worked.

By the end of the day, Diego was successfully able to deflect every EMP blast. So was Luther and Allison. After a little coaxing, even Klaus could pull it off.

It wasn’t a guarantee of victory, but it was a step in the right direction.

One step at a time.

At this point, that was all Diego was going for.

-o-

Of course, that was the only lead that needed to be investigated. He couldn’t ignore the intelligence data Five had produced. By recruiting Allison and Klaus to make a few calls for him, he was quickly able to determine Guillermo’s source. With a little leverage (which may or may not have been entirely legal), Diego was able to exploit that source. He soon had names of contacts, detailed purchase orders and delivery dates.

In short, Diego knew the names of key associates. Diego knew what Guillermo had purchased. And he knew when those items had been received with the final shipment being the day of the attack on the clinic.

The conclusion: Guillermo was well connected and well financed. Now, he was also well armed.

He could answer these questions, the who, the what, the when, the where, but that last question was plaguing him still.

Why?

-o-

If he couldn’t answer the why, then he would just answer the other questions better. He would be more thorough; he would be relentless. That was how he’d always done the job, and it had saved his life so far. He had to hope that it would save his family, too. I t was, in the end, all he really had.

His father had never cared about how hard you tried. He’d always wanted results. Diego had hated that, loathed it. But here he was, living it all the same. He had to succeed. He couldn’t even fathom exactly what failure would look like.

No, that wasn’t it. He could. It looked like his siblings trapped in boxes. It looked like Five, splayed on the ground, still chest moving beneath Diego’s pressure.

If he didn’t succeed, then he should have just left when he had the impulse.

And wasn’t that a thing. He’d stayed for his family, and his decision put his family in jeopardy. It felt like he was damned if he did, and damned if he didn’t. This couldn’t be put directly Sir Reginald, but it sure felt like the old man was responsible. Try as he might, Diego couldn’t get past that.

That was how it was with his dad. You couldn’t get past anything with that bastard.

This was his line of thought one hazy afternoon. He was supposed to be going over his sources before a strategy meeting with Five and Ben, but he’d gotten distracted. In fact, he’d been staring at the wall for the better part of five minutes when a voice startled him out of his counterproductive reverie.

Being pissed off wouldn’t help him stop Guilermo. Being vindictive wouldn’t save his family.

“Diego,” the voice said, and Diego looked up, acknowledging the presence for the first time.

Seeing that it was Ben was something of a relief. At least he knew that Ben could sneak in and out of rooms without being heard. So maybe he hadn’t been completely zoned out.

“Dude, I’ve been calling your name for, like, five minutes,” Ben said, making his way over to the couch.

It was always curious to Diego that Ben liked to see. He wondered if it made him feel different or if it was all just affectation. Diego had run around in a leather suit for years, so he probably wasn’t one to judge.

Still.

Five minutes.

He shook his head. “You’re exaggerating.”

Ben leaned back, kicking up his legs onto the table. Ben, more than anyone, was very pleased with Klaus’ increasing powers. Ben was manifested so clearly these days, it was almost like he wasn’t dead at all. “I’m not,” he said. “I watched you for a few moments, not wanting to disturb you, but then I called your name a couple of times and you still took your time.”

Diego scoffed, wishing he could deny it. Hell, he wished it at least sounded unrealistic. “Just got a lot on my mind, I guess,” he said in concession.

Ben nodded. “I know,” he said. “You’re doing a good job, by the way.”

Diego knitted his brows together curiously. “A good job spacing?”

Ben smiled. “A good job organizing this mission or whatever,” he said. “Luther’s usually the one who takes point, but you’ve done everything you need to do to lead us on.”

“Well, it is kind of my fault,” Diego said. He shuffled the papers, trying to stack them a little neater. “Guillermo is my family.”

“Nah,” Ben said, a quick shake of his head. “I mean, that’s why we gave you a lot of space to start with, but that’s not why we’re still following you. You’re doing a good job. Really.”

Ben was always easy to believe; he was so damn earnest. Try as he might to discredit him, Diego found himself blushing. “You literally just said I was spacing off.”

Ben chuckled. “And who can blame you?” he said. “This whole thing is crazy, right?”

