Umbrella Academy fic: Thicker Than Blood
Title: Thicker Than Blood
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
A/N: This fic got away from me in a serious way. But here it is, filling my vehicle collision square for hc_bingo. Woefully unbeta’ed. Set post season one with lots of random speculation that is nonsensical.
Summary: Diego isn’t totally sure he’s ready to be a Hargreeves after all.
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-
Two months after coming back to the present and saving the world, Diego called a family meeting. They had been through a lot together, and it took some time to acclimatize themselves to the changed reality which they had created. With their diligence in the past, Vanya’s powers were fully realized and she was an integrated and accepted member of the Umbrella Academy. They had taken her to a tattoo parlor to get the official tattoo, just to make sure she knew it.
Other changes were just as pronounced. By timing their trip properly, thanks to Five’s diligence, they were able to save the mansion and spare Pogo and Mom. Ben was still dead, but with Klaus’ burgeoning powers, he was able to manifest almost all the time.
So, yeah, that shit took some time.
But after two months, Diego thought they were making progress. In fact, he was starting to feel the urge to do more.
As in, the job.
He had left the Academy, but he’d never stopped doing the job. He hated his old man -- hated him -- but the job had always been good. Now that they were united and settled, Diego could think of no valid reason not to get back to it.
His siblings, however, had not seemed to think of it at all. Two months and they were playing board games, buying cell phone plans and updating the mansion with wireless. They were decorating their rooms and cooking dinners and grinding coffee beans. Diego gave them a bunch of hints, but when no one seemed to take him up on his suggestion to start training in earnest again, he decided that he had to approach it more formally.
So, he called the meeting, made up his list of reasons, and set up the group in the living room. He explained things simply, explicitly and clearly and then left it open for questions. He was met with silence for a span of about three minutes. Allison chewed her lip, legs cross as she sat on the chair. Luther was nearby, looking truly vexed. Perched on a bar stool, Klaus looked like he’d forgotten why he was there. Five was watching him intently from the couch with Ben perched on a cushion nearby placidly. Vanya was the last figure on the couch, and she fiddled with the hem of her shirt anxiously.
“No response?” Diego asked. “Really? No one has an opinion about starting up the Umbrella Academy again?”
“Well, we all want the Umbrella Academy,” Luther said.
“Good,” Diego said. “Then we need to start organizing--”
Luther hemmed. He’s big, strong, loyal and pathetically indecisive sometimes.
Diego fell silent, his gut twisting. He was not as big, not quite as strong, loyal in his own way and never indecisive. It was one reason why he’d had so much trouble as one of the team. He’d never exactly forgotten that, but the last two months had been crazy enough to put it at the back of his memory. Luther -- and the others -- were rapidly bringing that fact back to the forefront.
“It’s just--” Luther started again.
At this point, Diego’s patience was nearly shot. Whatever bullshit was about to come his way, he wanted to get it done with -- and quickly. “It’s just what?”
“I just don’t think we’re ready for a job,” Luther said. He was this close to wringing his hands together as he spoke. “I’m sure you can all understand.”
Diego stared at him, eyebrows up. He didn’t understand. The words were simple, sure, but the logic just didn’t make sense.
At all.
After all this, after everything.
How could they not be ready?
Seven superpowered siblings, all on the same page for the first time ever. Sure, one of them was still technically dead, and the other had believed she was normal until about two months ago, and one is still recovering from massive throat injuries, and another is barely two months sober, and there’s another who is a trained assassin who looks 13 but come on.
They’d saved the world.
They’d saved their family.
They had to be ready.
With his dumbfounded silence, Allison cleared her throat “We need more time to get our bearings,” she said, her voice still hoarse. She didn’t wear a bandage anymore, but her scarves were often creatively placed to minimize the visual damage. She smiled gently at Vanya. “We just got each other back.”
Vanya smiled back. “I have to agree,” she said. “I mean, don’t get me wrong -- I’m so glad to be a part of this now. It’s my dream come true. But I still have a long way to go with my powers.”
Diego’s eyes were probably starting to bug a little. It wasn’t that anything they were saying wasn’t true, it was just -- what the hell was the context. It was ironic that Allison was being trigger shy now when she’d been the one to pull the trigger and stop Vanya in the first place. And, of course Diego understood Vanya’s hesitations. There was no way she was ready to be in the field for the time being. She was stabilized, and she had learned how to not destroy everything around her, but that wasn’t exactly an indication that she was field worthy.
The thing was, none of those things meant that the Academy should still be in shutdown mode. If anything, those facts meant that they needed to start getting things together -- now. They were wasting time, and they would all just get sloppy if it went on.
Sloppy or crazy.
Diego wasn’t going to be picky about that distinction right now.
“And I’m worried about the pressure, you know?” Klaus asked. He furrowed his brow. “This is the longest I’ve been sober since I was, well, 13, and I want to make sure that I’ve got it down before we go and start adding combat to the mix.”
Next to him, Ben nodded.
Klaus nodded with him. “And Ben agrees.”
“We can see him now,” Luther reminded him, only a touch exasperated. “We have been for the past two months.”
“Right, right,” Klaus said, flitting his hand through the air. “That’s still weird to me. Is it weird to anyone else? Time travel? Saving the world? My powerful ability to manifest the dead?”
Five rolled his eyes, and Diego dared to feel hopeful despite the lack of endorsement from Klaus and Ben. Klaus had become more of an asset in the field, but it was still Klaus. He wasn’t geared to think of things in terms of jobs. And Ben, being dead, likely had mixed feelings about these things and whatever, that was to be expected.
But, Diego told himself, not all hope was lost because Five.
Five still had a say, and Five, for all that he was a total asshole, was the convincing sort. Better still, of all his siblings, Five was the most pragmatic. He was also the most tactile. More than that, he was a murderous bastard. He would surely point out the obvious flaws in Luther’s lack of logic. The oldest and youngest member of the Umbrella Academy had been even more restless than Diego these last two months. Diego knew that he would want to get back to work.
He would certainly agree with Diego.
“We’re hardly a cohesive unit,” Five said. “We need to focus a lot more on our training before we’re going to be an effective team. If we went out right now, as a group, we would likely end up getting one of us killed. Seeing as we just worked hard to avoid that fact, I agree with the others. We need time.”
Shit. The bastard sided with Luther? Now? Of all times? Diego resisted the urge to start throwing knives (at the walls, just to make a point -- really), and he settled for balling his fists instead.
Naturally, Luther looked pleased. The bastard always looked pleased when people agreed with him. He was a needy son of a bitch. Always in need of approval. He looked at Diego. He probably wasn’t trying to be smug, but he looked that way to Diego. “The family agrees,” he said, matter of fact. “I completely agree with you that we want the Umbrella Academy to be an effective crime fighting unit, but I don’t think we’re there yet.”
Diego gaped for a second. He couldn’t help himself. Then, he scoffed. “I literally laid out ten points why we should get back out there, and you guys all want to ignore that? I called this family meeting. And not one of you can see my point?”
“It’s just too soon,” Ben said, as the conclusive voice of what they wanted to be reason. “It would be irresponsible.”
Diego couldn’t believe his ears. It was like a bad nightmare. The worst nightmare. It was a pact of total and complete inaction. “I can’t believe this,” he said. “We’re a room full of people with the power to save the world. And we’re choosing to sit on our asses and, what? Twiddle our thumbs? We have a responsibility.”
Luther nodded earnestly. “We do. But that responsibility must be used properly. If we got out now, it’s like a gun without the safety off. We could hurt people. We’re not ready.”
“That’s a line -- and it’s bullshit,” Diego said. “We weren’t ready for anything, and we still saved the world.”
“Yeah, after nearly destroying it,” Luther said.
“Family has to come first,” Allison said.
Klaus made a sympathetic face. “That did work for us last time.”
“And we did have to rely on time travel to get it right last time,” Five said with a keen wince. “That’s not a reliable backup on every mission.”
“We keep training, keep working,” Ben said.
Vanya smiled, like it was all going to be okay. “And we’ll get there. As a family.”
Well, shit, then, Diego thought.
So much for that.
-o-
Diego had called the meeting, and he was also the first to leave. Maybe that was appropriate; maybe he was being dramatic. All he knew was that he had to get the hell out of that room before it suffocated him.
In a haze, he made his way through the mansion, and he was back in his bedroom before he even realized where he was going. Exhaling, he gritted his teeth together. With stiff movements, he closed the door behind him.
This feeling, this gnawing in the pit of his stomach. He knew this feeling.
Shit, he had grown up with this feeling.
Like he couldn’t move, couldn’t act, couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe. Growing up, his father’s rules had constricted him to the point of rebellion, and when he’d left at age 18, it had been such a relief. It didn’t matter if he lived in a shit-hole. It didn’t matter if he worked a trivial job to make ends meet. It was his life, damn it. He would do whatever he wanted with it, thank you very much.
But here he was.
Back in the mansion.
Feeling the same way all over again.
The tension building in his shoulder, Diego flopped down onto the bed and drew one of his knives. It was a reflex for him. He played with knives the way most people bit their names or doodled on paper. It was a way to stay calm, a way to think.
The problem was that the more he thought, the less calm he felt.
The whole point of the Umbrella Academy was to save people. Diego had hated his old man -- he loathed him -- but the idea had been sound. Diego had resented the heartlessness, the nonstop pushing, the built-in competition -- but he had never resented the skills his father had given him. He had never resented the purpose.
That was why he had been the only one fighting for people in the last few years. Even Luther, Dad’s loyal oversized lapdog, had been wasting his time on the moon. Diego was the one who had taken it seriously. Diego was the one who had accepted his role as a hero.
Just when he thought they were all on the same page--
Shit.
Diego threw the knife at the wall. He didn’t use his powers to guide it and frowned when it landed short of its intended mark. Frustrated, he pulled out another knife from its sheath, twirling it in his deft fingers.
He loved his family. Okay? He could admit it; he loved them. He would do anything for them -- he had done everything for them. He had no regrets about sticking with them, about working with them to save the world -- and each other. Because okay, fine, whatever. He wanted Luther to have a backbone and not be Dad’s pathetic lackey. He wanted Allison to get her daughter back and be a better mother. He wanted Klaus to stay sober, though sanity was probably always going to be elusive. And he wanted Five to actually stop acting like the murderous little asshole he was. In a perfect world, he wanted Ben to be alive, but he wanted him to be present and active. Even Vanya -- who still had plenty of shit to account for, as far as Diego was concerned -- but even Vanya, he wanted to be happy, healthy and, you know, not a threat to the world.
That was why he’d come back. Good reasons. All of them. Reasons he didn’t regret; reasons he’d act on again. He couldn’t forget that; he wouldn’t
But he also couldn’t forget why he’d left in the first place.
He threw the second knife. It went high and Diego scowled.
He wouldn’t forget.
Valid reasons for coming back didn’t negate his valid reasons for leaving. He thought back to his conversation with Luther at the library. He had told Luther that he left home because that was what you did when you were 18. It had been a way to tell Luther that leaving wasn’t totally personal -- while also insinuating that his bigger brother had yet to grow up himself.
But it wasn’t just for teenagers. It wasn’t just that 18 year olds went off to find themselves. It was that you left to make your own life. And then, hard as it seemed, you lived it. That was what adults did. Normal people grew up and left their family behind. It didn’t mean they didn’t love their families. It just meant that they were ready and able to do their own thing.
