Chapter Text
“What should we do with the old bitch?”
“I say we kill him”
“No- Klaus ”
*
They lock him in the first room with a lock they can find, almost silently, barely speaking, and then they gravitate towards the living room. They sit.
No one speaks for a long while.
Vanya feels like they should be speaking, talking to each other, leaning on one another. But what can they say, anyway? There’s nothing to say that hasn’t been screamed raw already, all through tears and vicious jabbing. They’ve hurt each other. They’ve saved each other.
She toys with the hem of her gown, all wet and uncomfortable, soaking with rainwater. She considers getting up and changing out of it but decides she’s just not got enough energy to do it.
The silence is suffocating.
Klaus looks to the side, abruptly, and then he’s barking out a half-deranged sound, laughter, attempting to stifle it but failing. “Sorry!” he blurts, and he does sound like he’s sorry but he doesn’t stop laughing. He slaps both palms over his mouth, muffling his words, “Sorry, sorry-!”
He keeps throwing glances to that one spot, to his right.
“Ben?” Allison asks, softly, hopeful.
Klaus stops laughing at that.
He nods. Shrugs half-heartedly.
Allison breathes out something shaky, and then it seems like everyone else breathes out as well, moving and shifting in place. “Why didn’t you tell us you could see him?”
“Would you have believed me?”
“Yes, Klaus” Allison says, as if it is very obvious and Klaus is very stupid. “Of course we would’ve”
Klaus shakes his head, “No, you wouldn’t have. You never believe me about anything!” he says, his tone whiny and upset all of the sudden, close to tears. “It’s like- every time I tell you shit you just assume I’m lying or making it up, like-” and he straightens up abruptly, shoots Vanya a pointed look. ” You didn’t believe me about Vanya ”
Vanya blinks. “What?”
“Her- your powers!” Klaus says. “I kept saying you had powers and no one believed me!”
Diego huffs, rolls his eyes.
Allison and Luther stare on, eyes wide open.
“You-” Vanya starts, “I mean, it was kinda far-fetched, wasn’t it?”
Klaus shakes his head side to side very slowly, “No, it wasn’t”
Vanya didn’t believe him either, she realizes.
Klaus upped and told her straight to her face, with no hesitation, hey, funny, but I think Dad might be drugging you and keeping this huge part of yourself away from you, no biggie-
Klaus figured it out before she did, before anyone else did, and she didn’t believe him.
And- truth to be told, truth to be told, she’d absolutely love to say she would’ve believed him about Ben right away, taken the news in stride, begged to use Klaus as a medium to pass messages along to him- talked to her brother, both of her brothers. But-
That Klaus, from all those weeks ago?
Grief stricken, desperate, a sputtering mess, willing to steal his sister’s medication just to stop feeling ?
Would she have believed him? Would any of them have believed him?
They were grief stricken, too, desperate messes willing to hurt and lash out and push away just to stop feeling, and the thought of Ben- the thought of him, ever present, ever unreachable, alone-
Vanya bites her lip, looks down.
The silence stretches on.
It’s suffocating.
“What should we do with-” Diego blurts, staring straight ahead at nothing in particular. “with Dad?”
“Let him rot,” Klaus says, immediately. There’s no bite.
Luther sighs, and Allison sighs, and Vanya stays quiet because she’s got some ideas about what to do with that man and she doesn’t think a single one of them would be appreciated.
“We should, uh,” Luther says, in that awkward way of his. “Turn him in? To the police, I think”
Diego huffs, crosses his arms over his chest, “We’re underage, dipshit. What do you think is gonna happen if we turn our fucking legal guardian in?”
“Oh”
“Yeah”
More silence. Heavy.
Allison shifts in her seat awkwardly, looking so very uncomfortable. Everyone turns to look at her. “I, uh-” she starts, hesitant, afraid, but then she breathes out and she looks the calmest Vanya’s ever seen her in years. She folds her hands across her lap, tuts out her chin. “We’re staying together, here. I’ll- I’ll rumor him, we’re staying together”
*
It’s a whole ordeal-
They wait patiently until Reginald wakes up, and then there’s more screaming and shouting and threats, but Vanya stays calm and collected, doesn’t let her power lash out one bit. He’s not worth it.
Allison steps in, breathes in and out, and the words are out to never be taken back-
“I heard a rumor you never knew we even existed”
Pogo walks in on them. He’s rumored, too.
They'd feel guilty, they would, really. But Sir Reginald Hargreeves is a goddamned billionaire entrepreneur, filthy rich. He’ll be fine.