“Crazy,” Diego mused in agreement. He looked at his unfinished notes and chewed his lip. “I was trying to come up with something new for the meeting with you and Five. That way we’d have something for the morning family briefing. Maybe a few notes for training.”

They had a regiment now. It wasn’t without some flexibility, but his siblings had taken to it. Even Klaus.

But Diego was running out of ways to maintain it. As the leads dried up, as the tension mounted, Diego was barely maintaining a holding pattern and he knew his siblings knew it.

“It’s okay,” Ben told him. “I mean, it’s not like we’ve really had anything new to discuss in a week.”

That was true. Ever since Five’s development with the EMP, they had hit more than a few walls. Diego’s research, though productive, had now stalled. They had gathered the information, disseminated it, and spent the last few days rehashing it time and again. At first, going over it all from different perspectives had been enlightening. No one had wanted to admit that it was becoming redundant.

“That’s why I need to get this,” Diego said, gesturing to his papers again. “I was following a lead, trying to track a few of his associates.”

“It won’t tell us anything new,” Ben said. “At a certain point, Guillermo has to make his move.”

Diego shook his head. “No, we need to stay one step ahead of him.”

Ben looked somewhat sympathetic. “Diego, we’ve never been one step ahead of him. We’re never going to be, either.”

“What? We’re going to let this madman win?”

“No,” Ben said. He tilted his head, looking a little vexed. “Diego, we can’t control the actions of other people. Maybe something else stops Guillermo entirely. Maybe he has a change of heart. We have no idea; we can’t have any idea. All we can do is prepare ourselves with knowledge and skill.”

“And if that’s not enough?” Diego asked.

Ben frowned a bit. “Well, what’s the worst that could happen?”

It was Diego’s turn to tilt his head toward his manifested spirit brother. “We could all end up as ghosts.”

“That is less than ideal,” Ben conceded. “But I don’t think that will happen.”

Diego gave a small snort, just shy of incredulous. “Why not? It’s happened before?”

“Sure, but when I died, things were different,” Ben said. “We were different.”

“Less experienced,” Diego provided.

“It’s not even that,” Ben said. “Dad, he trained us hard. He trained us impeccably. There were no lapses. But for all that work, we weren’t half he team we are today. We were out there in the field because he forced us. We didn’t want to be a team. We didn’t even know how to be a family. That’s not how it is now. And honestly, if we had been, I probably would still be alive.”

“Because we would have been able to protect you,” Diego said. “That’s what I’m trying to do. That’s why we have to find a way to get the upper hand.”

“No, Diego, no,” Ben said, swatting his hand through the air. “You’re missing the point. Knowledge and skill didn’t save me then -- and we had that. The only thing that might have saved me was family. The choice we all make to be here. None of us wanted to be on the job back then. Me more than any of you.”

Something twisted in Diego’s gut. He could still remember Ben’s screams; he could remember the blood.

“My death tore us apart because I was the first one who chose to leave,” he said. “What happened to Five, we all knew that was an accident. But I wanted out.”

Diego furrowed his brow, disconcerted. “You’re talking like it was suicide. It wasn’t. I was there. We screwed up. That’s all. We screwed up.”

“We all had our part to play in it, all of us, especially me,” Ben said. “I hated my life back then. Hated it. I never wanted to do it; I wanted no part of it. I used to think -- I swear to God -- that dying would be a reprieve.”

It was a plain admission. Diego wanted to say it was shocking, but somehow it wasn’t. He paused for a moment before thinning his lips. “Was it?”

Ben’s smile was sad. “No,” he said. “But it wasn’t until I saw what we could be together that I realized just how wrong I was.”

Diego had to look away, eyes burning and throat tight. “That’s why I have to get this right. So no one else dies.”

“You’ve gotten the most important thing right,” Ben said. When Diego looked up, his smile was genuine again. “I think the rest will fall into place one way or another.”

Optimism, then. It had never been Diego’s thing, but he was all about trying a new way of doing things these days. So why the hell not.

-o-

After three weeks on high alert, Diego knew there was another choice to make. The threat had not abated; if anything, it was more heightened now than ever. But this could never just be the job. Not if they were going to survive as a family. Diego understood his priorities now, and he had always been a man of action.

