faye_dartmouth (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
faye_dartmouth) wrote2019-12-23 03:09 pm
faye_dartmouth) wrote2019-12-23 03:09 pm
Entry tags:
Umbrella Academy fic: Thicker Than Blood (8/13)
PART ONE
PART TWO
PART THREE
PART FOUR
PART FIVE
PART SIX
PART SEVEN
PART EIGHT
PART NINE
PART TEN
PART ELEVEN
PART TWELVE
PART THIRTEEN
-o-
“So,” he said, and he rubbed his hands together. They were all there. Luther and Allison, poised together on the chair. Five was perched next to him, jittery but focused. Klaus was sprawled on one of the other chairs, and Ben hovered on the one opposite from him. Vanya was looking earnest on a chair she pulled over from the bar and all Diego could think was what the hell.. “I think we need to bring the Umbrella Academy back together.”
He’d said this before.
Okay, he’d said it a lot of times.
And every time, the idea had gone over badly.
Really badly.
Bracing himself, he was ready for the rejection he’d become accustomed to, but today--
Well, today, everyone listened.
Swallowing hard, Diego found that he had to take a breath, muster his courage, just to continue with the pitch he’d started the day they got back. He’d been so eager, then. He wondered how such confidence could be so empty now. This wasn’t what he wanted anymore. This time, it was what they all needed.
“I know this is all new to us, and I know we’re dealing with a lot,” he continued, patient and measured. He glanced from one to the next with earnest resolve. “And I know it’s probably not even what all of you want. I know how much we’ve all sacrificed already, so I don’t make the suggestion of giving more lightly. I really don’t.”
No one questioned him. That almost made it harder to press on. Diego had always thrived with conflict. He had always risen to a challenge. What he had to muster now was entirely of his own resolve.
“But it’s not a choice for us, not anymore. Maybe it never was, maybe Dad was right about that,” he said, pausing to press his lips together tautly.
Luther and Allison had their fingers locked. Five was perched at the edge of his seat, expression intense. Klaus stopped fidgeting with the hem of his shirt, and Ben looked so solidified that you almost couldn’t see the light through him. Vanya blinked, wide eyed and steady. He remembered to breathe.
“And we’re ready,” he said, rallying them along with himself now. He felt it building, a pressure in his chest. But in a good way this time. Filling with oxygen as his heart swells with pride. “We’ve streamlined our security and fine-tuned our response procedures. If we get a call, we’ll know what to do and we have a few support channels open to us within the police department.”
He nodded gratefully at Allison and Luther, who exchanged a small look before smiling back.
“And we have a strong working psychological profile for these guys,” Diego said. “When we face them again, we’ll know how to respond to them. They won’t be able to play games with our heads.”
Five wasn’t prone to displays of emotion -- at least, not ones that suggested anything resembling affection -- but Ben was grinning enough for both of them.
“And we’ve honed our powers. We know what we’re capable of,” he said, eyes resting on Vanya. “Apart and together.”
Klaus literally clutched his chest with emotion, and Vanya looked one blink from crying. In a good way for once.
This was what he’d wanted, wasn’t it? Not just the Umbrella Academy back at it, fighting crime on their terms. But to be their leader. To hold their attention. To garner their respect.
Shit, had he finally earned it?
Was all it took to finally stop trying so damn hard all the time?
The drive of that was overwhelming, and he felt his cheeks flush. “These people -- the ones who attacked the mall, the ones who did a hit on our property, the ones who crashed into our car and nearly killed one of us?” he said, enunciating each word with grit. “I don’t know who they are. And they’ve outplayed us at every turn. But we finally have a lead.”
It was Luther who registered the comment first. Diego mocked him for being dumb, but his brother had good leadership instincts in the field -- Diego was simply at a place where his pride was in check enough to acknowledge it. “A lead?” Luther asked on behalf of the others. He was sitting up a little straighter, eyes keen. “You have a viable lead?”
Diego nodded, giving a small shrug of clarification. “It’s nothing concrete -- not like a location or anything like that -- but I think we’ve got a timeframe.”
“Okay,” Allison said. “What are we looking at?”
“The next few days,” he said. “And there’s every reason to believe it’s going to be a local hit. And big.”
Klaus made a little snort of derision. “Bigger than the attack on the mall? Because that one was pretty big.”
“I think the mall was a test run, honestly,” Diego said. “I can’t prove it, but they’ve made no demands, released nothing resembling a manifesto. Their big play is still to come. I know it.”
“Which means the break-in on Highland was a means to amass weaponry,” Five supplied, nodding in agreement.
“And they cleaned Dad out,” Diego said. “So either they’re collecting enough supplies to last for the next few years, or they’re going to go for broke with what comes next.”
Ben looked thoughtful. “But what about the car crash? That still doesn’t fit.”
“I don’t know,” Diego said. “But the ties to us -- I think this is personal somehow. Almost like the attack on the mall was to get our attention.”
“And now they’re what?” Vanya asked, sounding concerned. “Biding their time?”