There are some more rumors involved and then Reginald and Pogo are being sent to some property in some country they’ve barely even heard of, a couple million dollars short and with a gap in his memory of more or less seventeen years or so. Luther assures them he’s read all the tabloids from all over the world. The Academy is only mentioned locally. There’s no chance of Reginald hearing about them.
It's slow, and draining, and by the time it’s all over Vanya doesn’t know what she’s feeling anymore.
Allison’s voice echoes around her mind, deadly, cold, “I heard a rumor-”
“I heard a rumor-”
“I heard a rumor-”
“I heard a rumor-”
With a whisper, the Umbrella Academy is no more.
*
Mom doesn’t ask any questions.
She takes one look at them and announces she’s making cookies.
They eat, they thank her.
They thank her.
*
“That’s- that’s a hole”
Klaus hums, “Yeah, one big ol’ hole”
Vanya groans, rubs a hand across the matted mess that is her hair. “Why did I do that? It’s huge- I could’ve- I could’ve brought the house down”
“Eh, maybe, but-”
Vanya whines, stares on at the goddamned hole she punched through her and Klaus’ wall, the one they share, the one in between their respective bedrooms. It’s-
It’s a mess.
She can’t quite wrap her mind around the fact she did that-
Because- she's extraordinary, isn’t she? She should probably have more control over her power, keep those surges down and not tear everything in her path apart. She’ll learn, she thinks.
But now-
Their bedrooms-
“Hey, I’ve got a crazy idea” Klaus says, suddenly. “If you’re still feeling all rage-y and murderous- why don’t we tear the whole wall down, huh? I bet it’d be cathartic and shit”
Vanya laughs, a sound torn from her throat, carefree. “What? Just tear the whole thing down? End up with one big bedroom instead of two?”
“Yeah, exactly” Klaus says, a twinkle in his eyes. “It’d be fun! We can be roomies!”
Vanya looks at him, and she doesn’t know what she’s looking for, but she thinks she finds it, in his eyes, a spark. They’ll be fine. They’ll be just fine.
“Okay, yeah, yeah, let’s do it”
*
It takes forever, but they do it.
They end up sweaty and gross and tired, with far more debris and dust that they can handle by themselves, but they do it. Two dingy bedrooms the size of a shoebox turn into a single, spacious one.
It doesn't look perfect. Klaus’ never been the most careful with his stuff, and his side is all full of mysterious stains and incomprehensible scrawls, drawings, his words and his life, and-
Vanya’s side is empty.
Utterly empty, boring and plain. Awfully ordinary.
She'd like her side to look more like Klaus’, she thinks, like someone actually lives there. It won’t be all that easy. She hasn’t got a clue how to even begin- but Klaus will help. The room will end up looking like a whole entire different place when they’re done with it.
Klaus drags a sofa chair from the living room and plants it right in the middle of their new bedroom, where the wall used to stand. “This is Ben’s chair” he announces, and that’s that.
They're together.
They’re as happy as they can be.
*
They stay in the house.
They live their lives.
It’s almost frightening, in a way, just how easy they adapt.
They all still get up at 5 am sharp every day, just because they’ve always done it and it’d be nearly impossible to stop- but they eat all their meals in the kitchen, and they talk, and they stay for as long as they please, enjoying each other’s company. Mom lets them cook, every now and then.
Vanya comes to find out channeling her power through music is stupidly easy. It’s just a matter of picking up her violin, stroking it up, down, up, down, and suddenly there’s nothing she couldn’t do.
It’s exhilarating , freeing-
And then she’s practicing one day, alone, in the courtyard, under the oak three, and then Klaus shows up from out of nowhere, leans against the three’s trunk and watches.
She keeps playing, because why wouldn’t she?
She plays note after note, sweet and melancholic, and when she’s done, Klaus straightens up, smiles big and bright. “Hey, V” he says, and he looks somewhat sheepish, nervous. “You know what I just realized?”
Vanya takes the violin off her neck, holds it loosely. “What?”
“I’m- I’m sober”
It’s-
Vanya freezes, tightens her hold on the violin.
She breathes in and she tilts her head and she doesn’t know how to react to those words.
She feels-
It’s true. It’s true, she realizes. The thing is- she thinks back on it, and after days, and weeks, and moths she thinks she can’t recall a single time when Klaus was alone, by himself- where any of them were alone, by themselves. They’ve been sticking together, too shaken to do much of anything.
And during all those days, and weeks, and months-
“You’re sober,” Vanya says, an echo, and it’s an incredible feeling.
