Chapter Text
Sir Reginald Hargreeves died on a Thursday.
Thursday March 21st, 2019, to be exact.
And how did Number Four of the Umbrella Academy, or as he much prefered Klaus Hargreeves-Herschberger-Katz, find out?
Well, the same way he found out about his sister's divorce.
“Moments ago, Police reported the death of the most eccentric and reclusive billionaire—”
“Daddy look! It’s the mean man you have on your dartboard!”
Fucking Television.
When Klaus was twelve he realized that the medicine Grace gave him for the broken jaw he got after falling down the stairs in her heels made the ghosts disappear. He knew the moment she stopped giving it to him that he needed more.
By the time Five ran away when they were thirteen, Klaus was fully hooked: much to his siblings’ and father’s annoyance.
When Klaus was seventeen, Ben died in the Jennifer incident that all of their siblings seemed to have suppressed all memory of.
By eighteen Klaus was living on the streets—doing anything he could to get a fix so that he could block the ghosts out.
He never thought he’d live past twenty.
But he did.
Skirting death and the law at every turn. He was the life of the party. He was that friend that nobody was really close to and the one you’d never bring home—he burned bridges at every turn. Doing Impulsive thing after impulsive thing not caring whether he lived or died.
That all changed when Klaus turned twenty four. Because when Klaus turned twenty four, a one night stand of his showed up at the place where he was staying and shoved a baby in his arms: saying he was their son and that she couldn’t take care of him. That her family threatened to disown her if she didn’t get them both out of her life and get sober.
It was the last time Klaus ever saw or heard from her.
Suddenly Klaus was a single father to a newborn baby boy with his eyes and a choice to make.
Get sober and be a father or drop the kid at the nearest fire station and pray that he didn’t get adopted by the next Sir Reginald Hargreeves.
Ben said that the choice was obvious and Klaus had to agree.
Getting sober was hard.
Harder than hard.
It was harder than hell.
Pure agony.
But Klaus managed with some missteps here and there.
He’d had to—for Nathan.
Because he was all Nathan had. Well, other than Ben.
Klaus got sober. Called Pongo and got some of his and the others’ old baby things mailed to him behind dad’s back for Nathan, even if he despised seeing that logo on his son—old baby clothes that brought back bad memories were better than no baby clothes after all—and rented a flat. He went to his AA meetings. Found other ways to cope with his powers.
He got a job at ‘The Graceful Traveller’—an alternative healing and supernatural shop up the street from where he lived run by a woman with honest-to-god healing powers named Carla—and made some friends. Connected with his long lost aunt, Sarah-Beth and learned so many things about his mom and his powers. Eventually meeting David ‘Dave’ Katz at Griddy’s and falling in love.
(Not necessarily in that order).
By the time Nathan was four, Klaus and Dave were married with a house Dave had inherited from his Great Aunt Queenie and her ‘friend’ Diamond. Dave adopted Nathan not long after.
Klaus didn’t want to go to the funeral—the memorial, whatever.
He didn’t want to go.
Why would he want to go?
Sir Reginald Hargreeves was a complete and utter jackass who had tormented him throughout his entire childhood. Had made it clear that he thought Klaus was a complete and utter screw up. Klaus may have been delusional but even he knew that there was no way in hell that he’d be getting anything in the will.
Klaus didn’t want to go to the funeral.
He wanted to stay home, lay on the fake polar bear rug in the living room, and eat the cookies Grace had sent while Ben read in the rocking chair by the fireplace, talking with Aunt Sarah Beth and mom.
Wanted to remove Reginald Hargreeves from his mind and call up the guys from the old reenactment group for a game night because god damn it Klaus had better things to do than listen to whatever bullshit would be spewed.
Klaus Hargreeves-Herschberger-Katz had a life outside of the Umbrella Academy now and he wanted to live it without reopening any wounds from the past.
But—
“I think we should go.” Ben said quietly after Dave had gone to put Nathan to bed. “It’d be nice to see the others again. We haven’t seen them since Allison’s wedding.”
Damn it Ben.