Archive of Our Own ^beta

No matter what anyone said, he isn’t suicidal.

Not really.

Well, maybe he had some tendencies, but he definitely wouldn’t count himself as actively suicidal. It was more like he just, didn’t care if he never woke up again. Of course, he usually had Ben and his disapproving glare whenever he nearly overdoses, so there is that. Ben still remains the only individual on this planet other than Mom who has the ability to give him a Look and stop him dead in his tracks. Well, mostly stop him, since he did sometimes (most of the time) ignore Ben and go on his merry way.

But the fact is that he isn’t actively suicidal. It’s just, with his powers, death had always seemed like a corridor and a half away. It wasn’t some far off concept like the majority of the world’s population thought it was. He’d lived on the edge of the border between life and death for so long, always dancing between the two that he doesn’t look at death the same way anymore. So no, he wasn’t looking to kill himself (he’d outgrown that a long time ago) but he didn’t have the same outlook on death as others did either.

Plus, with all the training that he’d been doing, and the boon from constantly being booted out of the afterlife, he knows that he can’t die that easily. He’s sure that if someone shoots him enough times, or stabs him with enough knives (he’s looking at Diego) or even decapitates him, he would likely die permanently – there has to be a limit to how much he can come back from after all. But the thing is, if he can’t die that easily, then the most logical conclusion is that he can take hits that no one else can. Isn’t it?

Traveling back in time to save the world from their sister sounded noble and heroic but mostly it just meant that they ended up in their thirteen year old bodies once again (thank you for your useless equations Five), which meant that they were still living under the wonderful care and guidance of Sir Reginald Hargreeves, which meant that they were training to use their powers to become the saviors of the world, which meant that they were still expected to fulfil their hero duties and obey Sir Reginald’s every command. Despite their plan to train Vanya and include her as much as possible without giving away the fact that they all knew she had powers. So they still trained every day, still kept to the ridiculous schedule Reginald had come up for them and still tolerated the man’s harsh rules and attitude. They still went on missions whenever the alarm rang, though this time, they all made sure to include their youngest (even though they technically were all the same age) whenever they came back, taking turns in sneaking out for secret training while some of them (usually it fell to him) distracted their father.

He understood, of course, just why he had been sent to be the distraction. That didn’t mean he had to like it.

The downside of him being constantly sent to distract dad (and wow he hadn’t even known Ben had it in him to get that angry, though he really wished he hadn’t stopped his brother from punching Luther in the mouth) was that the man often gave him the Disappointed Scowl which was usually then accompanied by a trip to the mausoleum.

He still hasn’t told anyone about that, and he likes to think that if his siblings found out what their father was doing they’d stop asking him to be the distraction.

(He doesn’t hold out much hope for anyone other than Ben though. Maybe Diego would, they’d gotten somewhat closer in the week before the apocalypse, but he doesn’t really believe anything would change. It scares him more than he would admit that his siblings wouldn’t care if they found out – so he keeps his head down and doesn’t tell anyone.)

Ben had protested, had been ready to rip into their father the moment the words ‘special training’ dropped from his lips, but Klaus had grabbed his hand and stopped him. It was important that Vanya  not only learned to train her powers but also if she learned to stop hating them if they wanted to stop the apocalypse, and if their father learned that she stopped her pills, all of their efforts to avoid the apocalypse would go to complete waste. And he knew of course, that training Vanya was something that Allison and Five and Ben and even Diego could help with. They were the ones with powers that were tangible and could be trained through the conventional training methods. He didn’t count Luther because Vanya still couldn’t trust him after what he did and sending Luther to distract dad was just a huge no.

So yes, that left him in charge of distraction duty and – sad as it was – he was secretly glad that he had a purpose, the knowledge that he was doing something that could help them causing warmth to bloom in his chest though he covered it up easily with a mask of flippancy that earned him Disapproving Scowl number two from Luther and a bunch of eye rolls from everyone else. (For so long, he’d been the useless junkie, the family fuck up, the good for nothing brother –)

So he told himself to suck it up and deal with the mausoleum. He could handle it. (That was a complete lie. He still clawed at his eyes and ears whenever dad locked him in there, all bravado stripped away quickly and completely in the face of the screaming demons –)

The only possible bright side of being on distraction duty was the way his powers had grown. Of course, he’d been careful to control the extent of his powers to show dear old dad, but he could feel the extra training (other than the mausoleum thank god) helping the power coiled in his gut to grow. He focused on bringing back the sensation he’d felt when he helped Ben become corporeal, focused on the power that he now knew he had within him, wanting to be useful just for once. It probably also helped that he was the most sober he’d been since he was fifteen. (Would be fifteen? Damn, time travel was confusing as hell.) So he practiced and trained, all the while Sir Reginald Hargreeves stood at the corner, silently observing his progress.

(He wasn’t pleased by the way Hargreeves’ disappointed scowl seemed to lighten with every inch of progress he made. He wasn’t.)

He could feel himself growing stronger, and he knew that some part of Reginald was pleased with the way he seemed to accept and embrace his powers instead of fearing them. He also knew that Vanya was nowhere near trained, and that he needed – they all needed him – to do his job and distract their father because otherwise he would pick on one of the rest and that just couldn’t happen. He couldn’t think of anything, and he was slowly panicking when he finally remembered his little jaunt to the afterlife.

Swallowing nervously, he wanted to tell himself that it wasn’t a good idea, that he didn’t actually know if it was more than a one-off thing. But then he sat in the their weekly secret meetings, and he listened to his siblings praising their little sister on how well she was progressing with her control, saw the way she lit up with growing confidence, the way she beamed as the compliments drop one by one and he knew that he couldn’t take this away from her.

He knew what he needed to do.

(He was pretty sure Ben would kill him if he knew, so he plastered a smile on his face and bragged about how he was doing such a good job distracting their father. He wasn’t disappointed when they just rolled their eyes. He wasn’t.)

For the first time in his life, he sought out the elder Hargreeves of his own accord. He ignored the weird feeling in his chest as he arranged a meeting with him on a day that Allison and Ben were training Vanya, with Diego off sparring with Luther somewhere and Five likely teleporting across town in a bid to search for more clues on how to prevent the apocalypse without attracting the attention of The Commission. It was as though the stars had aligned for him and despite the way his heart seemed to want to jump out of his chest, Klaus forced himself to shove the fear down and requested for his father’s attention.

He had to fight not to flinch at the narrow look that his father gave him – ridiculous, really, he was a fully-grown adult, not the snivelling thirteen year old he looked like, he shouldn’t be this afraid of the man – knowing that he’d never once taken any initiative to explore his powers before. (In the previous timeline, he’d been so so afraid of his power – a fear that had gotten worse with every minute in the mausoleum – but he couldn’t go down his usual avenue now, not when he’d promised Ben that he would try his best to stay clean.)

He focused on Ben, his anchor in both timelines, and presented his idea to his father, watching and waiting with bated breath as the man frowned thoughtfully, the soul-piercing stare vanishing as he mulled over an idea that he hadn’t even thought of himself. Klaus didn’t know whether or not to feel sick when he recognized the idle curiosity in his father’s voice when the man agreed to run the tests. He didn’t know if should feel relieved or apprehensive.

So he was dragged off for even more special training after Reginald Hargreeves had figured out a proper schedule and had wrung out all the details from him and during their secret family meetings, he just told them to focus on training Vanya and leave dad’s attention to him. As usual, they all roll their eyes, and he doesn’t bother correcting their assumption that he’s doing it all to be the centre of attention, though it hurts something within him that they think he would stoop so low as to whore himself out to a man who had only ever looked at him like one of his experiments and not as a human being.