Diego didn’t disagree with her. “Which is why we have to stop biding ours,” he said, and he shrugged again. “I know maybe we’re not all ready, not individually. But as a group? I think we are. I think we have to be.”
That was the pitch, then. That was his plea.
They had rejected it before, and he couldn’t deny that he was a little scared they’d do it again. That he’d have come all this way, that he’d have understood so much, just to have them reject it again. Reject him.
But their faces looking back were resolved. From Number One to Number Seven.
It was Luther who stood up, and though he was a head taller than Diego, for the first time in their lives, they seemed to see eye to eye.
“We are,” Luther vowed, and it was so damn solemn that Diego almost wanted to laugh. Or cry. Shit, he might do both. “We’re all with you.”
As it was, Diego took tenuous hold of his emotions, lips tugging up in a smile. “Then the Umbrella Academy is finally back.”
-o-
So, the circumstances weren’t ideal -- what with a murderous terrorist organization targeting their family -- but honestly, it was everything Diego had ever dreamed it would be.
But seriously.
Everything.
They did drills now, making their response procedures more than theoretical. Pogo timed them, and Luther barked out orders, getting them assembled fast enough for a real-time mission. Allison had created a liaison within the police department, and Beaman had been all too happy to offer any tips and insights. Whether this was because he trusted Diego or had a crush on Allison wasn’t clear. The results, however, spoke for themselves.
Five’s tactical training became a series of combat maneuvers they had to remember collectively, and Ben’s analysis of the criminal profile yielded concrete tactical guidelines that Diego found rather insightful.
He enjoyed all of that, but his favorite part was the hands-on combat training.
He loved that shit.
Always had.
Always would.
He liked honing his own skills, and for the first time, he was able to see how his skills and abilities played off the others. They could learn how to work together, which was a novel way to look at it. Maybe the old man had always wanted that for them, but the inherent competition amongst their ranks had made actual application of that impossible. Diego had never wanted help -- not from any of them. He had been so determined to prove that he could do things on his own that he’d failed to realize just how much better he could be when working together.
That was the lesson of family, the one a car accident and a drowning brother had brought into crystal clear focus.
He was an idiot for not seeing it sooner.
And not just because it might save a life or some other sentimental nonsense.
But because it was awesome.
Diego had never been more on his game; his skills had never been more refined. With the others at his back, he simply performed better. What a weird notion -- that the moment he stopped trying to be better than everyone else he could actually start being better himself.
Diego had spent the last few weeks worrying about what they were up against.
For the first time, he started to think about what the Umbrella Academy was truly capable of.
-o-
At first, sitting with the police scanner felt a little weird to Diego. He’d made such a point to walk away from it after the car accident, and now that everyone was on two-man shifts, it was elevated to a whole new level of importance. He was used to do this alone at night with subterfuge. To have it be a sanctioned family activity took a little getting used to.
And sure, Diego knew that the reason for all of this was serious. They were waiting to hear any hint of a major attack. That wasn’t the sort of shit you did for shits and giggles. The stakes were high -- really high.
Yet, still, somehow awesome.
Diego liked sharing this time with his siblings. He enjoyed getting to do the things he loved with the people he loved. In fact, the people made this whole thing more than a job.
A lot more than a job.
This was a calling.
Shit, this was more.
This was family.
This was finally family.
-o-
After two days, there was no sign of anything amiss. In fact, if anything, things were quieter than ever on the police radio. Diego hadn’t heard more than two calls his entire shift with Klaus, and he’d been more than a little relieved when Luther and Five came to relieve them. Diego wasn’t opposed to hard work -- to the contrary. Sitting there with Klaus rambling on at him made him feel unnecessarily useless.
It was late, and there was no further training to complete. Ben was reading a book in the library, and Vanya was sipping a cup of tea. Allison was already asleep, and Klaus had disappeared to take a bath. Diego knew he should probably sleep -- with an attack at any moment, he needed to be rested -- but he felt too restless to sleep.
It was a little weird, how they could live in a mansion and Diego still felt like there was no place to hide. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to be with his siblings, but he was still a person. He still needed his privacy from time to time.
This was probably one of those times. The last few days had been go-go-go, which was how Diego liked it. But it wasn’t indefinitely sustainable. He needed to rest, and if sleep wasn’t going to do the trick, then a little time to himself just might.
That was how he ended up in the kitchen, rooting through the refrigerator just shy of midnight on a Tuesday night. He wasn’t hungry -- they had been eating perfectly balanced meals together in preparation -- but the thought of food wasn’t as hard to hold onto as the thought of sleep, so it seemed like an apt alternative.
Besides, if one of his siblings found him here, they wouldn’t ask questions.
Diego didn’t want them to ask questions.
Not now.
Not when he still wasn’t sure of so much himself.
That wasn’t to say he wasn’t sure of anything. He was sure of a lot of things these days, a lot more than he had been two months ago at any rate. But for as ready as his family was, there were times when he wasn’t sure if he was ready. He could do the job, sure. But against this adversary?