At 18, Diego had been more than ready.
Maybe he was still ready.
He chewed his lip, pausing with the knife in his hands. Was all this push to restart the Academy -- was it simply Diego’s way of self actualizing? Was he chafing at the constraints he didn’t have to live by? Was he trying to reconcile the life his family wanted to live with the one he knew he was meant to live? And if those things couldn’t be reconciled, what would Diego do? Would he compromise? Would he settle?
For the rest of his life?
And if he left, would he be okay being on the outside?
Shit.
Diego threw the third knife, watching it land right on target.
His stomach flipped uneasily.
This had been a hell of a lot easier when he was on his own.
-o-
Diego didn’t make a decision that night.
In fact, that night he went to a dive bar, got a few drinks and texted with Beaman. It was times like this that he missed Patch quite keenly. He had hoped that fixing the timeline would save her, but Five had been able to account for every variable. For what it was worth, Five had told him he was sorry.
Diego scoffed, nursing his last beer. He wasn’t drunk -- no way, no how, that wasn’t how he rolled -- but he was more buzzed than he usually allowed himself. Usually he thought of himself like a cop on duty -- without any off hours.
That was why Beaman was such a good choice. He wouldn’t say they were friends, but ever since Beaman had cleared Diego’s name for murder, they had been more friendly than before.
Also, Diego was lonely as hell and he didn’t have anyone else to talk to.
Any good cases? Diego texted after a few mindless exchanges about baseball, beer brands and knife sharpening.
Beaman’s reply was fast; the dude was probably still at work. You know I can’t tell you that.
Diego rolled his eyes as he typed out a reply. I’ve had a few beers. It’s not like I’m going to come out and join you.
All the more reason not to. It’d be teasing. I know how much you like it.
Diego smiled a little, feeling rueful. Beaman got it.
He put his phone down and ordered another drink.
If a random cop could get it, then why the hell couldn’t his family?
-o-
Diego didn’t make a decision the next day, either.
Or the day after that.
In fact, nearly a week went by and Diego hadn’t made a single decision. Normally he hated that shit, being indecisive. He hated waffling and being unsure. There was no point to it.
But then, there wasn’t much point to his life right now.
He worked out, trained hard and kept up his skills. He spent the appropriate time with his siblings, and for what?
Seriously, for what?
Luther ignored his suggestions for a security upgrade. Allison vetoed the use of cameras in the hallways upstairs. Klaus didn’t want to start exercising. Five refused to participate in agility drills, and when he suggested that Ben try to start throwing knives, his dead brother laughed at him. Vanya listened to his suggestions at least, but then she was self deprecating and apologetic before thanking Diego for understanding.
Diego didn’t understand, though.
Not any of it.
The decision loomed bigger than ever.
-o-
Shortly after, Diego set up a lunch with Beaman. It had been Beaman’s idea, but Diego’s increased text volume had probably spurred it on. At any rate, Diego was only too eager to say yes. He needed more reasons to get out of the damn house.
And he needed to interact with people who weren’t crazy.
Beaman was there when Diego arrived, and he tried not to look too excited when he sat down in the chair across from him. Beaman was still going over the menu, drinking a soda as he greeted Diego.
“Hey, man,” the cop said. “You made it.”
“Of course,” Diego said, picking up his own menu. “Been too long.”
Beaman gave him a funny look. “Not that long.”
Diego caught himself before retorting. It had been longer for him. For Beaman, who had not experienced time travel, it probably hadn’t seemed so weird. His name had officially been dropped from the investigation into Patch’s murder only a month ago. “Well, it feels long,” he said, and that much was true. That much was very, very true.
Beaman smiled apologetically. “I kept thinking we should get together, but the time never seemed right. Even though you weren’t a suspect anymore….”
He didn’t finish; it was clear that he wasn’t sure what he wanted to say.
Awkward, Diego looked at the menu, pretending to look at the selections for burgers and sandwiches. He read several descriptions, but none of them seemed to sink it. He turned his eyes back to Beaman. “How’s the investigation, by the way?” he asked. He shrugged, confidence wavering. “Into Patch’s death?”
He wasn’t sure why he wanted to know. Maybe he felt guilty; he knew that Beaman wouldn’t find a suspect, not when it was attributed to time traveling assassins. It was possible that Hazel was out there somewhere, but Diego didn’t have the means to hunt down a perp like that.
Or maybe it was just because he wanted to talk about Patch. All he’d been through, sometimes it was easy to feel like his life before the apocalypse hadn’t existed. He couldn’t let that happen; he had to remember Patch.
Beaman, across from him, winced. “Not the best,” he admitted. “The gun we recovered cleared you, but it gave us nothing else to go on. We’ve collected plenty of DNA evidence, and I’ve scoured as many databases as I can think of, but there’s not a match anywhere.”
Anywhere wasn’t the problem. Any time, however…
Diego cleared his throat. “Still,” he said. “It’s good to know you’re there, honoring her memory.”
It was Beaman’s turn to smile slightly. “I just wish it wasn’t so damn hard.”
Apparently, Diego wasn’t the only one struggling in this apocalypse diverted world. It would be wrong to say that Diego took comfort in that fact, but he could appreciate a touch of solidarity when the his family seemed to out of step with him. “You’re doing it, though,” he said, a note of encouragement in his voice. “And not just her case -- all of them. You’re doing the hard stuff that no one else wants to do.”
“That’s awfully idealistic for a guy who gave a finger to his police academy instructor on his way out of the door,” Beaman quipped.
Diego did not blush, not even if Beaman had a point. Diego had no patience for idiots.
Which begged the question how he was still tolerating his family after two months.
“I forget sometimes,” Diego admitted. “But I think of her, and it helps.”
Beaman nodded in resigned agreement. “Still. It’s bad out there right now. We don’t have enough cops, not when the world seems to be going to hell. I won’t even tell you how many unsolved murder cases we have right now. It’s too depressing.”
Diego had the know about Patch, but what Beaman was saying now was genuine news to him. “Crime rates are going up?”
“The captain keeps saying it’s just an aberration -- some temporary spike,” he said. “But this feels different, you know? Like something has changed. Ever since her death, nothing’s the same.”
Beaman was putting into words what Diego had been feeling. More than that, he was talking actually facts. While Diego was biding his time with the rest of his family, things were going to hell on the outside.
This time, Diego did feel guilty. “You’re a good cop. There are lots of good cops. You got this.”
Beaman snorted sadly. “I wish. There aren’t as many of us as there used to be, it seems. Hell, there are days when I even miss you hanging around with your police radio.”
He was joking, of course.
Diego forced himself to smile, picking up his menu again. “Well, let me get you lunch at least.”
“Oh, no, I couldn’t--”
“You can,” Diego said. “My dad died, remember? The old dude was a bastard, but he was loaded. The inheritance was better than I anticipated.”
Beaman looked a little impressed. It was no secret to anyone who had ever met Diego that there was no love for the old man, so Beaman didn’t waste his time with condolences. Instead, he nodded. “Well, if you’re buying, then I should look at the steaks.”
“Hell, go for the lobster,” Diego said.
Surprised, Beaman hesitated.
“Trust me,” Diego said easily. “It’s the least I can do.”
-o-
The problem was that it wasn’t an exaggeration.
Buying Beaman a nice lunch was truly about the very least that Diego could do. The most he could do was get off his ass and head back in the field He could start chasing cases; he could go the places cops couldn’t. He and Beaman could work out a system; Diego would be careful. They could merge the underground world and the straight and narrow for results that Patch wouldn’t have loved.
At a cost, however.
Doing that would require giving up on the Academy.
Not that there was much to the Academy right now.
That wasn’t for a lack of trying on Diego’s part, either. He went on a spending spree and bought a whole host of updated supplies for the security system, but no one seemed interested in helping him install them. He came up with tailored training plans in an effort to appeal more to each of his siblings, but no one gave them more than a cursory glance before promising they would get to it soon. His research into new materials for updated uniforms was met with a tepid response, and when he suggested hiring a tailor for measurements, everyone looked at him like he was insane. Allison was too busy with Claire. Klaus was too busy being sober. Five was too busy scrawling equations that made no sense on the wall. Ben was too busy being dead. Vanya was too busy not being maligned. And Luther.
Well, Diego didn’t even want to start with Luther.
Of course, Luther was exactly where he needed to start. If anything was going to happen in this family, Diego had to concede that going through Number One was the only way to guarantee success. Not because Luther was the smartest or most perceptive -- he wasn’t, for the record, and everyone agreed with him on that on -- but because his siblings were idiots who didn’t care. They listened to Luther because Luther was Number One.
Diego hated his dad for that, more than he hated him for just about anything else. That they should all be reliant on Luther seemed horribly misguided not to mention wholly unfair. It was what it was, however, and Diego couldn’t afford to be picky at this point.
If he didn’t do something soon, he was going to lose his damn mind.
With this in mind, he approached his brother after breakfast one morning. He intended to be calm, reasonable and diplomatic. However, when standing face to face with his brother, he felt the resentment swell in his gut. Instead of asking if Luther had a minute to talk, he all but snarled, “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
Luther, for as big and weirdly bulky as he is, blinked large, doe eyes at Diego. “I’m going to go take a shower,” he said, almost as if he didn’t hear the malice in Diego’s voice. “Then I was thinking about going through a few more of Dad’s things, clear out what I can, file things that are important--”
Diego groaned. “Nothing of Dad’s is important. It’s all trash. You need to stop going over it.”
Luther frowned, looking offended now. “Your personal feelings aside, Dad was a genius. If we’re serious about rebuilding the Academy, we need his notes.”
Diego scoffed. “So we can see what not to do?”
Luther glared at him.
Diego shook his head, reminding himself of why he was here. “Actually, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about?”
“Your daddy issues?”
“No,” Diego said shortly. “Getting the Academy back together.”
Luther looked somewhat interested by that. “I have a lot of Dad’s notes--”
“No, not Dad’s way,” Diego said. “Our way. We need to stop going over the past. We need to be building the future.”
It was at this point that Luther seemed to realize this was a conversation they had had already.
More than once.
He sighed a little.
“Diego, I understand your point of view on this,” he said, like this was a script he’d been rehearsing. “But the Academy isn’t ready. Not individually. Not as a unit. We need time.”
Diego’s desire to be diplomatic was being strained. Unreasonably. “We’ve taken time. We take much more, and it’ll all be gone.”
Luther looked like he wanted to roll his eyes. “You’re being overly dramatic.”
“Am I?” Diego shot back. “Do I need to remind you how we just barely saved ourselves with time travel? I mean, I know Five pulled that shit off, but we can’t run every day of our lives like that. Sooner or later, we have to take the minutes as they come -- and stop thinking that we’re entitled to them.”
“I really think you’re being a little over the top about this.”
Diego obviously disagreed. In fact, he disagreed so vehemently that the insinuation was a self fulfilling prophecy. “I think I’ve been quite reasonable! I’ve given everyone time and space, and I’ve sat through pointless family meetings and listened to everyone’s little excuses about why they’re not ready yet. I’ve been to the family dinners. I’ve accepted the reasons why we can’t train yet. But sooner or later, it’s not time we need. It’s time we’re wasting.”
Luther, it seemed, was also giving up a little on diplomacy. “You need to relax, Diego.”