He avoids Ben’s shrewd gaze during those meetings, and averts his eyes when Ben later confronts him and asks just what it was that he was planning. He never liked lying to Ben, but he hated worrying him even more, so he just told him that he was practicing his powers more now, especially since he was sober. It wasn’t a lie per se, and the suspicion in Ben’s eyes didn’t fade completely, but he still breathed a sigh of relief when the boy seemed to sense his mood and stopped pushing.

When the first of the test days arrived, he was beyond terrified. It was one thing to overdose on pills or drink himself half to death or even get beaten and tortured to the brink of the edge. At least in those moments, it wasn’t purely intentional, it was more like, death could happen, but it wasn’t something he was looking for. Or maybe that wasn’t even why he was terrified, maybe it was just because he was leaving his life in the hands of the one person in his life that he didn’t trust. Maybe it was just that he didn’t want to lie down on a dentist chair, the last thing he would see being the cold face of Reginald Hargreeves as he administered death to him.

But nobody knew what he was doing, because he’d purposely kept it from them.

So he took a deep breath, laid down on the leather chair and tried not to flinch when Sir Reginald came into his peripheral vision. The man had put on a white scrub over his normal suit and pulled on a pair of latex gloves.

“I will be recording the time taken for your heart to resume beating.” Sir Hargreeves said in a clinically detached tone, as though he was talking to a machine and not to his son. “At the five minute mark I will be supplying your body with oxygen to prevent permanent brain damage.” Here, the man seemed to frown in distaste before continuing, “No doubt that will affect the true results, but we can optimize the experimental variables as we go along.”

The jargon spilling from his father’s lips did nothing to assuage his fears, and he clamped down on the sudden hate that surged within him. The least Hargreeves could do was offer some form of comfort, but here he was, talking about optimizing the parameters as though he was a piece of equipment and not a live human being.

“Brace yourself.”

Klaus closed his eyes and shut all thoughts of his father out. He tried to even his breathing, telling himself that he was doing this for his siblings, repeating the mantra in his head over and over again.

He was still trying to convince himself when the needle slid under his skin.

They had to bring Pogo and Mom in eventually, because Mom was the one who knew how to administer first aid, and Pogo had more emotion than the brick that was Reginald Hargreeves. The ape always had a frown on his face during the sessions, and something in his mother’s demeanor told him that she didn’t exactly approve of what her creator was doing either, though she could not outright defy the commands he’d programmed into her.

But of course, the billionaire couldn’t care less what other people thought.

If it wasn’t for the fact that they were all trying to prevent the apocalypse from happening, Klaus would be high-tailing it out of there. As it was, he tried not to feel as though he’d been violated in a way no one had done before every time he woke up to his father’s methodical scratches on paper as he recorded down his observations.

The first time he came back from the dead – in this timeline at least – he woke up with a jolt, panting and sweating through his shirt, tearing the oxygen mask off his face instinctively. Glancing at his father on instinct, the old man hadn’t bothered to do much other than look at the pocket watch he carried around at all times and noting the time it had taken for him to wake up.

“Fifteen minutes.” The old man informed him, “Not the best timing, but it can be forgiven since it is a new ability.” He’d given him a once-over and said dispassionately, “Clean yourself up. We will reconvene here tomorrow at the same time.”

He’d returned to his room that day on shaky legs, crawling under the covers and refusing to budge even when he heard Diego and Ben call out for him outside his door. He didn’t go down for dinner that night, trying to stop himself from trembling.

He went back the next day, and the next, and the day after that, and the day after that.

Each time, Reginald injected him with the same toxin, waiting until his heart gave out and he was clinically dead before he started recording the time it took for him to come back.

He’s not sure how or why, but that time slowly decreased each time he came back – the sessions now scheduled for three times a week instead of every day because his father realized that he needed to oversee training for the others as well – until he didn’t need the oxygen mask anymore because he didn’t stay dead long enough for the lack of oxygen to damage anything more than was already damaged.

So of course, that was when Sir Reginald dropped the bomb.

“The tests have proven to be rewarding thus far, but we need to expand the parameters of the experiment.” His father informed him after he woke up from one of their latest sessions, barely even shaking anymore.

“What?” he breathed, rising panic clogging his throat. He couldn’t be saying what he thought he was saying could he? There was no way this could get any worse –

“We need to branch out and test other forms of death.”

Would you look at that? Things could get worse after all.

Klaus was shaking his head even before the man had finished his sentence. “No – no we don’t need to do that. Isn’t it enough that we’ve proven that I can – that I can come back to life?” he stuttered, shaking so hard he wondered how he hadn’t fallen apart completely.

Sir Reginald just levelled him with a disappointed look. “And here I thought you had gotten over your irrational fear of your powers. How can there be progress if we choose to limit ourselves? When you are on missions there is no guarantee that your enemy will always be using poison. We need to discuss the limitations of your ability if you are to be useful for something other than being a lookout. Now cease your useless prattling and proceed for training, I will inform you of the schedule when appropriate.”

He recognized a dismissal when he heard one, and he allowed Pogo to drag him away gently, the primate guiding him into his room where he sat down on the bed and let the ape drape a blanket over his shoulders.

“I’m sorry Master Klaus.” Pogo said softly, retreating out of the room.

Klaus stared blankly into space for several moments then burst into hysterical laughter. He laughed and laughed and laughed until the laughter turned into sobs and he buried his face in his hands, wishing that someone would hold him.

He resigned himself to his fate after that mental breakdown. If he thought about it, he only had himself to blame since he was the one who had brought up the existence of this particular ability to dear old dad.

So he forced himself to walk towards the dreaded room every time it was time for his session, forced himself to lie down on the chair – now covered with plastic sheets – and bite down on a rag as his father killed him over and over again.

The one time he had his throat slit, he choked and drowned in his own blood, all the while wondering if this was how Allison felt as she lay in that cabin.

If it were anyone else, he would be more concerned – or impressed – with how many ways his father knew how to kill someone. As it was, he just felt drained of energy every time he woke up, the pained look on Pogo’s face as he cleaned him up contrasting starkly with the disinterest on his father’s face as he took notes.

He wanted the tests to stop, wanted to stop knowing just how many ways he could die, and how many times he could come back to life, and how fast he could return from the dead. He didn’t want to find out how fatal a wound had to be before he wouldn’t come back anymore. He just wanted everything to stop. He had done enough hadn’t he? He’d given enough of himself for the rest of them hasn’t he? They would understand if he stopped – wouldn’t they? He was so tired, so exhausted, he didn’t want to continue with the tests and dad’s glacial blue eyes anymore.

And then he saved Allison’s life.

It had been a typical mission – similar to the bank heist that had catapulted them into stardom. They had stopped the bad guys from stealing the priceless artefact and was helping to get the trapped civilians out of the museum. It was almost a routine mission – except that there was a rumble and a shudder and the building came crashing down.

He’d been standing the closest to Allison and he’d seen the ceiling collapse on itself. Without a conscious thought, he launched himself at his sister and slammed into her, the two of them sliding across the marble floor as a piece of the ceiling crashed down on the spot where she’d been standing. There had been no time for any words as the explosion ripped through the building and more debris came raining down. Klaus shielded Allison with his body as everything came crashing down.

He woke up to the sound of muffled shouts.

Klaus groaned and shifted, hissing when his chest protested fiercely. His memories came flooding back and he looked down, where Allison was lying, her eyes closed. Fear lancing through him, he quickly placed a hand at her neck, ignoring the fire in his chest at the movement. He let out a sigh of relief when the thrum of a steady heartbeat under his fingers.