He could still remember the man in the basement. The moves that had matched Diego’s own. The confidence in his voice. The six digit passcode Diego knew without hesitation.
The Umbrella Academy was formidable, but Diego couldn’t deny that he had doubts. As ready as they were, would it be enough? Or had Diego assembled them to face an enemy they couldn’t contain? Had Diego found his family just in time to lead it into destruction?
They would follow him, he reminded himself grimly. Five’s limp, lifeless body was proof of that.
Numbly, Diego pulled out a carton of orange juice and poured himself a glass. As he turned to put it back in the fridge, he was surprised to see Mom in the doorway.
“Diego, darling,” she said with a smile. “You’re up late.”
Diego cocked his head before placing the juice inside the fridge and turning back around. “Me? What about you? Shouldn’t you be charging?”
She swept over to the counter. “Didn’t Pogo tell you? He made a few upgrades to give me increased capacity in case of emergency,” she said. “I am now able to operate with only five hours of charging time. It’s silly, maybe, but I like the idea of staying up late finally.”
He couldn’t help but smile. Mom had been the only good thing in his life growing up, and it was remarkable to him that she was finally getting the freedoms he’d taken for granted. The idea that she could steadfastly raise seven kids and just now get her own bedtime was surreal.
“It seems wrong,” he said softly. “That you get a freedom just because it finally serves the rest of us.”
She was utterly nonplussed. “Don’t be silly,” she said. “I know the difference between what must be done and what I want to do. I have no objection to keeping to my priorities.”
“Yeah, but even those are programmed,” he said. “We could look into changing that. See if we can give you more of a choice.”
Her look now was quizzical. “But why would I want that?” she asked. “Just because something is obligatory does not mean that it is not the most worthwhile thing of all.”
“Yeah,” he said. “But you have to say that, Mom. You see that, don’t you?”
She lifted a hand, cupping his face for a moment. “All I see is my son in the kitchen at midnight,” she said. “You must be hungry. Can I make you something?”
Diego opened his mouth, to protest, to deny, he wasn’t sure.
Mom ignored him, tutting a bit as she took out a pan. “With all this free time, I’ve started experimenting with some new recipes. Your father always insisted on such hardy meals, but I’ve always been fascinated by Japanese dishes. Raw fish seems unnecessary, but I imagine some of it is quite tasty. I’ve tried a few, but I can’t tell if they’re any good. Would you like to try one?”
She turned to him, eyes bright with what Diego could only describe as hope. Mom didn’t breathe, but it still seemed like she was holding her breath.
Diego wasn’t about to leave her wanting.
Not Mom.
Never Mom.
He smiled. “Of course,” he said. “I’d love to.”
Because not all victories were in the field.
Sometimes they were much, much closer to home.
-o-
Two more days passed.
Then three.
No one said anything; no one even looked at him funny. But the tensions were rising -- and fast. Everyone was on edge. Meals were quiet. Training was precise. They honed their response time to the fastest it had ever been, and Luther drilled them with procedural questions whenever things were quiet.
For the record, it was always quiet.
Allison supported this as best she could, but Klaus was starting to show signs of fatigue. Ben did his best to prop Klaus’ spirits, and Vanya looked so anxious that it seemed like she was ready to burst. Given Vanya’s history, this was an actual concern they had from time to time, but Allison seemed to have a sisterly touch that came in handy.
Only Five seemed to handle it with relative aplomb.
In fact, Five seemed to be in his element.
They all liked to conveniently forget the fact that Five was a trained killer with more experience in the field than any of them. When he walked and talked like a teenager that was easy enough, but as he grew increasingly calm in the face of impending conflict, Diego found the truth impossible to ignore.
Mostly because he needed some way of explaining how some tiny 13 year old was cool, calm and collected when Diego felt like he himself was going insane.
Finally, Diego just asked.
“How the hell are you so calm?” he demanded as they sat idly through their second hour of a police scanner shift. He sounded a lot angrier than he felt, and it came out like an accusation.
For all that Diego’s tone had been unintentional, it didn’t seem to matter to Five. He barely glanced at Diego, rousing nothing but boredom in response to Diego’s invective. “Well, it’s not like anything is happening,” Five replied reasonably. “In my experience, it is pointless to waste your energy when nothing is happening.”
That sounded like the kind of thing you might say after surviving the apocalypse. Or maybe it was the kind of thing you said when you worked as a time traveling assassin.
No, that wasn’t the kind of thing anyone said in this situation.
Diego shook his head, and now he was starting to get annoyed. He knew he wasn’t really mad at Five, but Five was the only one here. “I’m serious, though,” he said crossly. “We’re waiting for an impending attack that is worse than the one on the mall. Everyone else is on edge.”
Five looked almost offended. “So I should be, too? Nothing is happening.”
“But it’s going to happen,” Diego said, and then he hesitated. “You think it’s going to happen, don’t you?”
Five’s expression lapsed back into boredom. “Curb the self doubt. I’m here to listen for calls, not babysit your ego.”