Klaus nods, hides a small little grin, all pleased and proud. “This is the longest I’ve ever been”
Vanya laughs, and laughs, and pretends she isn’t shedding a single tear.
*
A startled yelp, the sound of something slipping, falling, falling, falling-
Vanya rushes over to the parlor, barely noticing Allison, and Luther, and Diego following close by.
Klaus is halfway through stumbling down the stairs, wearing the brightest, pinkest pair of high heels Vanya’s ever seen, and it feels too much like being twelve years old and seeing him crying and screaming, lying at the very bottom, his jaw swollen and bloody.
“Shit,” Vanya mumbles, slapping a hand over her mouth.
She reaches for him instinctually-
But then-
A flash of blue.
A flash of blue and suddenly Klaus is being held upright, clutching the banister with an air of derangement, just shy of smashing his head against the steps. He’s being held upright.
Vanya’s mind can’t make sense of what she’s seeing, until-
“Ben?”
*
Turns out sobriety treats Klaus well.
Three months in, he can manifest Ben whenever the hell he feels like it.
Five months in, he starts floating -
Just, wakes up one day and his feet don’t touch the ground for a single second.
Vanya nearly has a heart attack, when she realizes what’s happening, and then Klaus almost has a heart attack when he realizes what’s happening. Getting him back down is- complicated.
By the time the telekinesis kicks in, no one’s surprised anymore.
*
“We should move out” Vanya says one day, out of the blue.
Klaus splutters and coughs and ends up spitting out a mouthful of strawberry cheesecake. Vanya doesn’t even blink. “What- why ?”
“Just because,” Vanya says, shrugging. “Don’t you ever want to like- work or something? Make a living?”
“Uh, no?”
She frowns, looks at him.
Klaus groans, “Dude, c’mon. We’ve got Daddy’s millions, why would we ever wanna work?”
That’s a good point, right there, but-
“I guess I’ve sort of always wanted to join an orchestra”
Klaus blinks up at her. “Oh, yeah, that’s- huh”
“It’s stupid, I know” Vanya mutters, because it is, and she knows.
“Hey, hey, no,” Klaus says, sharply, and he drops his spoon with a clatter for the first time in a quite frankly alarming amount of time. It’s their birthday. Klaus doesn’t ever let a single crumb of cake go to waste. “Vanya, why the hell- it's not stupid”
“Isn’t it, though?” and she looks away, down. “What if- my powers?”
Klaus snorts, picks his spoon back up and chews very, very loudly. “V, I’m sure if you ever have another mild mental breakdown it’ll be just as justified as the last one-”
“Klaus-”
“I trust your judgment fully, dear sister o’ mine” Klaus says, loud and carefree. He’s smiling very brightly. “If you ever feel like cracking some skulls then I’ll help you hide the bodies! Easy!”
Vanya sighs, groans. “You’re impossible”
*
But she does end up joining an orchestra.
The one she’s had her eyes on since she was more or less fourteen years old is in the opposite side of the city, so she ends up moving out, too.
Klaus claims he’s never moving out from the actual, literal mansion they live in, but one day Vanya invites everyone over for dinner and Klaus just doesn’t leave. Her apartment’s got a spare bedroom, so it’s okay. Ben takes residence in the living room.
Soon after she moves out, Allison announces she’s moving too. LA, she says, because she’s going to be an actress and that’s exactly where all the respectable actresses live. They take her to the airport and hug her goodbye.
Then it’s Diego, saying he wants to be a police officer.
And then it’s Luther, a month or so later, when they all get tired of his oddly emotional phone calls at odd hours of the night because apparently, he’s lonely, all by himself in the empty house. Diego moves back in, drags Luther to the police academy.
“Which one do you think is going to get kicked out first?”
Vanya laughs, shakes her head. “I’d say Diego”
“Interesting choice,” Klaus says, humming. He turns to the side, stares at nothing and listens. “Benny-boy’s betting on Luther”
She rolls her eyes, “I guess we’ll see”
*
It’s Luther.
Luther gets kicked out first.
*
Diego gets kicked out, too, but that was to be expected, honestly.
The one thing Vanya thinks she never could’ve seen coming, was walking into the academy’s living room, early in the morning, just in time to help Mom set everything up for their birthday celebration, and seeing Diego-
Holding a woman’s hand.
A pretty girl, about their age, with dark eyes and dark skin, leaning into Diego and laughing at all his jokes, smiling sweetly up at him.
“Oh,” Vanya blurts. “Hi” They notice her, and they untangle themselves and stand up, and Vanya’s never seen Diego looking so relaxed and eased, happy.