Looking down at himself, he gingerly touched his chest, wincing as something inside shifted. Vowing not to touch the area, he looked around, wondering if he had imagined the shouts that woke him up.

One of the larger pieces of debris shifted and was thrown aside, revealing a panicked Luther who shouted for Allison and all but shoved Klaus out of the way.

He hissed and swayed in pain as his broken ribs were jostled, someone grabbing onto him to steady him. Klaus turned and gave Ben a grateful smile that came out more like a grimace, reaching out to tug at Diego who was ready to launch himself at their supposed leader for being so callous.

They were sent home by the police officers – all of which had some dubious looks on their faces when they said they didn’t need a hospital – him and Allison being sent straight to the infirmary.

He was still lying down on his usual chair when Sir Reginald walked in, giving him an inscrutable look.

“Punctured lung. I don’t know how long I took the come back.” Klaus reported dutifully, watching his father nod and scribble into the godforsaken notebook, leaving as soon as he had the information he wanted.

He would have been more irritated, except today he had saved Allison’s life.

His ability had saved her life because he could take a hit that she wouldn’t have survived. His ability, not anyone else’s. His. (Well, he didn’t survive either but that was beside the point.)

Despite the pain in his body – because he didn’t heal from non-fatal hits apparently, what a bitch – he couldn’t help but grin triumphantly.

He wasn’t raring to throw himself straight at their sessions, but he no longer felt as though the sessions had no purpose. Every time his mind strayed near that thought, he reminded himself of how he saved Allison’s life (even if she didn’t know it) and how, if he hadn’t trained, he wouldn’t have been able to throw her out of the way with such surety. (He doesn’t stop to consider that he might have done it anyway, ability to come back from the dead or not.)

If his father noticed anything about his improved outlook, he didn’t comment.

Their sessions went on through the years. He – and everyone else – turned fourteen, fifteen, sixteen and then he had the opportunity to save his family again.

He remembered the date well, had practically imprinted it into his mind with how often he reminded himself.

Because today was the day that Ben and Luther went on a mission together, and only Luther came home.

Klaus was not going to let his brother die this time around and so when Reginald brought up the mission, he listed down all the reasons and then some on why he should go along too. Perhaps it was because he’d been ‘getting over’ his fear of the dead (not true, he still drowned their screams out with music and alcohol) or perhaps it was because his father finally deemed him useful enough, but the elder man agreed to let Klaus go on the mission as well.

The three of them remained silent on their trip, with Klaus holding Ben’s hand in comfort.

“I won’t let you die.” He promised, staring straight into Ben’s eyes. He could see Ben searching him for any lies, could feel the fear that shook his very bones, and he could see the moment when his brother and best friend found the answer he was looking for and relaxed, giving him a wane smile.

As with the original timeline – or so he suspected, he hadn’t been there the first time around – everything went to hell almost instantly. The bad guys had far more back up than expected, even with the knowledge they had of this mission. Luther was off somewhere in the building, having led a group of the bad guys away. The remainder had come for the two of them, and no matter what happened, Klaus was not leaving Ben’s side.

The boy was hunched over, gripping his chest as they ran, with Klaus shoving him along periodically, always making sure to keep his body between their pursuers and his brother.

“I can’t keep them in anymore.” Ben gasped, “I can’t control them. You need to run.”

“No!” Klaus snapped, “I’m not leaving you. I promised you that I won’t let you die. When have I ever broken a promise?”

“Every time you fell straight back into drugs.” Came the instant reply.

Klaus paused, “Fine, when have I ever broken a promise when it really mattered?”

The silence was telling, but Ben just sighed. “Klaus… we came into this mission armed with knowledge, and everything still went to shit. Maybe –”

“Don’t you dare say it.”

“Maybe I’m meant to die here.”

Klaus stared in shock. Then he snarled and shoved Ben against the nearest wall. “Don’t you dare give up.” He hissed, eyes flashing in anger. “You are not dying here, you are not dying anywhere if I can help it. You’re better than Them, and you can control them, you just need to believe in yourself.”

Their moment was interrupted by a hail of gunfire that sent them scurrying for cover. Klaus watched worriedly as Ben squeezed his eyes shut, a hand gripping his chest tightly.

He could see the moment when Ben decided to do something stupid.

“No!” he shouted, lunging and missing his brother’s shirt by a hairsbreadth.

Ben stepped out of their cover and gave him an apologetic smile.

Then he let the monster explode out of his chest.

Klaus stared in horror as the tentacles smashed into the gunmen, not because of the gruesome way they died, but because the tentacles seemed so much wilder than before, and because of the pain on his brother’s face. Even when all their enemies were dead, the tentacles still shot around, looking like they were trying to rip themselves out of their host.

Gritting his teeth, he got up and launched himself at Ben, grabbing onto his face and forcing him to focus on him.

“Ben – Ben listen to me! You can control this, you can control them! Don’t let them take over – please!”

He gasped when one of the tentacles punched through him, letting out a shaky breath as it twisted within his chest. He coughed wetly, but tightened his grip on his brother, leaning his forehead on Ben’s.

“Come back to me, please.” He begged, his voice cracking. “I can’t lose you again – I need you Ben, please, come back.”

He continued pleading, feeling the tentacles slowly retract back into his brother, the one that impaled him slowly pulling back as well. When it finally retracted from his body back under his brother’s skin, he collapsed to his knees, blood pouring from the hole in his chest. He held his grip onto reality long enough to make sure that Ben was alive before he succumbed to the familiar darkness. His last thought was that he hoped Ben didn’t wake up before him.

Ben did not wake up before he did.

In fact, Ben didn’t wake up until they were back at the Academy.

Klaus had woken up to silence, his first instinct to check on Ben, who was unconscious, but more importantly – he was alive. That in itself was a victory, and Klaus couldn’t stop the grin from forming on his face.

It was easy after that, to rip his inner shirt even more, so that the hole in his shirt wasn’t too obvious and then hoist his brother up onto his back and look for Luther. Number One had ran into him on one of the levels, looking dishevelled and bruised but no worse for wear. His face had crumpled momentarily before Klaus reassured him that Ben was still alive. The sheer relief on Luther’s face was almost enough to make him forget about what he’d done back in their original timeline.

He still didn’t let Luther carry Ben back home though.

When they walked through the doors of the Academy, bloodied and beaten but alive – the rest of the Hargreeves siblings cheered. Including Vanya.

(It was nice to see that Vanya was slowly but surely starting to open up to them again, that his efforts in making dad turn the other way hadn’t gone in vain.)

Despite Reginald’s stern orders, they all found a way to sneak into the infirmary later on at night, huddling around Ben and waiting for him to wake up. Klaus felt warmth bloom within him as they gathered together like a real family instead of a bunch of misfits forced to fit with one another. It was likely the first time they’d ever behaved like a normal family instead of the dysfunctional mess they’d been for the past two decades.

(Later, much later, he would slip into their father’s office and tell him about the impalement, earning himself a nod of approval which made the grin on his face stay for the next few hours until Diego commented on it.)

When Ben woke up, they all took turns convincing him that he wasn’t dead, not truly believing it until Klaus assured him that he didn’t die despite trying his best to. He joked that maybe God didn’t like him either and Ben laughed at the inside joke, while the rest of them stared on in confusion.

The missions and sessions continued, and Klaus didn’t get much of a chance to save his siblings apart from the mission at the laboratory break in when they turned seventeen where Diego nearly got stabbed by a rabid lab tech until Klaus jumped on his back and got stabbed instead.

Their father had been there for that mission, which was a good thing because the syringe full of liquid which he’d been stabbed with would have been fatal for anyone else.