Diego scowled. “I’m just saying,” he said. “If you think we’ve got it wrong, you should say something.”
This time, Five rolled his eyes outright. “I was there when we all agreed,” he said. “I’ve gone over the intel more than you have since. I ran the numbers. I don’t think we’re wrong.”
“Then why?” Diego asked, sitting back and crossing his hands over his chest. “Why are you so calm?”
“Because panic is counterproductive,” Five said. He shook his head. “It’s like when you’re trying to hold your breath. The more you panic, the higher your heart rate gets. The higher your heart rate, the faster you drown. You can effectively kill yourself while trying to save yourself. If we’re going to be stuck holding our breath for an indefinite period of time, then we need to stay calm.”
Diego winced. “Not the best analogy there, bro.”
“Actually, I don’t think there’s a better one.”
Uncrossing his arms, Diego rocked in his chair with a sigh. Instead of pursuing an analogy that reminded Diego of things he’d rather forget, he decided to stay on point. “So you do think they’ll attack, then? You think it’s coming?”
Five made a face, something like mild disgust. “You put together the initial analysis. You based your entire pitch for the Umbrella Academy on that very predication. And you’re having doubts?”
Diego felt his cheeks burn. “I was sure. I mean, the data makes sense. It makes a lot of sense,” he said. He made a helpless gesture. “But I don’t know. Data can be wrong. Even you said the equations can be wrong sometimes.”
The look Five gave him now was tedious. “You can get the equations wrong, but the numbers are never wrong,” he said. “Diego, you know this. Self doubt doesn’t suit you. The attack is coming. It’s just a matter of time.”
Miserably, Diego slumped back. “You make it sound simple.”
“Oh, please,” Five said. “You can make it sound like anything you want. That doesn’t change what it is.”
“Dude, I’m looking for encouragement,” Diego replied flatly.
Five sighed. “This is the job. This if the family. What more encouragement do you need? Because what it is, you’re not going to find it. This is it. This is all there is. You have to decide for yourself if it’s enough or not.”
Diego sat back again, chewing the inside of his lip. That made sense; it was logical. It was probably the kick in the ass he needed to keep focus.
Still.
He cast a disparaging look at his brother. “Would it kill you to tell me that things are going to be okay?”
“It might.”
Diego rolled his eyes but suspected that Five might be telling the truth about this much.
More likely, Five was telling the truth about everything.
-o-
After another two days, Diego was about to lose his shit. The others were handling the wait as best they could, and to their credit, not one of them had questioned it. That was remarkable. Diego doubted he would be so magnanimous if the roles were reversed.
That was why Diego was still the one learning how to be a good brother.
He was also learning that being the leader kind of sucked. Either Luther was really good at believing all the shit that came out of his own mouth or he handled his doubts better than Diego had given him credit for. By the time a week had passed, Diego was practically beside himself.
By this point, he had all but given up sleep. Sure, he made the pretense of it for the sake of his siblings, but he couldn’t stand to close his eyes. He still showed up at meals, but he couldn’t taste any of the food that he managed to shove down his throat. His training was impeccable, and no one could fault his form or response, but the motions felt mechanical to him now.
He had everything he had ever wanted.
And he had never felt so completely terrible.
That was irony, damn it.
During an early morning shift, Vanya kept dozing off at the police scanner. Diego couldn’t bring himself to rouse her; he didn’t want to honestly. In fact, he was this close to calling the whole thing off. Telling the others he’d been wrong, that they weren’t ready, that this wasn’t a need. Maybe they could go back to how things were.
Shit, maybe they needed to go back altogether. Maybe it wasn’t just time to disband the Academy. Maybe Diego needed to leave, get the hell out. Maybe his only mistake was thinking that he belonged here at all. Maybe the idea of family was a fantasy, just like this mystery assailant in the basement.
Maybe he’d dreamed it. Maybe there was no assailant. Maybe there hadn’t been a bomb, and maybe Diego hadn’t difussed it.
Maybe.
But just past seven AM, there was a crackle on the radio.
“Hey, uh, we’ve got some weird reports here. Over at the Mercy Medical Clinic. The one on Broadstreet?”
Diego went still, listening. Broadstreet was two blocks over. The Mercy Medical Clinic was where he went for checkups.
“Something has tripped the security, but no one seems to know what,” the voice continued. “It’s the only early morning clinic in the vicinity, so it’s going to fill up fast, so they’re requesting someone to come check things out, just to be sure.”
The call wasn’t urgent; there was nothing there to suggest anything imminent.
And yet.
Diego went stiff.
He tried to swallow but couldn’t.
His breath was stuck in his throat.
Next to him, Vanya stirred. “What is it? Did I miss something?”
Diego wasn’t sure how he knew, but he knew that he knew. He knew.
“Suit up, call the others,” he said numbly. “It’s going down.”
-o-
Diego was a man of action, so you would think that after all this waiting, he would be ready.
You would think.
And you would be wrong.
Diego was trained, briefed, prepped and organization but he wasn’t ready.
How the hell could he be ready?