It was entirely the wrong thing to say. Diego did the opposite. Ire rising, he threw his arms out in indignation. “How can I? Everyone is relaxing! You’re supposed to be the leader of the Umbrella Academy, but what are you leading us to? We’re useless like this. We’re not any closer to helping people, and you stand there and don’t give a shit.”
Luther’s jaw clenched slightly. “Diego--”
He shook his head. “No, you know? Just no. Why can’t you just admit that I have a point for once? Is that so hard?”
By now, the politeness had drained from Luther’s complexion. His eyes hardened and he shook his head. “But you don’t!” You don’t have a point. You’re just mad because you want to put on a mask and run around with a police radio when the rest of us are trying to look at at a bigger picture.”
It was a line of reason that Diego probably should have seen coming. For all that he liked to think that Luther was an idiot, his brother did know how him. And he didn’t fair rough like Diego, but he knew how to land a punch when it mattered.
That was all well and good.
Because Diego had never been confronted with a fight that he willingly walked away from. He stepped forward, chest out and shoulders squared. “You’re full of shit. You’re just so happy to be back in charge, to be living out your destiny from dad -- you can’t accept any threats to that. You can’t accepts threats to your power. You’re picking up right where Dad left off.”
Luther’s brow darkened. “This isn’t about power.”
“Isn’t it, Number One?” Diego said snidely. “You love this shit, always have. You finally have the chance to be free now that Dad’s dead, but here you are, trying to resurrect it and trap the rest of us in it as well.”
“Oh, come on,” Luther said, clearly exasperated now. He wasn’t backing down, but Diego could see the tension building in his shoulders. “This has nothing to do with Dad. If it did, I’d agree with you and start training again, wouldn’t I?”
Diego shrugged coldly, refusing to acknowledge anything. “Power first. That was always Dad’s thing. Consolidate power so the rest fall into line,” he reasoned. “The very fact that I’m suggesting this is why you’ll never agree with it. You’re just like Dad.”
“I’m not!” Luther said, voice starting to boom.
“You are,” Diego said. He’d found a soft spot in Luther’s calm exterior, and if he couldn’t win this argument by calm rationalization, then what the hell. He didn’t have to win it at all. “I guess this means you’ve forgiven him for sending you to the moon for four long, miserable years without reason.”
This time, Luther did step forward, staring down at Diego menacingly. “And I guess this means that you’re still working through your inferiority complex.”
Diego was not a man of restraint, to say the very least. He was honorable, he was loyal, he was capable and smart -- but restraint?
Yeah, no.
Therefore, not even Luther was surprised with Diego’s fist smashed into his jaw. He landed another punch across the cheek before he pulled his hand away with a wince. Luther, for his part, scowled. He felt his jaw, working it momentarily, before simply looking annoyed. “This is about family. That’s why I’m doing this. It’s about family.”
“But what about me?” Diego demanded. “I’m family, too.”
“I know,” he said. “Then why don’t you start acting that way.”
“I am,” Diego insisted. “I want what’s best for us!”
“Without asking us?” Luther asked, raising a quizzical eyebrow. “You’re going to have to accept the fact that you’ve been outvoted. Plain and simple.”
Diego threw the first punch.
Luther landed the last one.
Shit, Diego thought as Luther stalked away. He really has always hated losing.
-o-
In his room, Diego was not licking his wounds. It wasn’t like that. It wasn’t some contest of wills; it wasn’t a test of power. Diego had lost, but not in a traditional sense. He had only lost in that he had admitted that there was no way to change his brother’s mind. That, as far as Diego was concerned, was on Luther -- not him.
The conversation had, in fact, put a certain amount of perspective on the situation. For all that his family talked about change and growth, not that much had actually changed. They were still six people -- seven, if you counted Ben -- and they all had their own motivations, agendas and issues. His siblings were all still trying to get their shit together, and Diego was ready to move forward.
It was like being 18 all over again.
After all, there was a reason he’d been the first to leave. Because he’d been the first to realize that he wanted more -- and that he would never find it with the Umbrella Academy. Sure, he’d probably a bit too dramatic in his departure, and no doubt, he’d closed too many doors and burned too many bridges. He was glad to have repaired some of those relationships, but that didn’t change the reality.
Diego was still ready to move on.
His siblings still weren’t.
His points were just as valid when he was 18 as they were now. True, the idea of working as a team had been appealing. The idea of what they could accomplish as the Academy was still compelling. Diego wanted to save lives; the Umbrella Academy would be more effective in the field than he would on his own.
But that required the Umbrella Academy to be in the field. And as of now, not one of his siblings seemed ready to make that leap.
What about the people suffering in the meantime?
What about the criminals getting away with shit?
What about right now?
How many days could Diego waste?
No, scratch that. How many days was Diego willing to waste?
That was the question, wasn’t it? This wasn’t something outside of Diego’s control. He knew that when he was 18 and struck out on his own. He had known it then, that sitting around and waiting for his family was not the only solution -- it wasn’t even the best solution.
Just because his feelings toward his family had changed, that didn’t mean that the reality of their dynamics had changed. He had done the right thing, he believed it completely, leaving when he did. Maybe it was still the right thing. Maybe the mistake was staying.
Luther had stayed and wasted four years on the moon on a fool’s errand.
Diego couldn’t do the same.
He wouldn’t.
That begged the question, then.
What was he going to do?
-o-
The answer was plain, but Diego wasn’t quite ready to embrace it. He’d been through too much shit with his siblings to walk out now, and at 18, he’d hated them. There was no hate now, only frustration, and he didn’t want to hurt them.
Well, he sort of wanted to throttle them, but he didn’t really want to hurt them.
Which meant Diego had to be sure.
His plan was to sit, reflect and be patient.
That lasted about a day. Then, while walking downtown, he passed an army surplus store. And wouldn’t you know? They had a police scanner right there, on sale, in the window.
Well, shit. Diego didn’t believe in fate, but he wasn’t about to let a good opportunity pass him by.
It was only fair, after all, if he was going to sit around and listen to what his siblings had to say -- that he should listen to what the world had to say, too.
-o-
Diego found comfort in the police scanner. He liked listening to the calls, relying on his memory to connect the call numbers to the crimes they represented. He made a mental tally of the number of incidents, from the mundane to the dangerous. He would sit, edge of his seat, while cruisers responded to an incident, and he stayed there, riveted, until it was sufficiently resolved.
While Diego spent his time with a police scanner, his siblings found comfort in other, less productive things. Sometimes he had to turn the scanner up over the sound of Vanya’s violin practice. Allison, when she wasn’t on the phone with Claire, started writing screenplays. Klaus was getting better at knitting, not that that was saying much. He was only capable of making scarfs, and they were still badly misshapen. Ben took to reorganizing the library when he was able to be corporeal, which served little purpose except to make a gigantic mess of the study. He had no idea what the hell Five was doing in his room all day, but he washed off the chalk periodically so he could start again, and Diego always heard him muttering when he happened by in that general vicinity.
Of all his siblings, Luther was always the most infuriating but, Diego had to concede, he was the only one among them with any actual thought in regards to the Academy. In his free time -- which, to be clear, was ample -- Luther continued to review Dad’s files. He said this was to compiled the best techniques for training, security and logistics, but every time Diego found him in the study, he was weepy eyed and sentimental. It was enough to make Diego not want to know.
When that got to be too much -- and it did, it was always too much -- Diego retreated back to his room, closed the door, turned on the scanner and threw knives at the wall.
He told himself he would know when it was time to act.
Sooner.
Not later.
Definitely sooner.
-o-
Still, it was unexpected just how soon it was.
Well, maybe not. It was probably more likely that Diego had gotten soft. That he’d grown accustomed to wasting time. The fact that it caught him by surprise was on him -- and no one else.
Which was why it was important to rectify that mistake.
With action.
With action now.
The call was frantic and pressing. A hostage situation at a shopping mall. There were scores of civilians inside, including children. Lots of children. The cops were badly positioned and ill prepared. They had already exchanged gunfire and one officer was down.
Diego listened, fist clenched and teeth gritted.
“We need backup! We need it now!”
There was a crackle, garbled over the radio as Diego held his breath.
“They’ve got explosives in there, maybe enough to take out the whole block, I don’t know.”
There was cross-chatter, and Diego’s vision started to tunnel.
“We need backup! If we’re going to save anyone, we need backup now.”
But the cops would never be enough.
Diego knew that.
He also knew that there was only one thing that would be enough.
And the world couldn’t afford to wait for them to get their acts together any longer.
-o-
It was a hasty meeting, but Diego overrode their objections ruthlessly. “Look, just listen!” he said, turning up the volume to the scanner. He had dragged them, one by one, into his room, thankful that none of them had been far. None of them were ever far because none of them were doing anything, but still. Diego would take it for now. “Listen!”
They fell silent as the dispatcher’s voice pitched over the static. “All units have responded.”
Another voice crackled. “It’s not enough!”
“Shit, call in the next town -- people off duty -- anything!” someone else pleaded. They sounded scared.
There was gunfire in the background.
“This is happening,” Diego said, looking at his siblings, each one in turn. “This is happening right now in our town. This is happening while we do nothing.”
They stared back at him. Vanya looked horrified; Allison was pale. Five pursed his lips, and Klaus’s eyes were wide. Ben chewed his lip while Luther looked earnest.
“Another man down! They must have a dozen guys! I’ve never seen anything like it!”
There was a clatter of sound, overlapping voices.
“We have to act. If we move now, we can still get there in time to save lives,” Diego said.
The scream over the radio was loud enough to buz.
Vanya closed her eyes.
“But we can’t keep sitting around, doing nothing,” Diego said. He gestured at the scanner. “This isn’t about us anymore!”
It was more than compelling.
It was irrefutable.
His siblings, for all that they were annoying, self righteous pricks sometimes, were still trained to be heroes. They still wanted to do the right thing. This was unequivocal. They would see it now; they would see that Diego was right.
“But how?” Vanya asked, voice almost breathless with the shock. “I have minimal combat training.”
“It’s not rocket science,” Diego told her. “You take out people who are bad. End of story.”
“But going in recklessly like that,” Allison said as she shook her head. “It could cause more harm than good. If we interfere, we might just create chaos.”
“Or we could save lives,” Diego said. He scoffed, gesturing to the scanner again. “This is already chaos.”
“And we have no established relationships with law enforcement,” Luther said. “We’re putting the Academy at risk.”
“So what? We’re worried about red tape when people are dying?” Diego asked.
There was more gunfire over the radio.
Five shook his head as well. “Luther’s right, though,” he said. “And even if we did intervene, the situation is so far advanced that we’re not likely to change the outcome. A rough estimate of the odds suggests that this is already over. It’s going to resolve soon with or without us.”
“But we can resolve it better!” Diego said, and he was practically pleading now. “Don’t you see that? Doesn’t anyone see that?”
They shifted, his siblings, uncomfortably from foot to foot. Klaus actually winced like it hurt. “But if we’re not ready...I mean, I’ve already fought in a war I wasn’t trained for and that went, like, horribly. I don’t know if doing it again is wise.”
Diego felt his temper flaring now. “I’ll tell you what’s wise. It’s wise to stop people from dying when you have the chance. It’s wise to take action when you’re able. It’s wise to do the right thing, your own damn fears and reservations aside.”
It was his rallying call. It was a good one, too. The best one he had, at any rate. Only a heartless bastard would refuse him, not with the sounds of violence spilling over the radio waves.