He didn’t actually think he’d ever need to save Diego because well – he was Diego, enough said.

But even Diego couldn’t be everywhere at once and he’d saved Diego once before from a hail of bullets so he figures that this time isn’t all that different.

Except for the part where he dies, but Diego doesn’t know that so it was a moot point anyway.

The lab was experimenting on some type of serum – which was probably why their father wanted to come along – and someone broke in and tried to steal the serum.

The keyword was tried to.

Something went wrong along the way, and instead of escaping with the serum, the intruder had instead unleashed some sort of biochemical agent that turned whoever was bitten into nothing more than a rabid dog.

Zombies, go figure.

Allison’s abilities weren’t all that useful here, not against people so far past the point of rationality, so she was relegated to crowd control, trying to shuttle those who were still sane out of the building. Luther had gone in guns blazing – figuratively of course – and Ben had unleashed his monster on the rabid men and women, having more control over his demons ever since that incident. Five had of course, jumped straight in and let loose on the men and women like the demon-child he was, and Diego had tried to keep Klaus out of the way.

Naturally, that didn’t work. And he should be glad that Klaus had the tendency not to listen to orders because Klaus had jumped onto the back of one of the attacking rabid man in a bid to steer the man away from his brother while Diego had been busy avoiding the mouths of another two. He honestly wasn’t trying to sacrifice himself or anything, he just hadn’t seen the syringe in the man’s hand.

So when Diego finally turned around and threw a knife straight into the man’s head, he expected to hop to his feet and tease Number Two about saving his life again.

He wasn’t expecting to feel like his limbs were suddenly so heavy, to stumble and all but collapse into Diego’s arms.

(Nobody would tell him, but Diego had been beyond terrified when the color had drained out of Klaus’ face so quickly that he barely caught the other teen when he pitched over, his pulse worryingly slow.)

The thing about the sessions is that, despite the number of ways he’s died (and he’s sure that number is well into the hundreds by now) the one thing that Reginald never tried were guns. 

He doesn’t think even for a moment that it’s because his father is hesitant to shoot him, that it’s some sort of line he won’t cross. He knows that Sir Reginald has absolutely no qualms about killing his own son if it was the sake of scientific progression and he knows it’s not because of the mess that a gun would make either (that one time he eviscerated him surfaced in his mind). 

He likes to think that it’s because gunshots are loud. And Reginald Hargreeves can’t afford for the rest of the household to know what was going on. 

Not because he was afraid of them – heavens no – but because even a blind man could see the bonds that the siblings shared. Despite how much they kept from their father, Klaus was sure that even he couldn’t miss the way they all seemed more comfortable with each other, more open. He also knew that the only reason why their father allowed them to continue bonding with each other was because they were more effective on the field. 

Guns were loud, and if Reginald ever fired a gun in the house, eccentric or not, his siblings would definitely come running. (They all remembered the last time someone had come shooting up the house – Ben had given the rest of them hell for not realizing Klaus had been taken until it was almost too late.) 

Even so, he knows that his father is planning for that eventuality. Reginald Hargreeves was a more than just an eccentric billionaire, he was a scientist through and through. Given how much ‘potential’ (his words, not Klaus’) Klaus had shown so far, it wouldn’t be a surprise if his father managed to find a way to shoot him without alerting the rest of the household. (From his brief stint in Vietnam, he knew what silencers were, and he sorely hoped that his father would never come across such a thing.)

So of course, that was exactly when things decided to go straight to Hell. 

It was – as with all things – yet another routine mission. Some assholes decided that they would like to cheat their way through life and break into a diamond producing factory and some other types of assholes – coughdadcough – decided that superheroism was the way to go instead of old fashioned policemen. 

So they suited up, reassured Vanya – who, nowadays, looked less like she wanted to go with them and more like she was worried about whether they’d come back or not – and headed off to where the break in had happened. 

It was supposed to be a normal mission, so of course it was anything but. They had expected large numbers, they had expected guns. 

They just hadn’t expected the men responsible for the break in to have prepared specifically for the Academy. 

Luther and Diego burst through the main doors, as was their tendency, while Allison and Ben dropped in quietly from behind in the wake of the noise. Five jumped straight in with his abilities and startled the men when he suddenly appeared above them. 

Klaus, as always, was left on lookout duty. 

The only difference now, was that lookout duty had another meaning, one that was commanded by Sir Reginald Hargreeves himself. He wanted to snap at the man when he ordered him to look out for his siblings, wanted to tell him that he doesn’t need to tell him to keep an eye on his siblings because he was already planning on doing that thank you very much, but he restrained himself to a curt nod and left before he said something he shouldn’t. Ben would have been so proud that he didn’t purposely start a fight with their father. 

So while he was on lpokout – and keeping an eye on both his family and the bad guys was tough – he spotted the reinforcements arriving, carrying odd weapons. An uneasy feeling grew in his gut, and he quickly darted into the fray, seeking out his second brother.

“Diego!” He called, ducking under one of the enemy’s wild swing, catching the outstretched arm mid-swing and flipping the guy over into his back. “Diego! They’re bringing reinforcements!”

“What?”

“Reinforcements!” He shouted, punching another guy in the face, “They have back up with weird shit!”

He finds himself near another exit, spying vehicles with what seemed like stage lights set up and parked in a fluid motion – almost as though it had been rehearsed. 

A cry echoed in the room. Klaus whipped around, his eyes landing on Five, who had been hit when his jump failed. Klaus started towards him, but Allison was faster. She leapt onto the man looming over Five, beating him up easily. Ben’s tentacles swept some of the nearby men away, sending them flying and crashing into the walls, creating a pocket of space for his siblings. 

Across the room, Klaus heard Five’s panicked “I can’t jump – Ally I can’t – I can’t jump!”

He blinked, time seemed to slow down. 

He saw more men pouring into the factory, the ones at the back holding a weapon that sent chills down his spine. He knew that weapon, had seen it in the war. He knew firsthand just how devastating it could be, how it didn’t just punch a hole through a person, it ripped an ugly path through the body.

He sprinted towards Luther, screaming at the top of his lungs for everyone to run.

But of course, nobody listened to useless, junkie Klaus. 

“Luther we need to go – now!” He yelled, trying to get his brother’s attention. “Luther!”

“Don’t be a coward Klaus! We have a job to do!” Number One roared bowling straight into two of the men. 

Klaus faltered, his breath stuttering as the words rang in his head. From the corner of his eye, he saw one of the men aim the weapon at Luther’s back. 

Luther’s unprotected back. 

The unconscious cruelty Luther has shown him didn’t matter. He barely hesitated as he threw all his weight into his brother’s side, momentarily thankful that he wasn’t in his ape form. He heard Luther’s annoyed curse, but there was no more time left. 

Something exploded against and in his chest. He felt the force send him flying, his back colliding painfully with a hard surface before the world spun straight into darkness. 

For all that he has seen – monsters erupting from within him, people dying violent deaths, the ghosts and demons that he remembers by proxy of Klaus – Ben doesn’t think he’s ever had a heart-stopping moment in his life before. At least not the ones that really counted. He’d come close when the man at the rave had thrown Klaus so hard that his head cracked open, a sound that went completely unheard in the din. (And he would never forgive Luther for leaving Klaus behind when he’d saved his life, and himself for telling Klaus that Luther would have done the same for him because in the end, Luther hadn’t even cared that his junkie brother had willingly faced his greatest temptation just to bring him back home.) 

But he’d never truly had a heart-stopping moment, the kind where time seemed to stop completely and his body was frozen, unable to lift even a finger and could only watch with dread filling his heart. 