Unfortunately, there was no way around it. Ready or not, here he came.
Ready or not, here the Umbrella Academy came.
That was something, Diego told himself as he affixed his mask with shaking fingers.
At least that was something.
-o-
It went exactly as planned.
That was probably the first time in his life that Diego could say that.
His family responded according to protocol. They were dressed and ready in record time, each armed and ready to be dispatched. Allison had alerted Beaman to their plan as a precaution, and within minutes, they were locked and loaded in two cars. Luther was driving one (to Five’s dismay), but it was Diego who was behind the wheel and in the lead.
No one had questions.
No one had doubts.
Perfectly according to plan.
That should have been Diego’s first clue that something was about to go terribly, terribly wrong.
-o-
They made good time getting to the clinic, easily beating out any police presence. As a non-emergency, the clinic was still up and operational. It was only a quarter past 7, but the parking lot was already full. Diego tried not to think about any parallels to the incident on Highland as he piled out of the car, the rest of the Umbrella Academy behind him.
He wasn’t the only one feel trepidation. At his back, Luther whispered in a low voice. “Maybe this is a false alarm?”
Diego wished he could agree, but the question in Luther’s voice made it plain that he didn’t believe it either.
“We can wait for police,” Allison said as she leaned in.
“But doesn’t that defeat the purpose?” Klaus asked.
“If this is a real emergency, having less people inside is a plus,” Five pointed out.
“But if this is a trap…,” Ben ventured, the only one brave enough to give voice to the gnawing doubt.
“Then that’s all the more reason we need to do this,” Vanya said. She swallowed convulsively, glancing from Five to the others before her gaze settled on Diego. “Isn’t it?”
Diego nodded woodenly. “Come on,” he said, moving forward toward the building as the others fell in step behind him. “Keep alert. It’s time for the job now.”
-o-
The fact that the waiting room was operating like it was business as usual could be construed as a positive sign.
“Maybe it’s a false alarm?” Vanya whispered to him, even as a few people looked up to gawk at their entrance.
“We’re going to cause alarm if we don’t do something,” Luther whispered back, blushing a little at the attention.
It occurred to Diego that they were turning toward him for the answer. They were still following his lead.
“This is weird,” Allison said in a low voice, shaking her head.
“A little more than weird,” Klaus said, smiling and waving at someone for no apparent reason. The person waved back. Ben did a face palm.
“It’s going to be bad is what it is,” Five muttered, sounding put out. “We need to do something.”
Diego opened his mouth, ready to form search parties to spread throughout the five-story building. But, almost as if on cue, the second the words started to form, the lights cut out. The electricity whirred down, plunging the room into darkness. There were a few startled exclamations. A child started crying and someone cursed.
Diego wished like hell he could say his stance on coincidences at changed.
He looked at his siblings, their eyes wide behind their masks.
Suppressing a curse, he flattened his lips.
Coincidence be damned.
They still had a job to do.
“Search party, formation C,” he said but before he could elaborate, five dark figures entered from the back, shooting machine guns into the ceiling.
“Everybody, hands up!” one of them yelled. “This is a hostage situation!”
Well, shit.
“Scrap that,” Diego said. “Assault plan F with full evacuation.”
“But what about these guys?” Luther asked, clearly primed to act.
Diego grunted, his knives already in hand. “Leave them to me,” he said.
When Luther hesitated, Diego looked at him again.
“Assault plan F,” he repeated, more steadfast than before. “Trust me.”
Diego, despite all the progress they’d made as a family lately, was still surprise when Luther complied, with the others falling into line behind him as they retreated toward the stairwell. Diego covered their exit with two quick throws, and the crowd was scampering for cover by the time the assailants opened fire in return.
He threw another knife, landing another kill, glancing back in time to see the last of his siblings disappear into the stairwell. Assault plan F was geared for multi-floor spaces, splitting the team into groups. This would allow them to effectively move throughout the building, thus containing any attackers throughout while also clearing each floor of potential hostages as they went. Diego, as the point man, would be in charge of securing the first floor and the exit. Once the cops arrived, the exterior would be secure and hostages would be sufficiently protected.
A fresh round of gunfire came at him, and Diego ducked out of the way, mindful to steer clear of as many hostages as possible. With guns in the mix and some happy trigger fingers, the possibility of collateral damage was real. More than that, Diego knew that these guys weren’t afraid of getting their hands dirty.
Bullets danced off the wall in front of him as he took cover.
He also knew that the hostages weren’t the point. It was Umbrella Academy they wanted, so if Diego could maintain their attention, that meant the bystanders would have a greater chance of escaping without injury. It wasn’t a perfect plan, probably, but Diego was hard-pressed to find a flaw in it at the moment.
With another quick throw, Diego downed another man. He threw another gun and heard a thunk, but it was answered by gunfire. The gunfire was wide, but it wasn’t wild. Someone was down but not out. Diego dared a peak around the corner. Three men weren’t getting up again, knives straight to the head. He had only managed to nab the other two in the extremities.