So he called a family meeting.

And laid it all out on the line.

He started with a status report. Allison had helped map Guillermo’s business contacts while Luther had tracked his financial records. Klaus had made some personal calls to establish some of his personal habits -- food preferences, workout tactics, streaming services, that sort of thing. Five traced all incursions Guillermo had been connected with over the last several years, listing the location, nature of target, property damage and civilian casualties. With all this, Ben had an in depth personality model that fully documented Guillermo’s motivations and decision making abilities. Vanya had confirmed his personal relationships, noting the last time he spoke to close friends or family and what terms by which those relationships had been left.

In short, Diego presented his siblings with an increasingly accurate and dynamic picture of who Guillermo was and what he was capable of doing.

“We’ve only talked to this guy two times -- max -- but we’ve got his number now,” he said. “When we meet him again, we won’t be strangers. We’ll know who he is and that matters.”

They were all watching him -- all of them, at rapt attention. All the times they’d rolled their eyes and told him to grow up. All those times they’d ignored him, and here they were. It figured that Diego had spent his life wanting to be the leader. Now that it was his job, he didn’t want it at all.

He cleared his throat, forcing himself to continue. It didn’t matter what he wanted. This was what was absolutely, unequivocally necessary.

“But that’s not the only thing that matters,” he said, and he was breathing now. Even, confident breaths. “In fact, it’s probably not even the thing that matters most.”

Luther looked downright confused. Allison’s arms were crossed over her chest, guarded with skepticism. Klaus’ eyes were naturally unnaturally wide, and Five looked only mildly homicidal. Ben, nearly opaque, was intent, and Vanya gripped the sides of the chair she was sitting on in apparent anticipation.

They were ready.

Or, they thought they were.

Diego smiled. “The thing that matters isn’t that we know who Guillermo is. It’s that we know who we are. Us, the Umbrella Academy. Reginald Hargreeves’ seven messed up kids.”

He was claiming it now. Maybe the appearance of his birth family had pushed the point, but here he was. He hated Reginald Hargreeves, but he couldn’t deny the man. The man who had raised him. The man who had made him who he was, for better and for worse. This was his family.

“So that’s why we’re here, laying it all out on the line, everything we know,” he said, looking at them each in turn. “And I know you’re all looking for the plan of attack, but I haven’t got that. We’ve done everything we can -- everything. So now it’s time to step back and take a breath. Just breathe.”

They stared at him, utterly dumbfounded. Klaus looked like he might be high; Vanya seemed to have had a mental episode. Five might have been preparing to laugh, but it was Allison who outright scoffed while Ben’s brow furrowed quizzically. It was Luther who said, “Come again?”

“It’s time to scale back on the operation,” he repeated, less apologetically than ever. “We need to start getting back to life as normal.”

“We don’t do normal,” Allison reminded him.

“Then life as our normal, as we choose it,” Diego clarified.

“You do realize there’s a mad man out there with plans to kill us, right?” Klaus asked. “I mean, that’s still happening, right? That’s still a thing?”

“It’s more than a thing,” Five said. “It’s a statistical near certainty.”

“No one’s disputing that,” he said. “But we’re ready. To sit here, obsessing over it -- that’s going to destroy us. If we let him take that from us, then Guillermo and his sadistic band of mercenaries has already won. He can plan for our deaths, fine. But it’s up to us to plan for our lives. That’s what sets us apart, isn’t it? Isn’t that how we finally get one step ahead?”

This was sentimental, and Diego knew it. He also knew how damn compelling it was.

“You really think we’re ready?” Ben asked quietly.

“As we’re ever going to be,” Diego said. “We’ve done our homework. We know his profile. We know our training routines. But I know better than any of you what being too true to the job can do to you. I know what it looks like when you live entirely for the job. We can’t risk that.”

“Perspective,” Vanya offered finally. “We need to maintain perspective.”

Diego lifted a finger, pointing it in enthusiastic agreement with Vanya. “That’s what we’ll have -- and what Guillermo will never have. Perspective. Priorities.”

His eyes passed over his siblings, locking with Five. Five still remembered their conversations about family after the car accident. He still knew what his drowning signified to Diego.