He heard Klaus jump into the fray, shouting at the top of his lungs, though Ben couldn’t make out everything that he was saying, bits and pieces of his words carrying over the noise. He heard Five’s panicked cries when he found himself unable to jump, a snarl on his lips as he smacked the people away from their currently vulnerable teleporter. He heard Klaus shout again, this time much louder and clearer, telling them to run. He heard him frantically calling Luther’s name.

Then he heard a single gunshot echoing loudly. 

It shouldn’t have been possible for him to isolate one single sound above the cacophony of the battle raging around the room. He shouldn’t have been able to distinguish one gunshot from the next when there were so many guns firing all around them. And yet, the single gunshot seemed to resonate loudly in his ears, all other noise fading into the background so quickly he wondered if this was how Vanya felt when she used her powers, a sinking feeling in his gut.

Ben turned, instinctively searching out the one person he’d spent literally all his life with. 

And then his heart stopped. 

He watched (as though he were looking through a glass) as Klaus shoved Luther aside. He was frozen as the shell struck his brother, the force of the bullet throwing him back against the wall, the sickening crack of bone meeting concrete ringing in his ears. It wasn’t until Klaus crumpled to the floor in a dead heap that Ben started moving again. 

“Klaus!” Number Six shouted, rushing to where his brother was lying motionlessly at the base of the wall. He studiously ignored the crimson streak that painted the wall, ignored the gasp that escaped Allison’s lips, ignored the stunned look on Luther’s face from where he was half crouched on the floor. He ignored everything, reaching out with trembling hands to slowly turn Klaus over. 

A sob escaped him when the sight of a bloody mess greeted him. The uniform had been shredded completely, bits of white-turned-crimson cloth stuck to the mangled flesh that was what remained of his brother’s chest. He felt bile rise up in his throat the longer he stared at the horrifying scene. There was no part of his front that hadn’t been shredded in some way or another. Ben could see the white of bone poking out from the wound, some of the edges blackened and seared. His hands fluttered over the ugly wound (it couldn’t even be called a wound, a wound was clean and this was anything but –) wanting to stop the bleeding but not knowing where to start. He pressed a hand to his brother’s cheek, tears falling from his eyes as his Klaus’ lifeless eyes stared back at him. 

No, he thought, no, no, no – please God no. Not Klaus, never Klaus. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go, Klaus was supposed to be on lookout, he wasn’t supposed to be in the heat of battle, he wasn’t supposed to be lying there broken and bleeding –

“Klaus?” he whispered, leaning closer to his brother. The body didn’t move, and Ben felt something in him break –

The monster in him shifted, reminding him of the battle that still raged around him, the way his other siblings were slowly but surely being overwhelmed despite their desperation at trying to get to their fallen brother. It took him a few moments to realize that for once, their goals were aligned perfectly. These men had hurt Klaus – Their best friend, the one who loved them and wasn’t afraid, had never been afraid of Them – and they wanted out. So for the first time in his life (in both lives), he opened the gate and let the monsters out. 

They screamed in tandem, the mass of writhing tentacles bursting out of him. For the first time in his life, letting the monster out didn’t hurt. The tentacles shot forward, impaling every one of their enemies, ripping them apart in a bloody shower and throwing the body parts aside. The monsters screamed their pain, their agony, in perfect unison with him. Their tentacles striking true with every hit, battering each gunman down and destroying all their weapons until only blood and gore were left.

“Ben! Ben calm down!”

“Ben come on man you need to calm down! They’re all dead! Ben!”

The voices of his siblings filtered through the growing madness, and he sucked in a breath, dragging the tentacles back under his skin, the monster not resisting his efforts this time round. He turned around, looking at his siblings, who had – in the midst of the gruesome chaos – gathered around their fallen member. His eyes dropped to Allison, who was kneeling beside Klaus, with Diego coming over to him.

“Klaus,” he gasped, stumbling closer, ignoring the blood that stained his uniform and dripped from his face, “How is he? How is Klaus? He’s fine – right?”

He looked from each sibling to the next, none of them meeting his eyes.

“Tell me!” He screamed, fear and denial choking him. He couldn’t handle this – Klaus needed to be okay, he couldn’t – he couldn’t –

A pair of hands dropped onto his shoulders, and he heard a voice telling him to breathe. 

He wheezed, vision blurring as hot tears trickled down his cheek, pushing ineffectively at the hand holding onto him. “How is he? Tell me – please – I –”

“Ben – Ben!” Diego shouted, shaking him slightly, doing his best to repress the tears that threatened to fall.

Ben looked at the other boy, noting the muted grief in his eyes, the stiffness of his shoulders and shook his head.

“No,” Ben whispered, “No, no no please god no!”

Diego squeezed his eyes shut, “Ben calm d-down. You gotta – you gotta calm down – h-he’s gone, no one could have survived something like that –”

“Shut up!” he screamed, pushing Diego away. “Shut up! Don’t say that! He’s not dead! He’s not!”

He collapsed to his knees, pulling Klaus closer to him, Allison covering her mouth as she backed away. “You promised,” he begged, curling around his brother, “You promised not to die. You promised not to die!”

“Ben…” Luther whispered, a hand stretched out.

Sudden rage enveloped him, and Ben whirled around, lunging towards Luther, who flinched back a few steps. “It’s all your fault!” Ben screamed, fighting against Diego and Five, who had grabbed onto him and wrestled him back. “This is all your fault!”

“You did this!” He howled, “He told you to run! I heard that! Why didn’t you listen to him? Why?”

The teen suddenly deflated, sagging to the ground. Diego caught him, hugging him tightly. Ben buried his face in Diego’s chest, his heart-wrenching cries tearing their own hearts apart.

Luther cringed, his shoulders curling inwards with guilt. He had heard Klaus telling him that they needed to retreat, but he had ignored him, believing foolishly that they could handle whatever was thrown at them. He was Number One, he was their leader, how could he have been so stupid as to not realize that they would have enemies? In their previous timeline, they hadn’t stuck around long enough to truly make enemies – not when Five disappeared, and Ben died, and then Diego and Klaus both left, ensuring that there wouldn’t be any more superheroing. He had left Klaus as the lookout, as was his usual position given his lack of offensive abilities.

But what use was it to have a lookout that he didn’t listen to?

Taking in a shuddering breath, Luther forced himself to look at his brother’s broken body, the state of the corpse almost as bad as when he’d brought Ben home in their previous timeline. Vaguely, he wondered if this was a fixed event in time, where one of their own had to die a horrible and tragic death.

“We should go home.” He murmured, swallowing the lump in his throat. He avoided the looks of the rest of his family – save Ben, who was still crying into Diego’s shirt – and instead crouched down to slide his arms under Klaus’ neck and knees, carefully lifting the other teen into his arms.

He wondered if Klaus had always been this light, remembering how thin the other man had looked when they all gathered in the house for the first time after sixteen years.

“We should – we should bring him home.” He repeated, faltering slightly.

“That shithole isn’t a home.” Diego muttered, but stood nonetheless, dragging a semi-catatonic Ben to his feet with him.

Five kicked a stray piece of rubble angrily, whirling around and stalking off. Allison gave him a mournful look that made him want to just hold her tight and never let go before turning away, following after Five, her shoulders uncharacteristically slumped.

Somehow, the six of them managed to make it back to the Academy without any stops on the way. Five had called in the people who were contracted by their father to clean up after them – a necessary arrangement given Six’s abilities – allowing them to slip through and make a clean getaway. Allison had rumoured anyone who had seen them into turning away, letting them return home in peace.