At least, that was what Diego believed.
When no one moved to act, he nearly froze.
And when Ben opened his mouth to speak, Diego felt something clench so tight inside his chest that he might have been having a heart attack.
“Going now would be a danger. To us and to everyone there,” he said. “We’re not God. If we take up this responsibility, if we take it upon ourselves again, then we need to accept that we’re not omnipotent. We’re not omniscient. And mostly, we’re just not ready.”
It was good that it was Ben who said it.
Ben was the one sibling Diego couldn’t hit.
Not because Diego was above hitting someone smart and soft spoken. But mostly because Ben was already dead. Diego knew nothing could be gained from throwing that punch.
Even if his fingers itched to let it fly.
“And how many people need to die because we’re not ready?” Diego asked. “Hm? How many lives are we going to let slip through our fingers because we’re not ready? Because we need to practice our violin or sort out our custody agreements? Because we need to learn how to live without drugs or need to finish some idiotic equation? Because we’re already dead? Because we’re too busy living in the past to see that the here and now needs us?”
“Diego,” Luther said. “That’s not fair.”
“Your damn right,” he said, stalking toward the door. “For all the people who are dying today? None of this is fair at all.”
-o-
Diego got drunk.
Like, he got really drunk.
So drunk that he couldn’t quite remember his name, and that wasn’t nearly drunk enough. He stumbled back home, only partially coherent, and he try to sleep but the police scanner was still on. Over the crackles he couldn’t quite discern, his frustration mounted. In anger, he yanked the device from thet outlet and slammed it against the wall. He usually liked precision in his kills, but seeing the wild destruction was oddly gratifying.
He’d have regrets in the morning, no doubt.
He just wished that a smashed police scanner would be the worst of it.
-o-
It wasn’t.
Diego read the newspaper as he drank black coffee to settle his sour stomach. It was late -- already 10 AM -- and his siblings were already up and doing whatever shit suited them. This was well enough, because Diego might have actually tried to kill them if they were in the room when he read the details.
The mall didn’t collapse, which meant that the damage was contained, but that didn’t make it limited. No, multiple, smaller charges were set off inside, leaving 34 of 78 hostages dead. 11 were still missing. The charges were set to continue exploding during rescue operations, and 6 first responders were killed and 11 more were critically injured.
Worse, while 9 domestic terrorists were killed in the plot, an unknown number escaped. The police reports tried to be optimistic about this, suggesting that the operation included no more than a dozen perpetrators at most, but even the admission that three people of this caliber and mindset were still out there, ready to cause more havoc was problematic.
In short, it was the worst disaster in the city since, well, ever. It made the bank robberies of their youth look like child’s play. It even made Five’s dalliances with the Commission seem surprisingly contained. The only thing it paled to was the apocalypse, but the family had come together to stop that from happening.
That was the thing, wasn’t it?
They had worked together to avert the apocalypse.
They had sat on their asses in this stupid house and watched as 40 innocent people died in a pointless and preventable way. It wasn’t sad like the news reports said. It wasn’t tragic; it wasn’t unsettling.
It was the stupidest things Diego had ever heard of in his entire life. He wasn’t sad. He was pissed off. Because the Umbrella Academy could have stopped it.
They should have stopped it.
But they sat here at home. Biding their time because they weren’t ready.
You know who else wasn’t ready?
40 people who died yesterday.
Diego threw the paper in his trash and pushed his breakfast away from him with a clatter. To say he’d lost his appetite would be an understatement.
He’d lost his appetite for food, sure.
And he was pretty sure he was losing his appetite for the Umbrella Academy with every passing second.
-o-
He was still sulking in the kitchen, curving knives at the ceiling with considerable force, when Allison came in about an hour later. Diego, in truth, had probably been waiting for someone to find him like this. He’d been too pissed off to move, and it seemed like an apt enough way to demonstrate just how serious he thought the situation was.
At least, that had been his rationale.
Diego also didn’t know what the hell else to do, so sulking had seemed like the only option at the moment.
Allison crossed over to the fridge, eyeing him with a cursory curiosity.
Diego threw another knife at the ceiling, and she glanced up as it thumped into the exposed wood.
She looked back at him, closing the door with a bottle of water in hand.
“When the rest of us picked hobbies, most of us wanted to challenge ourselves,” she said, a little wry. “I’m pretty sure you’ve been throwing knives since we were kids. You probably don’t need the practice.”
Diego scoffed. “What’s it matter, right? It’s not like we have anything else to do.”
Allison wasn’t stupid. She took the hint. “You saw the reports?”
“That 40 people died yesterday?” Diego said. “Needlessly and senselessly? While you and our other siblings were...what did you say? Challenging yourselves?”
She drew a long breath. “Diego, that’s not fair--”
“No, no,” he said. “Of course not. All that we’ve been through, we can’t possibly be expected to live up to our actual potential. So, I’m sure you won’t mind if I continue throwing knives while you seek personal growth.”
She wasn’t easily intimidated. At Number Three, Allison had always held her own. Now as much as ever. “You are always so pissed off about rules and regulations, and I get it, I do, but sometimes doing things the right way really does pay off.”
“For who?” Diego said. “Not for those 40 people.”
“You don’t even know that,” she said. “If we had charged in there, there is no way to predict what might have happened. Most of us haven’t worked in that context in more than a decade -- some, not at all. We don’t know the full extent of what we can do on our own much less in a group.”
“That’s bullshit, Allison,” Diego said with a scowl. “We worked as a group just fine when we saved the world.”
“Did we?” she asked. “Because we did cause the apocalypse, if you’ll remember. We literally had to do it all again in order to get it right because we didn’t know what we were doing.”
Diego shook his head, stubborn. “But it worked out.”
“With time travel,” she said. “And we all know that can’t be our default solution, even if Five were capable of it all the time.”
“So we find another way,” Diego said. “We do what we have to do. That’s how it is. We can’t sit around doing nothing!”
“But we’re not,” she reasoned. She shook her head, eyebrows furrowed. “We’re learning who we are. And that’s the only way we’ll know what we’re capable of.”
“And people are dying in the meantime,” Diego countered. The dissatisfaction roiled in his gut. “I can’t sit here and watch people die.”
“You can’t save everyone, Diego,” she said.
“But I want to save someone,” he said back.
She sighed, a little more drawn out this time. “You think your worth is determined by palpable results. You always have. You think it’s about coming first, kill counts, bad guys turned into the cops.”
He gave her an incredulous shrug. “Those things matter.”
“And so does knowing yourself. Like really knowing yourself,” she said. “Trust me. I’ve spent so much time telling lies that I started to believe some of them. It’s taken all this -- this time with family -- to sort out what’s real. I can control the world, but it’s taken a lot of growth to realize that I probably shouldn’t.”
“This isn’t the same thing,” Diego said. “This is about advancing your career or hoodwinking some poor guy into shacking up with you. This is about saving people.”
She puckered her mouth a little, but kept hold of her disdain. They never did get along all that well, he and Allison. He thought her powers were a shortcut; she thought his were underwhelming. Diego had no interest in saying who was right or wrong about that -- just who was right and wrong about this.
“The point is that you have to think, you have to plan, you have to know,” she said. “Because actions have consequences, consequences we don’t expect.”
“But if you do things right the first time, those consequences are good,” he said. He shook his head, lip curling. “I’m not you, Allison. I’m not any of you in this family.”
Allison lifted her shoulder in a cool shrug. “You’re not,” she agreed. “But we’re learning from our mistakes. We’re building a new future the right way. The question is, what the hell are you doing besides throwing knives and sulking in the kitchen?”
She turned, brushing out the door without a look back.
She had a point, maybe.
Not the point she wanted, though.
What the hell was he doing?
Sulking? Throwing knives? Why?
Because he couldn’t do anything about it?
That was the thing, though. He could.
Diego didn’t have to sit around and wait for his siblings. Diego didn’t have to wait around for anyone. He was an adult. More than that, he was a fully trained superhero and he could do whatever the hell he wanted. He didn’t need his family’s approval. The fact that he wanted it was the only thing holding him back.
Diego pocketed his last knife, getting to his feet.
His siblings had made their choice.
Now, it was time for Diego to make his.
-o-
Beaman, fortunately, wasn’t a guy with an active social life. When Diego suggested lunch, Beaman jumped at the opportunity, and when he saw the detective in person, it was pretty clear why.
Beaman was a mess. He looked exhausted; he looked rent.
“Tough going?” Diego asked, almost bracing for the inevitable answer.
Beaman took a drink of his water, shaking his head wearily. “This is the first time I’ve been able to sit down since the incident yesterday,” he said. He hesitated, looking at Diego. “I assume you heard?”
Diego gritted his teeth and nodded curtly. “Hostage situation. Looked bad.”
“It was worse,” Beaman said. He glanced around, then he leaned forward. “We’ve kept a lot of it from the press.”
Diego leaned closer to him in turn. “Oh?”
“I shouldn’t say anything--”
“It’s me,” Diego assured him. “Who am I going to tell?”
Beaman sighed. “These guys aren’t your typical terrorists. The things they did. I haven’t heard of anything like it. It sounds like the stuff you did with your family, the stuff from comic books.”
“Whoa,” Diego said. “You’re saying they have powers?”
Beaman shook his head. “I have no idea, okay? There’s just stuff we can’t explain, stuff that doesn’t make any sense.”
“Like what?”
With a sigh, Beaman sat back. “I don’t know. I really don’t,” he said. “Maybe it’s just the scale -- the sheer amount of organization they had. Honestly, I don’t know why they didn’t just blow the whole thing. They could have taken out a full city block if they wanted. We’re trying to pitch this like we did something to stop them, but they chose to stop. It’s like it’s just getting started or something.”
Diego frowned at the prospect. “Do you have any leads?”
“No, nothing,” Beaman said. “Just a lot of empty guns, shrapnel, a few bulletproof vests, some extra hand grenades and an umbrella rigged to explode.”
“An umbrella?” Diego said, his stomach going cold.
“They booby trapped everything,” Beaman said. “And it’s not the official story, but it’s just a matter of time before they strike again. And I swear to God, I have no idea what I’m going to do.”
Diego nodded in consolation. He listened and bought Beaman lunch before sending him back on duty with a reassuring clap on the shoulder.
Beaman didn’t know what to do.
But Diego sure as hell did.
-o-
This time, it was no coincidence. It wasn’t a whim. Diego went straight to the surplus store and bought the best damn police scanner he could find. He brought it home and hooked it up in his wardrobe, snaking the antenna through a hole he drilled in the back to sit out toward the fire escape to maximize his coverage.
His siblings went about their business. They ate meals and told stories and played games.
Diego locked himself in his bedroom, laid out his gear in his closet, sharpened his knives and listened.
-o-
He didn’t have to wait long.
Why would he? This was a city; he’d lived here long enough. He knew there was crime. It was just a matter of picking his moment.
He would like to say that he was being practical, starting small. He’d like to say that he was testing the waters, easing himself back into things. That made it sound all mature and shit.
But no.
Diego took the first call that involved a weapon.
A gas station robbery was small potatoes compared to what he knew he was capable of. Besides, big jobs, little jobs -- that was the kind of distinction that the old man would make, that Luther would make. Luther was too big picture. He was so long term. It was boring as hell, and it shortchanged people in the here and now. Diego wasn’t playing by those rules anymore. He hated that he had at all.
In short, Diego had waited long enough.