But even Five seemed to be struggling to understand. It was a radical, difficult suggestion to do nothing. It was revolutionary to finally stop being a team and start being a family. It ran counter to everything Diego had ever been, and Five could probably tell them all the odds were a million to one.

Which was fine. Diego would take it. One in a million worked for him.

It had to work for the rest of them, too.

Next to Five, Klaus’ mouth was hanging open. “This doesn’t sound like the plan,” he said. “Not the one we’ve been working on. Or did I miss something?”

“I’m not saying we stop monitoring,” he said. “We continue to watch the security feeds. We keep up with continual financial reports on our status on Guillermo’s. We check for new evidence. We do all that. But that’s not a full time job. We know it isn’t.”

“And you’re comfortable with that?” Allison asked. “You’re okay knowing your biological brother is out there, biding his time, waiting to strike.”

“I’m not comfortable with it, but what else can we do?” he said in return. “I’m not going to let this asshole run my life -- our lives.”

“So that’s the plan then?” Ben asked and he was as un-ironic as ever. “We live?”

“Dad would hate it,” Luther said, and it wasn’t quite a warning. He tipped his head, almost curious. “He would never go for it.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Five said. “If we safely assume Dad knew about the apocalypse, then you can look at how many years he let us all waste. He let us all walk out that front door, knowing that the only thing that would get us back would be his death.”

“Wait,” Vanya said, confused. “Now we’re saying Dad had his priorities right?”

“No, he’s saying that Dad saw it. I hate the bastard more than the rest of you, but Dad saw it,” Diego said. “The power of family saved us -- saved the world. Saved everything when all of Dad’s other plans failed spectacularly.”

“So this is the plan, then,” Klaus ventured, still hesitant as he raised his eyebrows. “This whole live and let live thing?”

“Live and let live,” Diego confirmed with a stolid nod of his head. “And we just keep breathing.”

-o-

As far as inspirational speeches went, Diego thought his was pretty good. He’d hit all the right points, and he knew he’d sold it to his siblings.

When they filed out of the living room, however, he was still not certain he had convinced himself.

It wasn’t that he didn’t believe what he’d said. He did believe it; wholeheartedly. It was just that believing something wasn’t the same thing as internalizing it. Believing wasn’t knowing, and that distinction was one that Diego was keenly aware of these days.

After all, he had the added weight of responsibility. If this all went to hell, if someone else got hurt or worse, then it came back on him. That kind of doubt was pervasive. Easy to succumb to and harder than hell to overcome. Diego was always up for a challenge, but he wasn’t sure that this was one he could actually win.

All his talk of being ready, of doing everything they could -- that shit was real, too. But that truth didn’t negate the other, more telling omission. Just because they’d done all they could didn’t mean it would be enough. Diego had no idea if they could beat Guillermo. He didn’t know. There was no way to know, not until they were face to face.

By that time, it’d be too late to go back and change anything.

By that time, all he could do was ride this shit storm out until the very, very end.

Sighing, he rubbed a hand over his weary face. This time, when he exhaled, it made his chest feel heavy. The following inhalation dredged oxygen into his lungs, but to minimal effect. They still felt like lead.

When he looked up again, he was surprised to see Vanya still sitting there. The others were gone, but she was poised on the chair. She looked at him with an apologetic smile. Vanya often had that expression. It had been her way of being sorry she existed. Now it had been broadened enough to feel sorry for all of them. It wasn’t quite pity -- Diego knew that -- but it still made him want to squirm.

He was, after all, inherently a restless soul.

Some change was possible, Sure, but he was still Diego Hargreeves.

“I can’t believe how well you’re holding things together,” she said. “I know how hard this is, knowing your family did this.”

His impulse was to sneer. He caught himself at the last minute, but his lips still twisted bitterly. “Guillermo is not my family. He may be some guy who shares my DNA or something, I don’t even know that for sure, but that sure as hell doesn’t make him family.”

The words were stronger than intended, more vehement than anticipated. There had been a day when that would have turned Vanya away, but if Diego could change, then so could she. So had she, maybe even more successfully than Diego. He didn’t resent her for it, but he couldn’t quite love her for it either.