They stood in the foyer of the Academy, despair and grief hanging over them like a thundercloud. They heard a gasp and a scream, the only warning they had when the chandelier above them started rattling. Allison darted forward to wrap her arms around Vanya, who was staring – with horrified eyes that were starting to bleach white – at the limp form in Luther’s arms.

“Vanya, Vanya listen to me, you need to calm down, alright? We can’t let dad – Reginald know okay? Please, I don’t want him to do anything to you too.” Allison choked, rubbing Vanya’s back comfortingly until the lights stopped flickering and the walls stopped shaking.

Luther himself felt sick when he looked down and realized that there was just so much blood covering the front of his chest.

“What is the meaning of this?” their father all but snarled as he hurried down the stairs, a rare expression of anger on his face.

Luther saw a flicker of something in his father’s normally icy blue eyes, the same eyes that were drawn to the body that he held in his arms. (Cold and still where his brother should have been warm with life and jumping with unending energy.)

“I – we –” Luther stammered under the weight of his father’s stare.

“Was the mission completed?” Sir Hargreeves interrupted.

Ben snarled at that and wrenched himself out of Diego’s hold. “Your son is dead and all you can think about is whether the mission was completed?”

“Do not speak to me in such a tone Number Six!” Hargreeves barked, making Ben flinch instinctively.

Even after all these years, none of them could get rid of the conditioning that their father had drilled into them.

“We stopped the men,” Five cut in, taking the attention off from Ben, “They’re all dead.”

Reginald narrowed his eyes and gave a curt nod. “Return to your rooms and get cleaned up, dinner will be served at seven as always and I expect you to be there. Number One,” he called, gesturing to Luther, “Follow me.”

Luther swallowed and meekly trailed after his father, leaving the rest of his siblings in the foyer.

He frowned in confusion when Hargreeves led him to the infirmary, Pogo and Mom meeting them at the end of the hallway where the infirmary was located. His father instructed him to lay Klaus’ body down on the horizontally inclined chair, which he did so gently.

“Dad what –”

“Do not call me that.” Came the instant reply.

Luther shifted backwards, moving out of the way as the billionaire put on a set of clean scrubs, pulling on a pair of latex gloves quickly.

“Tell me, how long has it been since Number Four died?”

Luther felt his mouth run dry. “What?” he breathed.

The man gave him a displeased frown, gesturing for Pogo to start setting up the equipment they would need.

“The time Number One,” he repeated impatiently, “I do hope the mission hasn’t addled your brain.”

Addled my –

All of a sudden, Luther understood why his siblings were all so pissed off at their father, to the point where they called him names and spat on his grave. His brother was dead, had died a horrible and tragic death saving someone who hadn’t bothered to listen to him, and here his father was, acting as though it was a trivial matter that should never have affected his thinking –

“He’s dead, and you want to know how long it’s been?” Luther demanded.

Grace moved to pick up a pair of tweezers, the ever-present smile on her face disappearing as she looked down at one of her children.

“If you are to be useless in providing me the important details, I suggest you leave and clean yourself up.” Hargreeves said dismissively.

Luther tensed, disbelief warring with anger. He made to move forward, but a hand on his arm stopped him. He looked down, where Pogo was shaking his head, a sad, guilty look in his eyes. Hissing slightly, he jerked his arm away, stalking out of the infirmary.

“We will begin by removing the shrapnel.” He heard Sir Reginald command as he left, shivering at the apathetic tone.

They all sat at the dining table, the mood sombre and depressing. Grace hummed a pleasant tune, completely oblivious to the dark clouds that hung over her children. She laid out their dinner for them, taking a plate from the trolley and carefully placing it in front of each one of them. She placed a full plate beside Ben, making them flinch. She hadn’t seemed to notice anything wrong, continuing to hum with a pleasant smile on her face as she finished placing their dishes in front of them, returning to push the trolley back to the kitchen.

As she turned away, Diego called out. “M-mom?”

“Yes darling?” She responded, her full, red lips stretching across her face.

“You p-put seven plates here.” He said quietly, unable to stop his hands from shaking.

“Of course there is,” she chirped, giving them a smile that seemed to tell them they were being silly, “There are seven of you aren’t there?”

“Klaus isn’t – he isn’t around anymore.” Ben ground out, his nails digging painfully into his palm, “He doesn’t need a plate does he?”

Blinking, she tilted her head, her smile dropping off in confusion for a moment. Soon enough her beaming smile returned full force, “Oh you silly children,” she admonished, “Dear Klaus is confined to the infirmary for now, but I’m sure he will stop at nothing to come down for dinner with all of you as soon as he can. That boy has never once stayed where he should be.”

As one, they all froze, stunned by her unintentionally callous words. She drifted away, the comforting music replaced by the echoing footsteps of the man who adopted them, his emotionless facade firmly in place as he took his position at the head of the table and gestured for them to start eating.

“What did she mean?” Ben snapped after several seconds of their father nonchalantly digging into his dinner, slapping his hands on the table as he leapt to his feet, glaring at the elder man.

“No talking at the dining table.” Reginald replied calmly, “I would have thought you could remember such a simple rule given how many years it has been.”

“I. Don’t. Care. What did mom mean?” Ben bit out.

Perhaps it was the way he defied him so openly, or perhaps it was the look on his face that promised bloodshed and violence if he didn’t get any answers. Either way, it still shocked them some when Reginald Hargreeves gave a small put out sigh and put his cutlery down, pinning his sixth son with a stern gaze.

“I do not and will not permit such behavior at the dinner table. However, I will elaborate as such, Number Four is currently recuperating and will be expected to make a full recovery in due time.”

They didn’t know what was more shocking, that the old man had deigned to explain what was going on, or the fact that, according to him, Klaus was still alive.

“He’s alive?” Ben asked shakily, unable to stop the sensation of cautious hope from rising within him.

Sir Reginald didn’t bother looking up as he resumed his previous action of cutting into his dinner. “I will not repeat myself. As it stands, I will have to schedule a punishment for you with regards to this nonsensical behavior.”

Ben didn’t care what punishment laid in wait for him. Nothing else mattered other than the fact that Klaus was alive. He fell back into his seat with an ungraceful flop, breathing a laugh of relief. For once, he was grateful that Reginald Hargreeves was their caretaker, because the man would find no purpose in indulging in a lie such as this. If Klaus was truly dead, he would waste no effort in ensuring that their training schedules and regimes were altered accordingly. From the looks on his siblings’ faces, they too agreed, and for the moment, the dark cloud dissipated, leaving behind a more relaxed group of teenagers brimming with relief.

All of them except Five, who frowned down at his plate, wondering just what else their father was hiding.

Despite what the old man had said, and despite the relief flooding through him, Ben still couldn’t rest until he had confirmed it for himself. Judging by the way he bumped first into Vanya right outside his door – and then into Allison at the stairs, and then into Diego who they met one floor up, and finally Five, who had simply popped into existence with a bored look on his face right outside the door to the infirmary – he wasn’t the only one who didn’t really believe the eccentric billionaire.

Taking a deep breath, Ben twisted the knob and pushed the door open quietly, hoping against hope that there was nobody inside. He heard the sound of steady beeping, and as quickly and silently as he could, made his way to where Klaus was lying on a bed, an oxygen mask strapped securely over his mouth. A look at the monitors told him that he was truly alive, and that eased a tight knot in his chest that he hadn’t even known was there. Smiling softly, he slipped his hand into the other’s, the smile slipping slightly at the clammy texture.