He wasn’t going to wait another second more.
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
A/N: This fic got away from me in a serious way. But here it is, filling my vehicle collision square for hc_bingo. Woefully unbeta’ed. Set post season one with lots of random speculation that is nonsensical.
Summary: Diego isn’t totally sure he’s ready to be a Hargreeves after all.
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-
Two months after coming back to the present and saving the world, Diego called a family meeting. They had been through a lot together, and it took some time to acclimatize themselves to the changed reality which they had created. With their diligence in the past, Vanya’s powers were fully realized and she was an integrated and accepted member of the Umbrella Academy. They had taken her to a tattoo parlor to get the official tattoo, just to make sure she knew it.
Other changes were just as pronounced. By timing their trip properly, thanks to Five’s diligence, they were able to save the mansion and spare Pogo and Mom. Ben was still dead, but with Klaus’ burgeoning powers, he was able to manifest almost all the time.
So, yeah, that shit took some time.
But after two months, Diego thought they were making progress. In fact, he was starting to feel the urge to do more.
As in, the job.
He had left the Academy, but he’d never stopped doing the job. He hated his old man -- hated him -- but the job had always been good. Now that they were united and settled, Diego could think of no valid reason not to get back to it.
His siblings, however, had not seemed to think of it at all. Two months and they were playing board games, buying cell phone plans and updating the mansion with wireless. They were decorating their rooms and cooking dinners and grinding coffee beans. Diego gave them a bunch of hints, but when no one seemed to take him up on his suggestion to start training in earnest again, he decided that he had to approach it more formally.
So, he called the meeting, made up his list of reasons, and set up the group in the living room. He explained things simply, explicitly and clearly and then left it open for questions. He was met with silence for a span of about three minutes. Allison chewed her lip, legs cross as she sat on the chair. Luther was nearby, looking truly vexed. Perched on a bar stool, Klaus looked like he’d forgotten why he was there. Five was watching him intently from the couch with Ben perched on a cushion nearby placidly. Vanya was the last figure on the couch, and she fiddled with the hem of her shirt anxiously.
“No response?” Diego asked. “Really? No one has an opinion about starting up the Umbrella Academy again?”
“Well, we all want the Umbrella Academy,” Luther said.
“Good,” Diego said. “Then we need to start organizing--”
Luther hemmed. He’s big, strong, loyal and pathetically indecisive sometimes.
Diego fell silent, his gut twisting. He was not as big, not quite as strong, loyal in his own way and never indecisive. It was one reason why he’d had so much trouble as one of the team. He’d never exactly forgotten that, but the last two months had been crazy enough to put it at the back of his memory. Luther -- and the others -- were rapidly bringing that fact back to the forefront.
“It’s just--” Luther started again.
At this point, Diego’s patience was nearly shot. Whatever bullshit was about to come his way, he wanted to get it done with -- and quickly. “It’s just what?”
“I just don’t think we’re ready for a job,” Luther said. He was this close to wringing his hands together as he spoke. “I’m sure you can all understand.”
Diego stared at him, eyebrows up. He didn’t understand. The words were simple, sure, but the logic just didn’t make sense.
At all.
After all this, after everything.
How could they not be ready?
Seven superpowered siblings, all on the same page for the first time ever. Sure, one of them was still technically dead, and the other had believed she was normal until about two months ago, and one is still recovering from massive throat injuries, and another is barely two months sober, and there’s another who is a trained assassin who looks 13 but come on.
They’d saved the world.
They’d saved their family.
They had to be ready.
With his dumbfounded silence, Allison cleared her throat “We need more time to get our bearings,” she said, her voice still hoarse. She didn’t wear a bandage anymore, but her scarves were often creatively placed to minimize the visual damage. She smiled gently at Vanya. “We just got each other back.”
Vanya smiled back. “I have to agree,” she said. “I mean, don’t get me wrong -- I’m so glad to be a part of this now. It’s my dream come true. But I still have a long way to go with my powers.”
Diego’s eyes were probably starting to bug a little. It wasn’t that anything they were saying wasn’t true, it was just -- what the hell was the context. It was ironic that Allison was being trigger shy now when she’d been the one to pull the trigger and stop Vanya in the first place. And, of course Diego understood Vanya’s hesitations. There was no way she was ready to be in the field for the time being. She was stabilized, and she had learned how to not destroy everything around her, but that wasn’t exactly an indication that she was field worthy.
The thing was, none of those things meant that the Academy should still be in shutdown mode. If anything, those facts meant that they needed to start getting things together -- now. They were wasting time, and they would all just get sloppy if it went on.
Sloppy or crazy.
Diego wasn’t going to be picky about that distinction right now.
“And I’m worried about the pressure, you know?” Klaus asked. He furrowed his brow. “This is the longest I’ve been sober since I was, well, 13, and I want to make sure that I’ve got it down before we go and start adding combat to the mix.”
Next to him, Ben nodded.
Klaus nodded with him. “And Ben agrees.”
“We can see him now,” Luther reminded him, only a touch exasperated. “We have been for the past two months.”
“Right, right,” Klaus said, flitting his hand through the air. “That’s still weird to me. Is it weird to anyone else? Time travel? Saving the world? My powerful ability to manifest the dead?”
Five rolled his eyes, and Diego dared to feel hopeful despite the lack of endorsement from Klaus and Ben. Klaus had become more of an asset in the field, but it was still Klaus. He wasn’t geared to think of things in terms of jobs. And Ben, being dead, likely had mixed feelings about these things and whatever, that was to be expected.
But, Diego told himself, not all hope was lost because Five.
Five still had a say, and Five, for all that he was a total asshole, was the convincing sort. Better still, of all his siblings, Five was the most pragmatic. He was also the most tactile. More than that, he was a murderous bastard. He would surely point out the obvious flaws in Luther’s lack of logic. The oldest and youngest member of the Umbrella Academy had been even more restless than Diego these last two months. Diego knew that he would want to get back to work.
He would certainly agree with Diego.
“We’re hardly a cohesive unit,” Five said. “We need to focus a lot more on our training before we’re going to be an effective team. If we went out right now, as a group, we would likely end up getting one of us killed. Seeing as we just worked hard to avoid that fact, I agree with the others. We need time.”
Shit. The bastard sided with Luther? Now? Of all times? Diego resisted the urge to start throwing knives (at the walls, just to make a point -- really), and he settled for balling his fists instead.
Naturally, Luther looked pleased. The bastard always looked pleased when people agreed with him. He was a needy son of a bitch. Always in need of approval. He looked at Diego. He probably wasn’t trying to be smug, but he looked that way to Diego. “The family agrees,” he said, matter of fact. “I completely agree with you that we want the Umbrella Academy to be an effective crime fighting unit, but I don’t think we’re there yet.”
Diego gaped for a second. He couldn’t help himself. Then, he scoffed. “I literally laid out ten points why we should get back out there, and you guys all want to ignore that? I called this family meeting. And not one of you can see my point?”
“It’s just too soon,” Ben said, as the conclusive voice of what they wanted to be reason. “It would be irresponsible.”
Diego couldn’t believe his ears. It was like a bad nightmare. The worst nightmare. It was a pact of total and complete inaction. “I can’t believe this,” he said. “We’re a room full of people with the power to save the world. And we’re choosing to sit on our asses and, what? Twiddle our thumbs? We have a responsibility.”
Luther nodded earnestly. “We do. But that responsibility must be used properly. If we got out now, it’s like a gun without the safety off. We could hurt people. We’re not ready.”
“That’s a line -- and it’s bullshit,” Diego said. “We weren’t ready for anything, and we still saved the world.”
“Yeah, after nearly destroying it,” Luther said.
“Family has to come first,” Allison said.
Klaus made a sympathetic face. “That did work for us last time.”
“And we did have to rely on time travel to get it right last time,” Five said with a keen wince. “That’s not a reliable backup on every mission.”
“We keep training, keep working,” Ben said.
Vanya smiled, like it was all going to be okay. “And we’ll get there. As a family.”
Well, shit, then, Diego thought.
So much for that.
-o-
Diego had called the meeting, and he was also the first to leave. Maybe that was appropriate; maybe he was being dramatic. All he knew was that he had to get the hell out of that room before it suffocated him.
In a haze, he made his way through the mansion, and he was back in his bedroom before he even realized where he was going. Exhaling, he gritted his teeth together. With stiff movements, he closed the door behind him.
This feeling, this gnawing in the pit of his stomach. He knew this feeling.
Shit, he had grown up with this feeling.
Like he couldn’t move, couldn’t act, couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe. Growing up, his father’s rules had constricted him to the point of rebellion, and when he’d left at age 18, it had been such a relief. It didn’t matter if he lived in a shit-hole. It didn’t matter if he worked a trivial job to make ends meet. It was his life, damn it. He would do whatever he wanted with it, thank you very much.
But here he was.
Back in the mansion.
Feeling the same way all over again.
The tension building in his shoulder, Diego flopped down onto the bed and drew one of his knives. It was a reflex for him. He played with knives the way most people bit their names or doodled on paper. It was a way to stay calm, a way to think.
The problem was that the more he thought, the less calm he felt.
The whole point of the Umbrella Academy was to save people. Diego had hated his old man -- he loathed him -- but the idea had been sound. Diego had resented the heartlessness, the nonstop pushing, the built-in competition -- but he had never resented the skills his father had given him. He had never resented the purpose.
That was why he had been the only one fighting for people in the last few years. Even Luther, Dad’s loyal oversized lapdog, had been wasting his time on the moon. Diego was the one who had taken it seriously. Diego was the one who had accepted his role as a hero.
Just when he thought they were all on the same page--
Shit.
Diego threw the knife at the wall. He didn’t use his powers to guide it and frowned when it landed short of its intended mark. Frustrated, he pulled out another knife from its sheath, twirling it in his deft fingers.
He loved his family. Okay? He could admit it; he loved them. He would do anything for them -- he had done everything for them. He had no regrets about sticking with them, about working with them to save the world -- and each other. Because okay, fine, whatever. He wanted Luther to have a backbone and not be Dad’s pathetic lackey. He wanted Allison to get her daughter back and be a better mother. He wanted Klaus to stay sober, though sanity was probably always going to be elusive. And he wanted Five to actually stop acting like the murderous little asshole he was. In a perfect world, he wanted Ben to be alive, but he wanted him to be present and active. Even Vanya -- who still had plenty of shit to account for, as far as Diego was concerned -- but even Vanya, he wanted to be happy, healthy and, you know, not a threat to the world.
That was why he’d come back. Good reasons. All of them. Reasons he didn’t regret; reasons he’d act on again. He couldn’t forget that; he wouldn’t
But he also couldn’t forget why he’d left in the first place.
He threw the second knife. It went high and Diego scowled.
He wouldn’t forget.
Valid reasons for coming back didn’t negate his valid reasons for leaving. He thought back to his conversation with Luther at the library. He had told Luther that he left home because that was what you did when you were 18. It had been a way to tell Luther that leaving wasn’t totally personal -- while also insinuating that his bigger brother had yet to grow up himself.
But it wasn’t just for teenagers. It wasn’t just that 18 year olds went off to find themselves. It was that you left to make your own life. And then, hard as it seemed, you lived it. That was what adults did. Normal people grew up and left their family behind. It didn’t mean they didn’t love their families. It just meant that they were ready and able to do their own thing.
At 18, Diego had been more than ready.