He had to duck back again before more gunfire took his own head off. He had to get this under control -- and quickly. If he let this go on, hostages would get in the way. Worse, if he failed to secure the exit, his siblings and all their hostages would be vulnerable.
Diego inhaled and held it.
He smiled at how easy it was.
From his back, he withdrew to larger knives. They were harder to control in flight, but it wasn’t a problem for him. They flew slower, but the assailants had taken cover. They didn’t realize that Diego could bend the air just as readily as he could hold it in his lungs indefinitely. They wouldn’t see it coming until the blades were lodged in their throats.
He pictured it in his mind, kept his breath steady and let the knives fly. He could hear them whistled through the air. There was one yell and then another.
Diego waited a beat in the silence before poking his head out to be sure.
Five dead assailants.
Just as planned.
“Come on,” he said, stepping out of his hiding spot. He helped the hostage closest to him to her feet. “Everyone needs to get out of here, now.”
Apparently, people listening to Diego was a thing now. The woman hobbled from his grasp to the door, and the others started to following suit. Then, more people rushed at the door, a few of the nurses holding it open while starting to keep the people in check. Diego watched them for a moment before checking on the assailants. Finding them all dead, he proceeded to do a sweep of the room, checking all other rooms and entrances just to be safe.
His job was done, it seemed.
Anxiety churned in the pit of his stomach, dark anticipation.
If the job was over, then he suspected the hard part was just about to begin.
-o-
Trepidation aside, Diego wanted to make sure that the rest of the family was having luck with the plan. Worry was a luxury on a mission; he had to stay on point. Since he was, after all, the one on point.
At the staircase, it was easy to see signs of success from the upper floors. While he wanted to go check on his siblings, he knew that their teamwork relied on trust. They had put faith in him to secure the bottom floor; it was his turn to return the favor. Instead, he focused on overseeing the evacuation, getting periodic updates from a few of the doctors and nurses who had been the last to evacuate their respective floors.
He caught sight of the cops outside, operating at a distance under Beaman’s direction. He knew that protocol would dictate they remain at bay for now, and the way things were going, Diego and his siblings might be clear of the chaos before the cops ever came in for official security. That would be preferable, no doubt, though Diego was hesitant to hope.
Hope, after all, was another luxury on the job.
Why had Diego never fully appreciated how difficult the job was?
Or, more to the point, why hadn’t he cared? He could point out everyone else’s faults and weaknesses -- and he would, to be sure -- but he’d been so blind to his own. It didn’t matter why Allison’s marriage failed or why Vanya had written the book or even why Luther had stayed as long as he did. It mattered why Diego had obsessed over the job, singularly focused to the point of distraction. The job he had resented his father forcing upon him was the very job he had embraced wholeheartedly.
And here he was, running point just like his father would have wanted.
Diego wasn’t sure where the logic was in that, but that was probably because there wasn’t any logic. Family wasn’t logic; he knew that by now.
As the crowd thinned coming down the stairs, Diego snagged one of the doctors. “What floor are you from?”
She looked to have her wits about her, hurried but unruffled. She met Diego’s eye. “The fifth.”
“Top floor?” Diego clarified.
She nodded. “Your friends up there have it cleared. We were the last ones out.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah, I’m sure,” she said. “Whoever you guys are, you saved a lot of lives today.”
That was the kind of feedback that made it worthwhile. Diego was a bastard, but he wasn’t a heartless one. Saving people had always been more than about keeping score for him. He liked saving people; it gave him meaning when the rest of his life had been devoid of it.
Therefore, there was no valid reason for this praise to ring hollow.
All the same, it did.
He nodded curtly. “Hurry it along, then,” he ordered crisply. “Make sure everyone is out until the building is secure.”
She made a face. “But what about you--”
“This is our job,” he told her, moving back toward the main floor. “Don’t worry about us.”
She ultimately accepted that, joining with the last few hostages as they made it out the door. Diego lingered a moment, tempted to go out and suggest police backup sooner rather than later. But he remembered the attack on the mall, the number of first responders who died, and thought twice. There was no harm in checking the area again, for assailants and boobytraps.
In the past, Diego wouldn’t bother being thorough.
Now, with his family on the line, he didn’t suppose it was a choice.
Choices, you see, were a hell of a thing.
Consequences, Diego knew, were so much worse.
The second the door closed and the last of the hostages were evacuated, there was a rumbling. Something jolted, and a high pitched noise sent Diego to his knees. The building shook tremulously, and a pulse of energy coursed through him before he descended into darkness.
-o-
Diego came two with a pounding headache and a pit of dread that filled his stomach so viciously that he thought he might be sick. The obvious conclusion was that he was suffering from a concussion. Even before Diego opened his eyes, however, there was no time for obvious.
There wasn’t time for dread, either. Instead, Diego gritted his teeth and opened his eyes, quickly realizing three simple points.
First, there had been an explosion.