Diego came to stand beside Ben, frowning as he looked at Klaus, who was lying far too still for comfort and looked more like one of the ghosts he usually saw than someone who was alive. But the rise and fall of his chest was enough reassurance for now, and Diego allowed himself to relax. 

“What happened to him?” Vanya whispered, coming to stand next to Diego, near the foot of the bed where Klaus was lying on. She looked at her brother, feeling sick. In all her life, she’s never seen him this pale and lifeless. Not even when he came back from ‘special training’ with Sir Reginald, or even the time Pogo had found him practically on the brink of death from the number of drugs in his system after Ben never came back from his mission.

“Shit happened.” Diego replied, equally softly, regret lacing his voice. “He got shot with some sort of new weapon because none of us listened to him.”

Allison reached out to grab Klaus’ other hand, looking down at the extensive amount of bandages that covered his chest, wincing when she remembered just how torn up it had been. 

“I hate to be Devil’s Advocate but, how did he survive?” She asked, pitching her voice low.

“Does it matter?” Ben asked, borderline irritated. His emotions were all over the place from the day’s events, and he only wanted the assurance that his best friend was still in the land of the living. “He’s alive, that’s all we should care about.”

“Ben, don’t be daft, you know what she meant. Klaus wasn’t just horribly injured, he was dead. His chest was completely screwed up and there was no way he survived that, I’m sure that all of us can agree that he didn’t make it even if none of us want to admit it.” Five sniped, “Allison is right, we need to find out what happened.”

“Ben has a point, is that really what you want to focus on right now?” Diego countered, resting a hand on Ben’s shoulder. “We’ve had one hell of a day, can’t we just appreciate the fact that for some reason or another we’re not down one member?”

Five scowled and moved to retort, but Vanya waved at them, mustering up enough confidence to level a glare at each of them. “Shh! Do you want Pogo or Mom or even worse, Dad to find us?”

When they backed down slightly, she sighed, “Look, everyone has a point, but Diego’s right, we don’t need to deal with this now. We can ask him when he wakes up right?”

They all noticed the way she said ‘when’ and not ‘if’ but nobody commented on it. It felt surreal, being so harshly reminded that they weren’t invincible despite their powers. It had been years (for them) since Allison’s gruesome injury and even longer since Luther returned with a bloody and torn up Ben, and the fear had faded into the back of their minds, no longer as stark.

Today’s events had shaken all of them, even Vanya, who was glad that she hadn’t been there – if this was how she felt after seeing Klaus like this, she couldn’t imagine witnessing what happened first hand. It had reminded them of their own mortality, of how they were still normal humans at the end of the day who could be brought down by a lucky shot.

They murmured their agreements, huddling around their unconscious brother as long as they could without getting caught. 

Three days had passed when Klaus finally woke up.

He blinked sluggishly, trying to pry his heavy eyelids open. The familiar patterned ceiling of the infirmary greeting him. A shuffle from somewhere behind him drew a low moan from him. Sighing in resignation, he muttered, “How long was it this time?”

“This time?”

His eyes flew open in shock. That was decidedly not dear old dad’s voice.

“Klaus?”

He was still staring gobsmacked at Ben’s confused face when the memories came flooding back. The factory, the guns, the men, Luther, and – oh. Oh. He’d been shot. Right. Groaning, he sank further back into the bed, wishing it would swallow him whole. It was a better alternative than the suspicious look that Ben was currently giving him.

“Klaus –”

“Where’s the old man?” he interrupted, trying to throw Ben off his trail.

Sadly, that had the exact opposite effect. Ben narrowed his eyes at him, “Since when do you ask for dad?” he accused.

“Since he practically governs our lives?” he replied, throwing – or trying to – his hands up in exasperation.

“Since when did you care about that? And don’t change the subject, what did you mean by this time? Why did you think I was dad?”

His reply was cut off by Sir Reginald’s timely entrance, and Klaus doesn’t think he’s ever been this happy to see the man who fucked up all their lives. The man ordered Ben out of the room, dismissing him almost instantly. Klaus shivered at the murderous look his brother sported, and winced when the glare fell onto him, promising that the conversation was very much not over. He glanced at Pogo, who nodded at him, and heaved a sigh of relief, knowing that the monkey had been the one to go grab his father. He would have to thank him for that intervention later.

Or maybe not, since Ben seemed like he wanted to Patrick Swayze him again.

“What do you remember?” Hargreeves asked, already scribbling away in his notebook.

For the moment, Klaus allowed himself to forget about the impending doom that was his brother and focused on recounting the events of the mission as much as he could remember.

Reginald Hargreeves hummed thoughtfully. “You have been unconscious for three days after we revived you. Prior to that, you were clinically dead for the better part of an hour.”

Klaus felt his throat run dry. Three days?

“It’s – it’s never been that long before.”

“Indeed.” The billionaire agreed, “I suppose it must have been due to the extent of the injury as well as the remnants of the shrapnel that were lodged in your body. Due to their presence, you were unable to heal the fatal wound and instead remained in a form of stasis until we could remove all of them.”

He pushed away the old hurt that resurfaced every time his father spoke in such a cold, clinical tone, choosing instead to ask, “And the time?”

“As I previously stated, it was a fairly extensive injury, it is likely that more time was needed to mend the wound before your ability allowed you to come back to life.” The billionaire finished scribbling in his journal, closing it with a soft thud. Standing, he addressed his son, “You will remain in the infirmary for at least a day more for observation in the unlikely event that there are any further complications.”

Klaus let out a shaky breath. He didn’t want to, but he needed to ask, “Will I – will we,” he took a deep breath to try and steady himself, “Will we need to test this?”

Sir Reginald looked at him for a long time, and the roaring in his ears as his breath quickened was so loud he nearly missed the reply.

“No. There are too many unstable variables to ensure an accurate test. We will find a different way.”

He could have cried in relief. It didn’t matter that his father hadn’t outright said no, he would die in any other way a million times over before he willingly went through that again. Pressing his hands to his face, he shook with silent sobs, curling into Pogo’s side when the chimpanzee drew him into a hug after the elder Hargreeves left.

It had been four days the incident, and Klaus was avoiding his siblings.

He didn’t want to, of course, but he’d seen the odd frown on Diego’s face whenever he saw him, the concerned look on Vanya’s and the way Allison seemed to be puzzling over something.

His main concern of course, was Five. Who – apart from being somewhat of a genius – was also some kind of detective. Who could teleport. Which made it hard for him to avoid him.

Like now.

“So how did you survive?” Five asked, prompting a yelp from Klaus who was pulling on a shirt, since the other teen had appeared from nowhere and was now lounging comfortably on his bed. “In fact,” he continued, as though he hadn’t just scared the living shit out of his brother, “How are you completely mobile now? With that kind of injury you should have been on bed rest for longer than four days.”

“Jeez shorty, don’t hold back will you?” Klaus grumbled, yanking the shirt down, the bandages disappearing under the fabric.

“Don’t call me that, and stop stalling you idiot.” Five growled, disappearing and reappearing by the door.

“No don’t –”

Five unlocked the door and opened it, letting the rest of the Hargreeves siblings in. Klaus just groaned and rubbed his face tiredly.

“Look, it’s nothing, alright? The old man managed to save me, I’m awake, that’s all. Can we not do this?”

“You were dead.” Ben cut in, making Klaus flinch. “Every single time I’ve seen you die, I keep thinking, ‘he’ll be fine, he’ll be back on his feet soon enough’. But this? I could only watch, and all I thought – I thought this was it.”

Klaus looked away, the familiar sensation of guilt crawling on his skin.

“We promised no secrets.” Ben reminded softly, “When we came back, we promised no more secrets.”