“Hey, you must be Vanya,” the woman says, holding out a hand. Vanya takes it, shakes it when prompted. “I’m Patch”
“Patch,” Vanya echoes. There’s a badge, pinned over Patch’s breast pocket. “You’re police?”
Patch nods, “Yeah, I’ll make detective soon” and then she’s shooting Diego a playful glare. “Unlike others, I didn’t get kicked out of the academy”
Diego grunts, groans. “Can we let that go? Please?”
Patch shakes her head, completely unapologetic, merciless. “Sorry, babe, no can do”
Vanya laughs, choppy and short. She decides, right then and there, she very much likes Patch.
Diego very nearly pouts, rolls his eyes. But then he’s turning to her and frowning- “Hey, where’s your evil twin anyway? You’re always together”
“ What-? Klaus?”
Diego nods.
“He went with Luther, to pick up Allison” Vanya explains, slowly. “Y’know, from the airport?”
“Ugh, lame” Diego says, because he’s always been very eloquent. Then he grabs Patch’s hand on his own and it’s like Vanya didn’t even exist. “Wanna see my childhood bedroom?” he mutters, low, all flirty and dumb.
Vanya does her best not to laugh.
But Patch nods, all flirty and dumb, too, and Diego tugs her away.
*
By the time Luther and Klaus come back with Allison, and by the time Diego and Patch come downstairs and do their best to pretend they weren’t doing anything indecent up there, the food is all ready.
It’s a feast, like it always is.
It doesn’t matter how much time goes by, how much she grows up and old, Vanya is sure she’ll always believe Mom’s food is the very best food, ever. It’s just- good , and homey, and it tastes like the parts of their childhood that didn’t suck.
Then there’s the strawberry cheesecake, pretty and sweet, and then there’s the plain vanilla cake- because Luther straight up refuses to eat anything else.
Mom still makes a small chocolate one, for Ben, even if he can’t eat anymore.
Vanya sits down, looks around at her family, and she almost can’t believe it-
Because-
They survived.
They went through hell but they survived, and now everyone’s talking among themselves, laughing and chatting, with a carelessness that she would’ve thought impossible for a Hargreeves. They survived.
Or-
She thinks of Ben, and she thinks of Five.
They more or less survived, for the most part.
Then it’s later that day, and they’re done eating, and she’s perched up on one of the kitchen’s counters, watching as everyone flutters around her, cleaning the place up to the best of their ability after insisting Mom should let them do it. She’s sitting, and she’s still wondering how they ever got so lucky, so happy, so free, when-
There’s an ominous creak, loud and disruptive.
Vanya jumps half a foot in the air.
“ What the -” someone mutters, muffled.
Klaus gravitates to her side as he always does whenever there’s trouble, and Vanya’s looking at him when she realizes the sky outside is darkening, clouding over.
“What’s going on?” Allison asks, high and whiny, worried.
The cloudiness turns into an eerie blue.
Vanya frowns, glances out at the sky through the window and then back at Klaus. “Is that you?” because everything is blue, and blue means Ben, and blue means Klaus.
“How would that be me?” Klaus whines, clearly offended. “I’m right here!”
“Let’s just-”
And they all go outside.
There’s a giant ball of blue, outside.
Vanya barely registers it, when Luther and Diego, and Patch, too, start barking at them to stay behind, stay away, don’t get too close, stay behind us-
The thing opens up, spits someone out.
It’s-
“ Five? ”
*
“-yeah, I’m telling you, I fucking hate those idiots, but as much as it pains me to admit it, they’re right about most things”
“About,” Luther echoes. He’s the only one who isn’t sitting down. “About killing people?”
“Not just- people , Luther, jesus christ” Five says, and he’s rolling his eyes. The gesture is painfully familiar, tugs something loose in Vanya’s heart. “They terminate- uh, let’s say anomalies ”
“Is that legal?” Patch asks, “That doesn’t sound legal”
“Doubt it is,” Five says, easy. “But the world would’ve gone to shit ten times over if it wasn’t for them. I’ll be the first one to admit their methods are highly questionable, but-” a sigh, “they do good. They really do good, in the long run”
Diego shifts, clears his throat awkwardly, “So, the Commission, huh?”
Five nods, “Freshly retired”
“I’m- I- I'm sorry,” Vanya blurts, because she’s just not- “Five, it’s been years. Where were you?”
“The future,” Five says, with no hesitation. “It’s awesome, by the way”
And then, then Klaus laughs, and he’s grinning, and he’s happy, and they’re all together. “Called it”