Second, the explosion had been made with a nontraditional weapon. While Diego could still feel the effects, there was no sign of actual damage to the building around him. Everything was perfectly intact, which meant that the device had been designed to incapacitate and not kill. There were implications from this, but Diego didn’t have time to consider them.
Because the third realization was this: he was no longer alone on the first floor. Standing in the empty waiting room, dressed in black, clad with knives and smiling expectantly, was the man from the basement on Highland.
It was surreal, and Diego stared at him, dumbfounded for a moment. It seemed crazy, the long string of events that had brought him here. As if every moment of the last few weeks had been building to this. The attack on the mall, the bomb on Highland Street. Five drowning in the river, and the reinstatement of the Umbrella Academy. The call at the clinic; the streamlined evacuation punctuated with a blast designed to incapacitate and not destroy.
Just to bring Diego face to face with this man once more.
It seemed impossible.
And yet was still utterly plausible.
“Hello, Diego,” the man said, eyes bright as a smile widened on his face. “It’s nice to see you again.”
Diego was still shaky on his feet, but he fumbled for one of his knives. His vision was still too blurry to throw it, though. “Who are you? What the hell do you want?”
The man looked vaguely disappointed. “I was hoping for a better greeting.”
Diego swallowed, forcing back a swell of nausea along with his stutter. “How about a knife to the forehead? How would that be?”
“At least that would seem like you,” the man said. He shook his head. Armed as heavily as he was, he made no move to go for his weapons even as Diego approached.
“You know nothing about me!” Diego said, his ire rising.
The man was still nonplussed. “Haven’t I already proven that I do? I mean, you guessed the passcode of the bomb. You keep asking how you knew that answer, but why aren’t you asking the real question? How did I know that answer?”
He was right, of course. But Diego wasn’t good at admitting he was wrong. Not with his family. Not with psychotic strangers who tried to kill him on a semi-regular basis. He blinked his eyes a few more times to clear his head even more. He would be able to throw a knife soon, and that would be all it took. But he found himself hesitating.
What was it about this guy? How did he know the answers to the questions Diego wasn’t even aware he was asking? Why was he so familiar?
“Well, I’m here now, so you might as well tell me,” Diego said, making an innocuous gesture to himself. “It’s just me and you now.”
The condescending smile he got in reply almost made him gag. “About that,” he said, glancing around in the dimness. “It’s not quite true.”
On cue, the lights flickered on, and Diego winced as the artificial light blinded him. It took his eyes a moment to acclimate. It took his brain another moment to understand. And it took another moment longer before the weight of reality was accepted.
Along each wall flanking the waiting room were six tanks, two on one side and three on the other. They weren’t small, but they weren’t big. Big enough to hold a person. That assessment was easy because in each clear case a person was held and bound upright. Their eyes were open and wide, all locked on Diego.
Diego stared back. He didn’t feel sick anymore. He just felt numb.
Because he knew those five people.
Clad in black and wearing masks, the hostages were Diego’s siblings, the rest of the Umbrella Academy.
PART TWO
PART THREE
PART FOUR
PART FIVE
PART SIX
PART SEVEN
PART EIGHT
PART NINE
PART TEN
PART ELEVEN
PART TWELVE
PART THIRTEEN
-o-
“So,” he said, and he rubbed his hands together. They were all there. Luther and Allison, poised together on the chair. Five was perched next to him, jittery but focused. Klaus was sprawled on one of the other chairs, and Ben hovered on the one opposite from him. Vanya was looking earnest on a chair she pulled over from the bar and all Diego could think was what the hell.. “I think we need to bring the Umbrella Academy back together.”
He’d said this before.
Okay, he’d said it a lot of times.
And every time, the idea had gone over badly.
Really badly.
Bracing himself, he was ready for the rejection he’d become accustomed to, but today--
Well, today, everyone listened.
Swallowing hard, Diego found that he had to take a breath, muster his courage, just to continue with the pitch he’d started the day they got back. He’d been so eager, then. He wondered how such confidence could be so empty now. This wasn’t what he wanted anymore. This time, it was what they all needed.
“I know this is all new to us, and I know we’re dealing with a lot,” he continued, patient and measured. He glanced from one to the next with earnest resolve. “And I know it’s probably not even what all of you want. I know how much we’ve all sacrificed already, so I don’t make the suggestion of giving more lightly. I really don’t.”
No one questioned him. That almost made it harder to press on. Diego had always thrived with conflict. He had always risen to a challenge. What he had to muster now was entirely of his own resolve.
“But it’s not a choice for us, not anymore. Maybe it never was, maybe Dad was right about that,” he said, pausing to press his lips together tautly.
Luther and Allison had their fingers locked. Five was perched at the edge of his seat, expression intense. Klaus stopped fidgeting with the hem of his shirt, and Ben looked so solidified that you almost couldn’t see the light through him. Vanya blinked, wide eyed and steady. He remembered to breathe.
“And we’re ready,” he said, rallying them along with himself now. He felt it building, a pressure in his chest. But in a good way this time. Filling with oxygen as his heart swells with pride. “We’ve streamlined our security and fine-tuned our response procedures. If we get a call, we’ll know what to do and we have a few support channels open to us within the police department.”