Slumping in defeat, Klaus sighed, looking back up at his brother. “It’s not a really a secret since you’ve been hanging around me for so long.” At his siblings’ expectant look, he sighed again, retreating to his bed, pulling the sheets over his lap in a bid to hide the nervousness he felt. “It’s just – I can’t die. Okay? I mean, I can die, but I don’t stay dead. I knew that, that’s why I took the hit.”

They stared at him in shock.

“Why didn’t you tell us? Why didn’t you tell me?” Ben demanded, gripping his brother tightly.

“I – well, I mean, you already knew that I’ve died before and came back – and I don’t mean like the times I OD’d and got brought back. I mean, remember that time at the rave? I just – it’s not something I wanted to really say and we didn’t know if I could come back from something like this. I mean, we never tested guns before and this one was quite extensive –”

“What do you mean tested?” Five interrupted, his mind latching onto the oddity of the statement.

Klaus faltered, realizing his mistake.

“I –”

Five leaned forward, his eyes narrowing shrewdly at his brother. His mind was naturally active, and tended to leap between points so quickly none of his other siblings could catch up. Right now, he was wishing that his mind processed clues just that little bit slower, because the picture that was forming in his head wasn’t something that he wanted to see.

And looking at Diego, and the slow dawn of realization on his face, he knew that he wasn’t the only one to have put two and two together.

“Klaus…” Ben whispered, a horrified expression on his face, “Please tell me that doesn’t sound like what I think it is.”

Klaus looked away, his knuckles white from the grip he had on the blanket.

“How long?” Diego growled, clenching his fists, “How l-long has he been t-t-testing you?”

When Klaus didn’t reply, Five hesitated momentarily, then reached out to touch his shoulder.

“How long?” he repeated, in a softer tone that no one thought he could manage.

“Since we were thirteen.” He finally said, “In this timeline.”

There was a beat of silence, then Diego snarled and punched the wall angrily. Five closed his eyes, wishing that he hadn’t asked. Ben just stared at his brother, shock flooding through him. Allison pressed a hand to her mouth, while Vanya stared on, horrified.

“I – I don’t get it. How – How do you train something like this?” Luther asked, feeling completely off kilter. 

“How do you think Number One?” Klaus snapped, hunching in on himself defensively, “He arranged sessions for me to lie down while he killed me over and over again. Is that what you want to hear? Or how about when he decided that we needed to test what other ways I could die and come back from? And then killed me in those ways and recorded the time it took for me to come back? How exactly do you think he trained me in this?”

Luther was white as a sheet by the end of the rant, and Klaus drew his knees up to his chest, burying his face in them, trying to calm his breathing. 

He felt his bed shift and dip as Vanya clambered onto the bed, huddling into his side. Her warm presence and the echo of music floating around her soothed the frenzied emotions slightly. He didn’t dare to look up, didn’t want to see the disappointment or the disgust on their faces, that he would be so weak to allow their father to do something like that to him, that he would subject to selling himself out. He didn’t want to see the judgment on their faces when they finally decided that he was doing this solely for the attention. 

“I’m going to kill him.” Diego said calmly, as though he was discussing the weather.

“Get in line.” Ben snarled, his own anger rising, the monsters twisting and writhing under his skin. 

“If anyone is going to be killing someone it should be me, since I’m, you know, the profession hitman?” Five commented sarcastically, rolling his eyes at them, the casual tone belied by the way his eyes flashed with anger, his hands clenched into a tight fist. 

“I’ll be the lookout,” Allison added, a fierce scowl on her beautiful face, “I can make sure Pogo doesn’t find out until we’re done.”

Klaus looked up, confused, “Why? Not that I’m not up for doing him in because I agree completely. But it’s not anything different from what he did in our own timeline.”

Ben’s face fell.

“Klaus,” Allison began, “He killed you. This isn’t training, it isn’t even a punishment – it’s straight up sadism. He discovered your ability and used you as an experiment and he did it for years.”

He frowned, “Yeah but I told him about that.”

Stunned silence filled the room once again.

“What?”

Klaus looked to Ben, who couldn’t seem to focus on one particular emotion to express.

“I –”

“Why would you do that?” Vanya asked, cutting off whatever angered speech Ben was about to give.

He looked at her, her eyes gleaming with sadness and a resignation that told him that she had an inkling of why he did so.

“I was on distraction duty.” He finally replied, fixing his eyes on Vanya. “You needed the training, and I can’t help you, I’m only good for causing a distraction so that’s what I did. I made sure dad was so busy he wouldn’t realize that you were off your pills.”

The silence returned.

“Look, it isn’t a big deal –”

“Isn’t a big deal?” Diego asked incredulously, “Jesus Klaus, what the fuck? We said to distract dad not let him experiment on you! Jesus that’s just – that – fuck, how did we miss this?”

Klaus shrugged flippantly, trying not to recall how afraid he’d been every time it was time for one of their sessions. “It worked out Dee, Vanya could train her powers, I could train mine, I get to save your asses and rub it in your faces.”

Ben laughed, slightly hysterical, shaking his head.

Luther gained a sad, kicked puppy look on his face, feeling equal parts guilty and sick, “Klaus, you didn’t have to go that far. We were supposed to take turns making sure dad didn’t know.”

Klaus rolled his eyes, pretending that he wasn’t gripping Vanya’s hand in a vice grip under the blanket, “Didn’t have to go that far? You thought I was useless – no, don’t deny it – you thought I couldn’t help, so you told me to be a distraction. I did what you wanted, I did my job as well as I could and I did it so well that dear old dad didn’t even notice anything so don’t give me that look and tell me I shouldn’t have done what I did.”

Luther dropped his gaze, and Klaus had a fleeting moment of vicious satisfaction.

“Klaus…” Ben started, climbing onto the bed on the other side of Vanya. “We’re not going to let this go on anymore.”

“You really think you can stop him?” the séance raised an eyebrow.

The other teen scowled, “I don’t think you understand Klaus. We aren’t going to ask him to stop. We’re going to make sure he doesn’t get to do something like that ever again. Not to any of us, and definitely not to you. I won’t let him ki-experiment on you. Ever.”

There was nothing that he could say in response to that, so Klaus settled for looking down at his lap, biting his lips when he felt Ben wrap an arm around him.

“What now, a group hug?” Diego grumbled.

His sentence was met by silence, and the ex-vigilante blinked several times before shaking his head, “Oh no, fuck no. I’m outta here.”

He didn’t get more than two steps away before Five grabbed him and teleported him to the bed, throwing him onto the mattress unceremoniously. Allison grinned through his grumblings and clambered on as well, fitting somewhere behind Vanya. Luther tried and failed to look disinterested, though he knocked his head on the low ceiling near the head of the bed.

Klaus stifled a laugh as he watched his siblings rearrange their limbs and made themselves comfortable on his bed, the wood groaning ominously. They stopped shifting at the sound, then dissolved into peals of laughter.

He isn’t suicidal, hasn’t been for a long time. And although the sessions were terrifying and Sir Reginald was a colossal asshole who was in desperate need of parenting courses, he thinks that he has to be grateful to the man for at least one thing – his siblings. Things weren’t perfect, he still didn’t truly believe that they didn’t consider him useless, not after the years of having been assigned to lookout duty and being told that his powers weren’t as useful in a real fight. A part of him was still waiting for the other shoe to drop, for the day that his family would decide – as they did in their original timeline – that he was nothing more than a useless junkie who could only waste his life away, while another – bigger – part was telling him that this was their second chance, and everyone was working to become a better version of themselves.

But for now, safely encased by the warmth of his family, he decides that his worries can be saved for tomorrow.