Maybe he was still ready.
He chewed his lip, pausing with the knife in his hands. Was all this push to restart the Academy -- was it simply Diego’s way of self actualizing? Was he chafing at the constraints he didn’t have to live by? Was he trying to reconcile the life his family wanted to live with the one he knew he was meant to live? And if those things couldn’t be reconciled, what would Diego do? Would he compromise? Would he settle?
For the rest of his life?
And if he left, would he be okay being on the outside?
Shit.
Diego threw the third knife, watching it land right on target.
His stomach flipped uneasily.
This had been a hell of a lot easier when he was on his own.
-o-
Diego didn’t make a decision that night.
In fact, that night he went to a dive bar, got a few drinks and texted with Beaman. It was times like this that he missed Patch quite keenly. He had hoped that fixing the timeline would save her, but Five had been able to account for every variable. For what it was worth, Five had told him he was sorry.
Diego scoffed, nursing his last beer. He wasn’t drunk -- no way, no how, that wasn’t how he rolled -- but he was more buzzed than he usually allowed himself. Usually he thought of himself like a cop on duty -- without any off hours.
That was why Beaman was such a good choice. He wouldn’t say they were friends, but ever since Beaman had cleared Diego’s name for murder, they had been more friendly than before.
Also, Diego was lonely as hell and he didn’t have anyone else to talk to.
Any good cases? Diego texted after a few mindless exchanges about baseball, beer brands and knife sharpening.
Beaman’s reply was fast; the dude was probably still at work. You know I can’t tell you that.
Diego rolled his eyes as he typed out a reply. I’ve had a few beers. It’s not like I’m going to come out and join you.
All the more reason not to. It’d be teasing. I know how much you like it.
Diego smiled a little, feeling rueful. Beaman got it.
He put his phone down and ordered another drink.
If a random cop could get it, then why the hell couldn’t his family?
-o-
Diego didn’t make a decision the next day, either.
Or the day after that.
In fact, nearly a week went by and Diego hadn’t made a single decision. Normally he hated that shit, being indecisive. He hated waffling and being unsure. There was no point to it.
But then, there wasn’t much point to his life right now.
He worked out, trained hard and kept up his skills. He spent the appropriate time with his siblings, and for what?
Seriously, for what?
Luther ignored his suggestions for a security upgrade. Allison vetoed the use of cameras in the hallways upstairs. Klaus didn’t want to start exercising. Five refused to participate in agility drills, and when he suggested that Ben try to start throwing knives, his dead brother laughed at him. Vanya listened to his suggestions at least, but then she was self deprecating and apologetic before thanking Diego for understanding.
Diego didn’t understand, though.
Not any of it.
The decision loomed bigger than ever.
-o-
Shortly after, Diego set up a lunch with Beaman. It had been Beaman’s idea, but Diego’s increased text volume had probably spurred it on. At any rate, Diego was only too eager to say yes. He needed more reasons to get out of the damn house.
And he needed to interact with people who weren’t crazy.
Beaman was there when Diego arrived, and he tried not to look too excited when he sat down in the chair across from him. Beaman was still going over the menu, drinking a soda as he greeted Diego.
“Hey, man,” the cop said. “You made it.”
“Of course,” Diego said, picking up his own menu. “Been too long.”
Beaman gave him a funny look. “Not that long.”
Diego caught himself before retorting. It had been longer for him. For Beaman, who had not experienced time travel, it probably hadn’t seemed so weird. His name had officially been dropped from the investigation into Patch’s murder only a month ago. “Well, it feels long,” he said, and that much was true. That much was very, very true.
Beaman smiled apologetically. “I kept thinking we should get together, but the time never seemed right. Even though you weren’t a suspect anymore….”
He didn’t finish; it was clear that he wasn’t sure what he wanted to say.
Awkward, Diego looked at the menu, pretending to look at the selections for burgers and sandwiches. He read several descriptions, but none of them seemed to sink it. He turned his eyes back to Beaman. “How’s the investigation, by the way?” he asked. He shrugged, confidence wavering. “Into Patch’s death?”
He wasn’t sure why he wanted to know. Maybe he felt guilty; he knew that Beaman wouldn’t find a suspect, not when it was attributed to time traveling assassins. It was possible that Hazel was out there somewhere, but Diego didn’t have the means to hunt down a perp like that.
Or maybe it was just because he wanted to talk about Patch. All he’d been through, sometimes it was easy to feel like his life before the apocalypse hadn’t existed. He couldn’t let that happen; he had to remember Patch.
Beaman, across from him, winced. “Not the best,” he admitted. “The gun we recovered cleared you, but it gave us nothing else to go on. We’ve collected plenty of DNA evidence, and I’ve scoured as many databases as I can think of, but there’s not a match anywhere.”
Anywhere wasn’t the problem. Any time, however…
Diego cleared his throat. “Still,” he said. “It’s good to know you’re there, honoring her memory.”
It was Beaman’s turn to smile slightly. “I just wish it wasn’t so damn hard.”
Apparently, Diego wasn’t the only one struggling in this apocalypse diverted world. It would be wrong to say that Diego took comfort in that fact, but he could appreciate a touch of solidarity when the his family seemed to out of step with him. “You’re doing it, though,” he said, a note of encouragement in his voice. “And not just her case -- all of them. You’re doing the hard stuff that no one else wants to do.”
“That’s awfully idealistic for a guy who gave a finger to his police academy instructor on his way out of the door,” Beaman quipped.
Diego did not blush, not even if Beaman had a point. Diego had no patience for idiots.
Which begged the question how he was still tolerating his family after two months.
“I forget sometimes,” Diego admitted. “But I think of her, and it helps.”
Beaman nodded in resigned agreement. “Still. It’s bad out there right now. We don’t have enough cops, not when the world seems to be going to hell. I won’t even tell you how many unsolved murder cases we have right now. It’s too depressing.”
Diego had the know about Patch, but what Beaman was saying now was genuine news to him. “Crime rates are going up?”
“The captain keeps saying it’s just an aberration -- some temporary spike,” he said. “But this feels different, you know? Like something has changed. Ever since her death, nothing’s the same.”
Beaman was putting into words what Diego had been feeling. More than that, he was talking actually facts. While Diego was biding his time with the rest of his family, things were going to hell on the outside.
This time, Diego did feel guilty. “You’re a good cop. There are lots of good cops. You got this.”
Beaman snorted sadly. “I wish. There aren’t as many of us as there used to be, it seems. Hell, there are days when I even miss you hanging around with your police radio.”
He was joking, of course.
Diego forced himself to smile, picking up his menu again. “Well, let me get you lunch at least.”
“Oh, no, I couldn’t--”
“You can,” Diego said. “My dad died, remember? The old dude was a bastard, but he was loaded. The inheritance was better than I anticipated.”
Beaman looked a little impressed. It was no secret to anyone who had ever met Diego that there was no love for the old man, so Beaman didn’t waste his time with condolences. Instead, he nodded. “Well, if you’re buying, then I should look at the steaks.”
“Hell, go for the lobster,” Diego said.
Surprised, Beaman hesitated.
“Trust me,” Diego said easily. “It’s the least I can do.”
-o-
The problem was that it wasn’t an exaggeration.
Buying Beaman a nice lunch was truly about the very least that Diego could do. The most he could do was get off his ass and head back in the field He could start chasing cases; he could go the places cops couldn’t. He and Beaman could work out a system; Diego would be careful. They could merge the underground world and the straight and narrow for results that Patch wouldn’t have loved.
At a cost, however.
Doing that would require giving up on the Academy.
Not that there was much to the Academy right now.
That wasn’t for a lack of trying on Diego’s part, either. He went on a spending spree and bought a whole host of updated supplies for the security system, but no one seemed interested in helping him install them. He came up with tailored training plans in an effort to appeal more to each of his siblings, but no one gave them more than a cursory glance before promising they would get to it soon. His research into new materials for updated uniforms was met with a tepid response, and when he suggested hiring a tailor for measurements, everyone looked at him like he was insane. Allison was too busy with Claire. Klaus was too busy being sober. Five was too busy scrawling equations that made no sense on the wall. Ben was too busy being dead. Vanya was too busy not being maligned. And Luther.
Well, Diego didn’t even want to start with Luther.
Of course, Luther was exactly where he needed to start. If anything was going to happen in this family, Diego had to concede that going through Number One was the only way to guarantee success. Not because Luther was the smartest or most perceptive -- he wasn’t, for the record, and everyone agreed with him on that on -- but because his siblings were idiots who didn’t care. They listened to Luther because Luther was Number One.
Diego hated his dad for that, more than he hated him for just about anything else. That they should all be reliant on Luther seemed horribly misguided not to mention wholly unfair. It was what it was, however, and Diego couldn’t afford to be picky at this point.
If he didn’t do something soon, he was going to lose his damn mind.
With this in mind, he approached his brother after breakfast one morning. He intended to be calm, reasonable and diplomatic. However, when standing face to face with his brother, he felt the resentment swell in his gut. Instead of asking if Luther had a minute to talk, he all but snarled, “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
Luther, for as big and weirdly bulky as he is, blinked large, doe eyes at Diego. “I’m going to go take a shower,” he said, almost as if he didn’t hear the malice in Diego’s voice. “Then I was thinking about going through a few more of Dad’s things, clear out what I can, file things that are important--”
Diego groaned. “Nothing of Dad’s is important. It’s all trash. You need to stop going over it.”
Luther frowned, looking offended now. “Your personal feelings aside, Dad was a genius. If we’re serious about rebuilding the Academy, we need his notes.”
Diego scoffed. “So we can see what not to do?”
Luther glared at him.
Diego shook his head, reminding himself of why he was here. “Actually, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about?”
“Your daddy issues?”
“No,” Diego said shortly. “Getting the Academy back together.”
Luther looked somewhat interested by that. “I have a lot of Dad’s notes--”
“No, not Dad’s way,” Diego said. “Our way. We need to stop going over the past. We need to be building the future.”
It was at this point that Luther seemed to realize this was a conversation they had had already.
More than once.
He sighed a little.
“Diego, I understand your point of view on this,” he said, like this was a script he’d been rehearsing. “But the Academy isn’t ready. Not individually. Not as a unit. We need time.”
Diego’s desire to be diplomatic was being strained. Unreasonably. “We’ve taken time. We take much more, and it’ll all be gone.”
Luther looked like he wanted to roll his eyes. “You’re being overly dramatic.”
“Am I?” Diego shot back. “Do I need to remind you how we just barely saved ourselves with time travel? I mean, I know Five pulled that shit off, but we can’t run every day of our lives like that. Sooner or later, we have to take the minutes as they come -- and stop thinking that we’re entitled to them.”
“I really think you’re being a little over the top about this.”
Diego obviously disagreed. In fact, he disagreed so vehemently that the insinuation was a self fulfilling prophecy. “I think I’ve been quite reasonable! I’ve given everyone time and space, and I’ve sat through pointless family meetings and listened to everyone’s little excuses about why they’re not ready yet. I’ve been to the family dinners. I’ve accepted the reasons why we can’t train yet. But sooner or later, it’s not time we need. It’s time we’re wasting.”
Luther, it seemed, was also giving up a little on diplomacy. “You need to relax, Diego.”
