Chapter Text
“Where are you going with this?” Klaus asked.
“Oh, isn’t it obvious, Klaus?” Diego said. “He thinks one of us killed Dad.”
Everyone in the room turned to stare at me. Even Pogo, partially hidden on the upper floor, looked at me to see my reaction.
“What’s everyone looking at me for?” I asked.
“Vanya, we won’t be mad,” someone said. I was too shocked to figure out who.
“No,” Luther said, “it’s not okay for her to kill Dad.”
As the room devolved into debate over what they should do about my supposed murder of Reggie, I shook my head in an attempt to reorient myself into this new reality. Every time the bar was on the ground, someone would dig a tunnel. “Don’t be stupid, guys,” I interrupted. “I didn’t kill him.”
Everyone glanced over at me with varying levels of disbelief. But, of course, no one’s level of doubt was zero, except for Pogo, which meant he was totally in on the “mysterious” heart attack.
“Out of all of us, you’re the one with the grudge,” Luther defended. “You’ve tried to kill him before.”
“I’m definitely not the only one here with a grudge. Besides, I’ve only tried to kill him a few times. But that’s not the point. If I could have killed him, I would have done it years ago.”
“I believe her,” Klaus said.
“That man was unkillable,” I explained. “One time, I gave him castor beans, and he actually ate them and lived. The ricin should have led to organ failure and unstoppable death, but he seemed untouched.”
“Exactly—” Luther started, but I interrupted again.
“And that time with the cyanide— he was completely unharmed. That time with the filleting knife? He didn’t even bother to put on a band-aid.”
“Maybe you were just bad at trying to kill him,” Diego said.
“I was not,” I responded, indignant. “He was just immortal or an alien or something. It was a him issue, not a me issue.”
“He wasn’t an alien,” Allison said.
“I’ll admit, he might have been a robot.”
“You see?” Luther said, pointing at me. I gestured questioningly toward myself, just to make sure. “If you’re right, and he was unkillable, then why is he dead? That makes no sense, Vanya.”
“Easy, suicide. Can I go back to sleep?”
Another round of yelling followed.
“Vanya, why do you think Dad killed himself?” Luther eventually asked. The rest of the academy was focusing on me as well. It seemed being stared at would be a new motif in my life now. Wonderful.
I decided to give the honest answer. “To manipulate you. Why else?”
“It’s decided,” Luther announced. But, judging from the looks of most of the family, I assumed the decision wasn’t decided by vote. “Klaus, you need to summon Dad.”
“He probably won’t come,” I said.
“I can’t just call Dad in the afterlife and be like, ‘Dad, could you just stop playing tennis with Hitler for a moment and take a quick call?’” Klaus said.
“That’s your thing,” Luther said.
“I didn’t know Zeke Yeager cosplay was your thing, Luther, but here we are,” I retorted for him. “The ghost isn’t going to happen. So what’s it going to take for you to believe none of us killed him?”
“He’s not accusing us,” Allison said. I gave her a look of disbelief.
Luther didn’t say anything to agree with her.
“You are?” Klaus said.
“He thinks it was one of us,” Diego said. “Doesn’t have to be Vanya.”
“That’s not what I’m saying,” Luther said quietly.
“Great job, Luther. Way to lead,” Diego murmured as he walked away.
“You’re crazy, man. You’re crazy.”
“I’m not finished.”
Klaus exited with an “I’m just going to go murder mom, be right back.”
Allison walked out of the room in complete silence.
“Well,” I said, the only one left in the room with him. “That went well.”
This time, it was Luther who walked out. I went back to sleep.
The first time the Umbrella Academy ever publicly did the whole vigilante thing was in 2002. An entire seventeen years ago. 2002 can be remembered as a time when Nokia phones were still being produced, Blockbuster still existed, and the Amazon stock price was around seventeen dollars. That last part is relevant because I spent most of 2002 trying to convince Reggie to let me invest in Amazon. I guess it’s not super relevant to the story, but it’s relevant to me. It was also the year that Five disappeared.
The first vigilante thing everyone who wasn’t me did was stop bank robbers. I was on the roof of a building across the street with Reggie, commentating.
When we heard two successive gunshots go off in the building, I asked, “Do you think that was Five or Three?”
“Number Three,” Reggie said.
Across the street, someone, presumably Luther, ran over the building before jumping in through a skylight.
“You’re probably right,” I said. “She seemed more excited.”
Someone, presumably a bank robber, came flying out of the window before landing on the steps in front of the reporters. He didn’t get up.
“Yikes, hope you’ve got your lawyers ready.”
“What for?”
“The dead guy on the stairs.”
“He won’t press charges. Be quiet, Number Seven.”
I raised my eyebrows but shut up.
Slightly after, there was rapid gunfire again, and I broke the silence. “Bet that’s Five.”
Reggie didn’t respond.
“Hey, why don’t you have me go there with them?” I asked. It wasn't that I wanted to be down there, but it was strange that I was here at all if I wasn't going to be part of the bank rescue.
“We’ve been through this before, Number Seven,” Reggie said. “I’m afraid there’s just nothing special about you.”
“Not even my stunning personality?”
Helicopter blades whirled, sirens wailed, and Reggie said nothing.
“Klaus doesn’t have any control over his powers, and they’re not easy to see, but you have him in there. So it’s not about the risk to my safety, and it’s not about usefulness, and it’s not about being special.” Reggie put down his telescope and glanced at me. “If you don’t want to tell me why you’re keeping me here, then just don’t. It’s insulting for you to lie so badly about it.”
“Our world is changing. Has changed. There are some among us gifted with abilities far beyond the ordinary. I have adopted six such children.”