“Still,” she said. “You feel responsible.”

Diego squared his shoulders, inherently defensive. “I didn’t make him do this. I don’t even know the guy. He’s just a psycho.”

She saw through his bravado. She smiled faintly at his denial. “Sure,” she said. “You know that logically just like the rest of us. But that doesn’t mean you beli3ve it completely either.”

The facade drained from his face, and he could feel the weight as his shoulders slumped, stymying his impulse to breathe. “Okay, so maybe I feel a little responsible.”

At this, her smile only widened. Vanya had always been exceptionally sympathetically; Diego had thought it part of her inherent weakness when they were kids. Sometimes, he still wondered if it left her vulnerable. But, he had to admit, it made him feel a hell of a lot better in his own undesirable vulnerability right then. “Well, try not to,” she said. “I can speak for all of us, you’re not to blame. None of us blame you. Not at all.”

Diego grunted a little out of instinct. “You probably should,” he said. “I did nearly get you all killed. Five, more than once.”

“Five was in a car accident, and Guillermo clearly has issues that have nothing to do with you,” Vanya said. “And it was you who saved us. All of us. Five, more than once.”

It was a compliment.

Diego craved that kind of affirmation -- and he wanted to reject it all at the same time. This wasn’t a question of merit for Vanya. She wasn’t speaking in plain, rational terms. Her emotion was grounding this conversation, and Diego wasn’t quite sure what to do with that.

He wasn’t quite sure what to do with anything.

That was it, wasn’t it?

The calm, the rational: none of it applied here. Guillermo had taken the simple answers and turned them upside down. He’d twisted the idea of family and left Diego on his head, trying to parse the world as it turned upside down.

It wasn’t his fault, but maybe he needed it to be his fault. If it was his fault, if he could take this responsibility, then maybe he could control the outcome. Maybe he could prevent the inevitable disaster from unfolding. Maybe he really could still save them, for good this time.

Yet, the pressing, daunting sense of failure was more encompassing still.

He gritted his teeth, clenching his fists and stilling the air in his lungs. “Still.”

She got up, crossing over to him and speaking gently. “Yeah, still,” she said, and she reached out, squeezing his hand softly. “I nearly destroyed the world. More than once. I know a little bit about this sort of thing.”

He shook his head, the protest ingrained in him now. “That wasn’t your fault. That wasn’t even you.”

“I know,” she said, blinking up at him earnestly. “And this wasn’t you.”

He watched her, somewhat stunned, as she moved toward the door. She turned back.

“Just remember your family, Diego,” she encouraged. “Your real family. They’re the ones who will save you even when you don’t deserve it -- and especially when you do.”

Well, shit, he thought when she finally left the room.

Shit.

Family wasn’t so complicated, not when you really got down to it. Family wasn’t in your blood. It wasn’t some moral obligation. It wasn’t about doing the right thing. It wasn’t even about growing up in the same house or sharing a last name.

No, family was a choice.

It was an active choice.

Something you chose every day when you got up. Something you chose every night when you went to bed. Family was the people you choose, the ones you made the choice to invest in, to commit yourself to.

By that definition, Diego had failed in his family here. He hadn’t made that choice, not really. He’d sat around and moped and complained. He’d half-assed the whole thing, constantly looking for a way out. He’d wanted to cut corners and make compromises. He’d chosen the job, time and again. He’d chosen anything but them.

But it wasn’t too late.

It couldn’t be too late.

That was the thing with choices.

You never made just one. It was a constant choice. A continually commitment. You could lose it in an instant, but you could build it back up, too. That was the scary part. That was also the beautiful thing. Family was enduring and fallible. It was the hardest thing and the easiest thing. It was holding your breath and finally taking a deep, cleansing breath.

Family was contradiction.

Family was constant.

He could still choose it. Right here, right now. He could choose to be strong when Luther was weak. He could choose the truth when Allison was couched in lies. He could opt for steadiness when Klaus wavered. He could decide to be present when Five wanted to leave. He could choose to be tactile when Ben was fading. And he could choose, even now, even right now, to listen when all Vanya could hear was background noise.

Your choices defined you.

At least, Diego thought as he got back up again, he hoped that was finally true.