It was entirely the wrong thing to say. Diego did the opposite. Ire rising, he threw his arms out in indignation. “How can I? Everyone is relaxing! You’re supposed to be the leader of the Umbrella Academy, but what are you leading us to? We’re useless like this. We’re not any closer to helping people, and you stand there and don’t give a shit.”
Luther’s jaw clenched slightly. “Diego--”
He shook his head. “No, you know? Just no. Why can’t you just admit that I have a point for once? Is that so hard?”
By now, the politeness had drained from Luther’s complexion. His eyes hardened and he shook his head. “But you don’t!” You don’t have a point. You’re just mad because you want to put on a mask and run around with a police radio when the rest of us are trying to look at at a bigger picture.”
It was a line of reason that Diego probably should have seen coming. For all that he liked to think that Luther was an idiot, his brother did know how him. And he didn’t fair rough like Diego, but he knew how to land a punch when it mattered.
That was all well and good.
Because Diego had never been confronted with a fight that he willingly walked away from. He stepped forward, chest out and shoulders squared. “You’re full of shit. You’re just so happy to be back in charge, to be living out your destiny from dad -- you can’t accept any threats to that. You can’t accepts threats to your power. You’re picking up right where Dad left off.”
Luther’s brow darkened. “This isn’t about power.”
“Isn’t it, Number One?” Diego said snidely. “You love this shit, always have. You finally have the chance to be free now that Dad’s dead, but here you are, trying to resurrect it and trap the rest of us in it as well.”
“Oh, come on,” Luther said, clearly exasperated now. He wasn’t backing down, but Diego could see the tension building in his shoulders. “This has nothing to do with Dad. If it did, I’d agree with you and start training again, wouldn’t I?”
Diego shrugged coldly, refusing to acknowledge anything. “Power first. That was always Dad’s thing. Consolidate power so the rest fall into line,” he reasoned. “The very fact that I’m suggesting this is why you’ll never agree with it. You’re just like Dad.”
“I’m not!” Luther said, voice starting to boom.
“You are,” Diego said. He’d found a soft spot in Luther’s calm exterior, and if he couldn’t win this argument by calm rationalization, then what the hell. He didn’t have to win it at all. “I guess this means you’ve forgiven him for sending you to the moon for four long, miserable years without reason.”
This time, Luther did step forward, staring down at Diego menacingly. “And I guess this means that you’re still working through your inferiority complex.”
Diego was not a man of restraint, to say the very least. He was honorable, he was loyal, he was capable and smart -- but restraint?
Yeah, no.
Therefore, not even Luther was surprised with Diego’s fist smashed into his jaw. He landed another punch across the cheek before he pulled his hand away with a wince. Luther, for his part, scowled. He felt his jaw, working it momentarily, before simply looking annoyed. “This is about family. That’s why I’m doing this. It’s about family.”
“But what about me?” Diego demanded. “I’m family, too.”
“I know,” he said. “Then why don’t you start acting that way.”
“I am,” Diego insisted. “I want what’s best for us!”
“Without asking us?” Luther asked, raising a quizzical eyebrow. “You’re going to have to accept the fact that you’ve been outvoted. Plain and simple.”
Diego threw the first punch.
Luther landed the last one.
Shit, Diego thought as Luther stalked away. He really has always hated losing.
-o-
In his room, Diego was not licking his wounds. It wasn’t like that. It wasn’t some contest of wills; it wasn’t a test of power. Diego had lost, but not in a traditional sense. He had only lost in that he had admitted that there was no way to change his brother’s mind. That, as far as Diego was concerned, was on Luther -- not him.
The conversation had, in fact, put a certain amount of perspective on the situation. For all that his family talked about change and growth, not that much had actually changed. They were still six people -- seven, if you counted Ben -- and they all had their own motivations, agendas and issues. His siblings were all still trying to get their shit together, and Diego was ready to move forward.
It was like being 18 all over again.
After all, there was a reason he’d been the first to leave. Because he’d been the first to realize that he wanted more -- and that he would never find it with the Umbrella Academy. Sure, he’d probably a bit too dramatic in his departure, and no doubt, he’d closed too many doors and burned too many bridges. He was glad to have repaired some of those relationships, but that didn’t change the reality.
Diego was still ready to move on.
His siblings still weren’t.
His points were just as valid when he was 18 as they were now. True, the idea of working as a team had been appealing. The idea of what they could accomplish as the Academy was still compelling. Diego wanted to save lives; the Umbrella Academy would be more effective in the field than he would on his own.
But that required the Umbrella Academy to be in the field. And as of now, not one of his siblings seemed ready to make that leap.
What about the people suffering in the meantime?
What about the criminals getting away with shit?
What about right now?
How many days could Diego waste?
No, scratch that. How many days was Diego willing to waste?
That was the question, wasn’t it? This wasn’t something outside of Diego’s control. He knew that when he was 18 and struck out on his own. He had known it then, that sitting around and waiting for his family was not the only solution -- it wasn’t even the best solution.
Just because his feelings toward his family had changed, that didn’t mean that the reality of their dynamics had changed. He had done the right thing, he believed it completely, leaving when he did. Maybe it was still the right thing. Maybe the mistake was staying.
Luther had stayed and wasted four years on the moon on a fool’s errand.
Diego couldn’t do the same.
He wouldn’t.
That begged the question, then.
What was he going to do?
-o-
The answer was plain, but Diego wasn’t quite ready to embrace it. He’d been through too much shit with his siblings to walk out now, and at 18, he’d hated them. There was no hate now, only frustration, and he didn’t want to hurt them.
Well, he sort of wanted to throttle them, but he didn’t really want to hurt them.
Which meant Diego had to be sure.
His plan was to sit, reflect and be patient.
That lasted about a day. Then, while walking downtown, he passed an army surplus store. And wouldn’t you know? They had a police scanner right there, on sale, in the window.
Well, shit. Diego didn’t believe in fate, but he wasn’t about to let a good opportunity pass him by.
It was only fair, after all, if he was going to sit around and listen to what his siblings had to say -- that he should listen to what the world had to say, too.
-o-
Diego found comfort in the police scanner. He liked listening to the calls, relying on his memory to connect the call numbers to the crimes they represented. He made a mental tally of the number of incidents, from the mundane to the dangerous. He would sit, edge of his seat, while cruisers responded to an incident, and he stayed there, riveted, until it was sufficiently resolved.
While Diego spent his time with a police scanner, his siblings found comfort in other, less productive things. Sometimes he had to turn the scanner up over the sound of Vanya’s violin practice. Allison, when she wasn’t on the phone with Claire, started writing screenplays. Klaus was getting better at knitting, not that that was saying much. He was only capable of making scarfs, and they were still badly misshapen. Ben took to reorganizing the library when he was able to be corporeal, which served little purpose except to make a gigantic mess of the study. He had no idea what the hell Five was doing in his room all day, but he washed off the chalk periodically so he could start again, and Diego always heard him muttering when he happened by in that general vicinity.
Of all his siblings, Luther was always the most infuriating but, Diego had to concede, he was the only one among them with any actual thought in regards to the Academy. In his free time -- which, to be clear, was ample -- Luther continued to review Dad’s files. He said this was to compiled the best techniques for training, security and logistics, but every time Diego found him in the study, he was weepy eyed and sentimental. It was enough to make Diego not want to know.
When that got to be too much -- and it did, it was always too much -- Diego retreated back to his room, closed the door, turned on the scanner and threw knives at the wall.
He told himself he would know when it was time to act.
Sooner.
Not later.
Definitely sooner.
-o-
Still, it was unexpected just how soon it was.
Well, maybe not. It was probably more likely that Diego had gotten soft. That he’d grown accustomed to wasting time. The fact that it caught him by surprise was on him -- and no one else.
Which was why it was important to rectify that mistake.
With action.
With action now.
The call was frantic and pressing. A hostage situation at a shopping mall. There were scores of civilians inside, including children. Lots of children. The cops were badly positioned and ill prepared. They had already exchanged gunfire and one officer was down.
Diego listened, fist clenched and teeth gritted.
“We need backup! We need it now!”
There was a crackle, garbled over the radio as Diego held his breath.
“They’ve got explosives in there, maybe enough to take out the whole block, I don’t know.”
There was cross-chatter, and Diego’s vision started to tunnel.
“We need backup! If we’re going to save anyone, we need backup now.”
But the cops would never be enough.
Diego knew that.
He also knew that there was only one thing that would be enough.
And the world couldn’t afford to wait for them to get their acts together any longer.
-o-
It was a hasty meeting, but Diego overrode their objections ruthlessly. “Look, just listen!” he said, turning up the volume to the scanner. He had dragged them, one by one, into his room, thankful that none of them had been far. None of them were ever far because none of them were doing anything, but still. Diego would take it for now. “Listen!”
They fell silent as the dispatcher’s voice pitched over the static. “All units have responded.”
Another voice crackled. “It’s not enough!”
“Shit, call in the next town -- people off duty -- anything!” someone else pleaded. They sounded scared.
There was gunfire in the background.
“This is happening,” Diego said, looking at his siblings, each one in turn. “This is happening right now in our town. This is happening while we do nothing.”
They stared back at him. Vanya looked horrified; Allison was pale. Five pursed his lips, and Klaus’s eyes were wide. Ben chewed his lip while Luther looked earnest.
“Another man down! They must have a dozen guys! I’ve never seen anything like it!”
There was a clatter of sound, overlapping voices.
“We have to act. If we move now, we can still get there in time to save lives,” Diego said.
The scream over the radio was loud enough to buz.
Vanya closed her eyes.
“But we can’t keep sitting around, doing nothing,” Diego said. He gestured at the scanner. “This isn’t about us anymore!”
It was more than compelling.
It was irrefutable.
His siblings, for all that they were annoying, self righteous pricks sometimes, were still trained to be heroes. They still wanted to do the right thing. This was unequivocal. They would see it now; they would see that Diego was right.
“But how?” Vanya asked, voice almost breathless with the shock. “I have minimal combat training.”
“It’s not rocket science,” Diego told her. “You take out people who are bad. End of story.”
“But going in recklessly like that,” Allison said as she shook her head. “It could cause more harm than good. If we interfere, we might just create chaos.”
“Or we could save lives,” Diego said. He scoffed, gesturing to the scanner again. “This is already chaos.”
“And we have no established relationships with law enforcement,” Luther said. “We’re putting the Academy at risk.”
“So what? We’re worried about red tape when people are dying?” Diego asked.
There was more gunfire over the radio.
Five shook his head as well. “Luther’s right, though,” he said. “And even if we did intervene, the situation is so far advanced that we’re not likely to change the outcome. A rough estimate of the odds suggests that this is already over. It’s going to resolve soon with or without us.”
“But we can resolve it better!” Diego said, and he was practically pleading now. “Don’t you see that? Doesn’t anyone see that?”
They shifted, his siblings, uncomfortably from foot to foot. Klaus actually winced like it hurt. “But if we’re not ready...I mean, I’ve already fought in a war I wasn’t trained for and that went, like, horribly. I don’t know if doing it again is wise.”
Diego felt his temper flaring now. “I’ll tell you what’s wise. It’s wise to stop people from dying when you have the chance. It’s wise to take action when you’re able. It’s wise to do the right thing, your own damn fears and reservations aside.”
It was his rallying call. It was a good one, too. The best one he had, at any rate. Only a heartless bastard would refuse him, not with the sounds of violence spilling over the radio waves.
At least, that was what Diego believed.
When no one moved to act, he nearly froze.