I wasn’t sure if he could see me towards the back of the crowd, blended in, but I traced the line of a sarcastic, imaginary tear rolling down my face anyways. I wished he had adopted only six children. Even better, I wish he had adopted zero children.
“I give you the inaugural class of the Umbrella Academy.”
An unusually sane reporter asked, “Are you considered about the welfare of the children?”
“Of course,” Reggie lied, like a liar. “As I am for the fate of the world.”
Hm. That rang a bit too genuine. Mom suddenly gently grabbed me by the shoulder. It was a light touch, but I doubt I could have done anything to make her lose control of me.
“Come on, Vanya, let’s go back to the car,” she said.
I woke up to the sound of clanging. Sitting up on the couch, I looked behind me to see Klaus looking at a knocked-over urn.
“Are those Reggie’s ashes spilled on the countertop?” I asked with glee. “Klaus, I didn’t know you were going to try to annoy him back to life.”
“Oh,” Klaus said, still staring at the ashes. "Shit."
“I’ll help you clean it up.”
When the noise started, I was in the front room, sitting on the stairs. One moment, texting Helen in peace. Immediately after, flashing lights and strong winds. For a second, I thought it was the universe reprimanding me for sharing the details of what was technically a private family event with some of my orchestra friends, but realized that if the universe cared, it had bigger stuff to be mad about.
I headed to the noise and saw Diego going in the same direction. I walked with him, matching his pace until we got outside.
“Oh,” Diego said, bracing against the wind. It was howling around us, and a bright blue glowy thingy was floating in the sky. I followed behind him.
“What is it?” I asked.
On the other side, there seemed to be something. It looked kind of like bushes and a sidewalk, which was unexpected.
“Don’t get too close,” Allison said.
“Yeah, no shit,” Luther and I said in unison.
“Looks like some sort of temporal anomaly,” Luther said. “Either that or a miniature black hole. One of the two.”
“Pretty big difference there, Paul Bunyan,” Diego shouted.
“Do you even know what those two things are?” I asked.
“Out of the way,” Klaus yelled, bursting through us with a fire extinguisher. He threw the fire extinguisher at the glowing blue thing. I was pretty sure I could see treetops and a sky beyond it.
“What is that going to do?” Allison yelled.
“I don’t know,” Klaus said. “Do you have a better idea?”
Suddenly, it started to get louder.
“Everybody get behind me,” Luther yelled.
“Yeah, get behind us,” Diego said.
I grabbed Diego’s arm and pulled him a bit further back. “You’re much less durable than he is,” I said.
Unfortunately, stopping Diego from being stupid meant that I could see Allison grab Luther’s hand. Out of respect for my eyes, I looked away and back towards the blue thing, which was now displaying trees and a white picket fence behind it, with someone trying to get through to this side. The person kept flashing between an old man and someone who looked disturbingly like Five. He fell out and to the ground, and the storm stopped as suddenly as it had started.
Cautiously, we all walked forward, Luther in front. The person on the ground, who was almost certainly Five, stood up, looking disgruntled and confused.
“Does anyone else see little Number Five, or is that just me?” Klaus asked.
“It’s not just you,” I said.
“Shit,” Five said.
“What’s the date? Five asked, grabbing a bag of bread. “The exact date.”
“March 24th, 2019,” I said.
“Good,” Five said.
“So, are we gonna talk about what just happened?” Luther asked. He kept his voice calm and modulated like he was trying to relax Five.
Five put two pieces of bread next to each other, continuing with his sandwich.
Luther jumped to a different tactic. “It’s been seventeen years,” he said, standing.
Five scoffed. “It’s been a lot longer than that.” He jumped past Luther to grab a jar of peanut butter.
“I haven’t missed that,” Luther muttered.
“Where’d you go?” Diego asked.
“The future. It’s shit, by the way.”
I exhaled sharply in amusement, and Klaus said, “Called it,” as if the future being shit was ever a topic of debate.
“I should have listened to the old man,” Five said, opening the fridge. “You know, jumping through space is one thing, jumping through time is a toss of the dice. Nice dress.”
“Oh, well, danke.”
“How did you get back?” Allison asked.
“In the end, I had to project my consciousness forward into a suspended quantum state version of myself that exists across every possible instance of time.”
My favorite thing about Five was that I genuinely couldn’t tell if he was bullshitting sometimes.
Diego shook his head. “That makes no sense.”
“Well, it would if you were smarter.”
Diego stood up, and Luther’s arm reflexively went out to stop him.
“How long were you there?” He asked.
“Forty-five years. Give or take.”
They both sat back down.
I winced in sympathy. Being an adult in a teenage body would be miserable.
“So, what are you saying?” Luther sounded incredulous. “You’re fifty-eight?”
“No, my consciousness is fifty-eight. Apparently, my body is thirteen again.”
“I am so sorry,” I said. It was sincere.
“Dolores kept saying the equations were off. Bet she’s laughing now.”
“Dolores?” I asked. Did Five have a friend? Possibly someone that was more than a friend? I felt inexplicably proud.
Five, the dick that he is, didn’t answer.
“Guess I missed the funeral,” he said.
“How’d you know about that?” Luther asked.
“What part of the future do you not understand?” Then, after a second, he asked, “heart failure, huh?”
“Yeah,” said Diego.
“No,” said Luther.
“Kind of,” I said.
“Nice to see nothing’s changed.”
“That’s it? That's all you have to say?” Allison called after him as he left the room.
“Circle of life,” Five called back. “What more is there to say?”
“I mean, he’s technically not wrong,” I said.