And when Ben opened his mouth to speak, Diego felt something clench so tight inside his chest that he might have been having a heart attack.
“Going now would be a danger. To us and to everyone there,” he said. “We’re not God. If we take up this responsibility, if we take it upon ourselves again, then we need to accept that we’re not omnipotent. We’re not omniscient. And mostly, we’re just not ready.”
It was good that it was Ben who said it.
Ben was the one sibling Diego couldn’t hit.
Not because Diego was above hitting someone smart and soft spoken. But mostly because Ben was already dead. Diego knew nothing could be gained from throwing that punch.
Even if his fingers itched to let it fly.
“And how many people need to die because we’re not ready?” Diego asked. “Hm? How many lives are we going to let slip through our fingers because we’re not ready? Because we need to practice our violin or sort out our custody agreements? Because we need to learn how to live without drugs or need to finish some idiotic equation? Because we’re already dead? Because we’re too busy living in the past to see that the here and now needs us?”
“Diego,” Luther said. “That’s not fair.”
“Your damn right,” he said, stalking toward the door. “For all the people who are dying today? None of this is fair at all.”
-o-
Diego got drunk.
Like, he got really drunk.
So drunk that he couldn’t quite remember his name, and that wasn’t nearly drunk enough. He stumbled back home, only partially coherent, and he try to sleep but the police scanner was still on. Over the crackles he couldn’t quite discern, his frustration mounted. In anger, he yanked the device from thet outlet and slammed it against the wall. He usually liked precision in his kills, but seeing the wild destruction was oddly gratifying.
He’d have regrets in the morning, no doubt.
He just wished that a smashed police scanner would be the worst of it.
-o-
It wasn’t.
Diego read the newspaper as he drank black coffee to settle his sour stomach. It was late -- already 10 AM -- and his siblings were already up and doing whatever shit suited them. This was well enough, because Diego might have actually tried to kill them if they were in the room when he read the details.
The mall didn’t collapse, which meant that the damage was contained, but that didn’t make it limited. No, multiple, smaller charges were set off inside, leaving 34 of 78 hostages dead. 11 were still missing. The charges were set to continue exploding during rescue operations, and 6 first responders were killed and 11 more were critically injured.
Worse, while 9 domestic terrorists were killed in the plot, an unknown number escaped. The police reports tried to be optimistic about this, suggesting that the operation included no more than a dozen perpetrators at most, but even the admission that three people of this caliber and mindset were still out there, ready to cause more havoc was problematic.
In short, it was the worst disaster in the city since, well, ever. It made the bank robberies of their youth look like child’s play. It even made Five’s dalliances with the Commission seem surprisingly contained. The only thing it paled to was the apocalypse, but the family had come together to stop that from happening.
That was the thing, wasn’t it?
They had worked together to avert the apocalypse.
They had sat on their asses in this stupid house and watched as 40 innocent people died in a pointless and preventable way. It wasn’t sad like the news reports said. It wasn’t tragic; it wasn’t unsettling.
It was the stupidest things Diego had ever heard of in his entire life. He wasn’t sad. He was pissed off. Because the Umbrella Academy could have stopped it.
They should have stopped it.
But they sat here at home. Biding their time because they weren’t ready.
You know who else wasn’t ready?
40 people who died yesterday.
Diego threw the paper in his trash and pushed his breakfast away from him with a clatter. To say he’d lost his appetite would be an understatement.
He’d lost his appetite for food, sure.
And he was pretty sure he was losing his appetite for the Umbrella Academy with every passing second.
-o-
He was still sulking in the kitchen, curving knives at the ceiling with considerable force, when Allison came in about an hour later. Diego, in truth, had probably been waiting for someone to find him like this. He’d been too pissed off to move, and it seemed like an apt enough way to demonstrate just how serious he thought the situation was.
At least, that had been his rationale.
Diego also didn’t know what the hell else to do, so sulking had seemed like the only option at the moment.
Allison crossed over to the fridge, eyeing him with a cursory curiosity.
Diego threw another knife at the ceiling, and she glanced up as it thumped into the exposed wood.
She looked back at him, closing the door with a bottle of water in hand.
“When the rest of us picked hobbies, most of us wanted to challenge ourselves,” she said, a little wry. “I’m pretty sure you’ve been throwing knives since we were kids. You probably don’t need the practice.”
Diego scoffed. “What’s it matter, right? It’s not like we have anything else to do.”
Allison wasn’t stupid. She took the hint. “You saw the reports?”
“That 40 people died yesterday?” Diego said. “Needlessly and senselessly? While you and our other siblings were...what did you say? Challenging yourselves?”
She drew a long breath. “Diego, that’s not fair--”
“No, no,” he said. “Of course not. All that we’ve been through, we can’t possibly be expected to live up to our actual potential. So, I’m sure you won’t mind if I continue throwing knives while you seek personal growth.”
She wasn’t easily intimidated. At Number Three, Allison had always held her own. Now as much as ever. “You are always so pissed off about rules and regulations, and I get it, I do, but sometimes doing things the right way really does pay off.”
“For who?” Diego said. “Not for those 40 people.”
“You don’t even know that,” she said. “If we had charged in there, there is no way to predict what might have happened. Most of us haven’t worked in that context in more than a decade -- some, not at all. We don’t know the full extent of what we can do on our own much less in a group.”
“That’s bullshit, Allison,” Diego said with a scowl. “We worked as a group just fine when we saved the world.”
“Did we?” she asked. “Because we did cause the apocalypse, if you’ll remember. We literally had to do it all again in order to get it right because we didn’t know what we were doing.”
Diego shook his head, stubborn. “But it worked out.”
“With time travel,” she said. “And we all know that can’t be our default solution, even if Five were capable of it all the time.”
“So we find another way,” Diego said. “We do what we have to do. That’s how it is. We can’t sit around doing nothing!”
“But we’re not,” she reasoned. She shook her head, eyebrows furrowed. “We’re learning who we are. And that’s the only way we’ll know what we’re capable of.”
“And people are dying in the meantime,” Diego countered. The dissatisfaction roiled in his gut. “I can’t sit here and watch people die.”
“You can’t save everyone, Diego,” she said.
“But I want to save someone,” he said back.
She sighed, a little more drawn out this time. “You think your worth is determined by palpable results. You always have. You think it’s about coming first, kill counts, bad guys turned into the cops.”
He gave her an incredulous shrug. “Those things matter.”
“And so does knowing yourself. Like really knowing yourself,” she said. “Trust me. I’ve spent so much time telling lies that I started to believe some of them. It’s taken all this -- this time with family -- to sort out what’s real. I can control the world, but it’s taken a lot of growth to realize that I probably shouldn’t.”
“This isn’t the same thing,” Diego said. “This is about advancing your career or hoodwinking some poor guy into shacking up with you. This is about saving people.”
She puckered her mouth a little, but kept hold of her disdain. They never did get along all that well, he and Allison. He thought her powers were a shortcut; she thought his were underwhelming. Diego had no interest in saying who was right or wrong about that -- just who was right and wrong about this.
“The point is that you have to think, you have to plan, you have to know,” she said. “Because actions have consequences, consequences we don’t expect.”
“But if you do things right the first time, those consequences are good,” he said. He shook his head, lip curling. “I’m not you, Allison. I’m not any of you in this family.”
Allison lifted her shoulder in a cool shrug. “You’re not,” she agreed. “But we’re learning from our mistakes. We’re building a new future the right way. The question is, what the hell are you doing besides throwing knives and sulking in the kitchen?”
She turned, brushing out the door without a look back.
She had a point, maybe.
Not the point she wanted, though.
What the hell was he doing?
Sulking? Throwing knives? Why?
Because he couldn’t do anything about it?
That was the thing, though. He could.
Diego didn’t have to sit around and wait for his siblings. Diego didn’t have to wait around for anyone. He was an adult. More than that, he was a fully trained superhero and he could do whatever the hell he wanted. He didn’t need his family’s approval. The fact that he wanted it was the only thing holding him back.
Diego pocketed his last knife, getting to his feet.
His siblings had made their choice.
Now, it was time for Diego to make his.
-o-
Beaman, fortunately, wasn’t a guy with an active social life. When Diego suggested lunch, Beaman jumped at the opportunity, and when he saw the detective in person, it was pretty clear why.
Beaman was a mess. He looked exhausted; he looked rent.
“Tough going?” Diego asked, almost bracing for the inevitable answer.
Beaman took a drink of his water, shaking his head wearily. “This is the first time I’ve been able to sit down since the incident yesterday,” he said. He hesitated, looking at Diego. “I assume you heard?”
Diego gritted his teeth and nodded curtly. “Hostage situation. Looked bad.”
“It was worse,” Beaman said. He glanced around, then he leaned forward. “We’ve kept a lot of it from the press.”
Diego leaned closer to him in turn. “Oh?”
“I shouldn’t say anything--”
“It’s me,” Diego assured him. “Who am I going to tell?”
Beaman sighed. “These guys aren’t your typical terrorists. The things they did. I haven’t heard of anything like it. It sounds like the stuff you did with your family, the stuff from comic books.”
“Whoa,” Diego said. “You’re saying they have powers?”
Beaman shook his head. “I have no idea, okay? There’s just stuff we can’t explain, stuff that doesn’t make any sense.”
“Like what?”
With a sigh, Beaman sat back. “I don’t know. I really don’t,” he said. “Maybe it’s just the scale -- the sheer amount of organization they had. Honestly, I don’t know why they didn’t just blow the whole thing. They could have taken out a full city block if they wanted. We’re trying to pitch this like we did something to stop them, but they chose to stop. It’s like it’s just getting started or something.”
Diego frowned at the prospect. “Do you have any leads?”
“No, nothing,” Beaman said. “Just a lot of empty guns, shrapnel, a few bulletproof vests, some extra hand grenades and an umbrella rigged to explode.”
“An umbrella?” Diego said, his stomach going cold.
“They booby trapped everything,” Beaman said. “And it’s not the official story, but it’s just a matter of time before they strike again. And I swear to God, I have no idea what I’m going to do.”
Diego nodded in consolation. He listened and bought Beaman lunch before sending him back on duty with a reassuring clap on the shoulder.
Beaman didn’t know what to do.
But Diego sure as hell did.
-o-
This time, it was no coincidence. It wasn’t a whim. Diego went straight to the surplus store and bought the best damn police scanner he could find. He brought it home and hooked it up in his wardrobe, snaking the antenna through a hole he drilled in the back to sit out toward the fire escape to maximize his coverage.
His siblings went about their business. They ate meals and told stories and played games.
Diego locked himself in his bedroom, laid out his gear in his closet, sharpened his knives and listened.
-o-
He didn’t have to wait long.
Why would he? This was a city; he’d lived here long enough. He knew there was crime. It was just a matter of picking his moment.
He would like to say that he was being practical, starting small. He’d like to say that he was testing the waters, easing himself back into things. That made it sound all mature and shit.
But no.
Diego took the first call that involved a weapon.
A gas station robbery was small potatoes compared to what he knew he was capable of. Besides, big jobs, little jobs -- that was the kind of distinction that the old man would make, that Luther would make. Luther was too big picture. He was so long term. It was boring as hell, and it shortchanged people in the here and now. Diego wasn’t playing by those rules anymore. He hated that he had at all.
In short, Diego had waited long enough.
He wasn’t going to wait another second more.