He nodded gratefully at Allison and Luther, who exchanged a small look before smiling back.
“And we have a strong working psychological profile for these guys,” Diego said. “When we face them again, we’ll know how to respond to them. They won’t be able to play games with our heads.”
Five wasn’t prone to displays of emotion -- at least, not ones that suggested anything resembling affection -- but Ben was grinning enough for both of them.
“And we’ve honed our powers. We know what we’re capable of,” he said, eyes resting on Vanya. “Apart and together.”
Klaus literally clutched his chest with emotion, and Vanya looked one blink from crying. In a good way for once.
This was what he’d wanted, wasn’t it? Not just the Umbrella Academy back at it, fighting crime on their terms. But to be their leader. To hold their attention. To garner their respect.
Shit, had he finally earned it?
Was all it took to finally stop trying so damn hard all the time?
The drive of that was overwhelming, and he felt his cheeks flush. “These people -- the ones who attacked the mall, the ones who did a hit on our property, the ones who crashed into our car and nearly killed one of us?” he said, enunciating each word with grit. “I don’t know who they are. And they’ve outplayed us at every turn. But we finally have a lead.”
It was Luther who registered the comment first. Diego mocked him for being dumb, but his brother had good leadership instincts in the field -- Diego was simply at a place where his pride was in check enough to acknowledge it. “A lead?” Luther asked on behalf of the others. He was sitting up a little straighter, eyes keen. “You have a viable lead?”
Diego nodded, giving a small shrug of clarification. “It’s nothing concrete -- not like a location or anything like that -- but I think we’ve got a timeframe.”
“Okay,” Allison said. “What are we looking at?”
“The next few days,” he said. “And there’s every reason to believe it’s going to be a local hit. And big.”
Klaus made a little snort of derision. “Bigger than the attack on the mall? Because that one was pretty big.”
“I think the mall was a test run, honestly,” Diego said. “I can’t prove it, but they’ve made no demands, released nothing resembling a manifesto. Their big play is still to come. I know it.”
“Which means the break-in on Highland was a means to amass weaponry,” Five supplied, nodding in agreement.
“And they cleaned Dad out,” Diego said. “So either they’re collecting enough supplies to last for the next few years, or they’re going to go for broke with what comes next.”
Ben looked thoughtful. “But what about the car crash? That still doesn’t fit.”
“I don’t know,” Diego said. “But the ties to us -- I think this is personal somehow. Almost like the attack on the mall was to get our attention.”
“And now they’re what?” Vanya asked, sounding concerned. “Biding their time?”
Diego didn’t disagree with her. “Which is why we have to stop biding ours,” he said, and he shrugged again. “I know maybe we’re not all ready, not individually. But as a group? I think we are. I think we have to be.”
That was the pitch, then. That was his plea.
They had rejected it before, and he couldn’t deny that he was a little scared they’d do it again. That he’d have come all this way, that he’d have understood so much, just to have them reject it again. Reject him.
But their faces looking back were resolved. From Number One to Number Seven.
It was Luther who stood up, and though he was a head taller than Diego, for the first time in their lives, they seemed to see eye to eye.
“We are,” Luther vowed, and it was so damn solemn that Diego almost wanted to laugh. Or cry. Shit, he might do both. “We’re all with you.”
As it was, Diego took tenuous hold of his emotions, lips tugging up in a smile. “Then the Umbrella Academy is finally back.”
-o-
So, the circumstances weren’t ideal -- what with a murderous terrorist organization targeting their family -- but honestly, it was everything Diego had ever dreamed it would be.
But seriously.
Everything.
They did drills now, making their response procedures more than theoretical. Pogo timed them, and Luther barked out orders, getting them assembled fast enough for a real-time mission. Allison had created a liaison within the police department, and Beaman had been all too happy to offer any tips and insights. Whether this was because he trusted Diego or had a crush on Allison wasn’t clear. The results, however, spoke for themselves.
Five’s tactical training became a series of combat maneuvers they had to remember collectively, and Ben’s analysis of the criminal profile yielded concrete tactical guidelines that Diego found rather insightful.
He enjoyed all of that, but his favorite part was the hands-on combat training.
He loved that shit.
Always had.
Always would.
He liked honing his own skills, and for the first time, he was able to see how his skills and abilities played off the others. They could learn how to work together, which was a novel way to look at it. Maybe the old man had always wanted that for them, but the inherent competition amongst their ranks had made actual application of that impossible. Diego had never wanted help -- not from any of them. He had been so determined to prove that he could do things on his own that he’d failed to realize just how much better he could be when working together.
That was the lesson of family, the one a car accident and a drowning brother had brought into crystal clear focus.
He was an idiot for not seeing it sooner.
And not just because it might save a life or some other sentimental nonsense.
But because it was awesome.
Diego had never been more on his game; his skills had never been more refined. With the others at his back, he simply performed better. What a weird notion -- that the moment he stopped trying to be better than everyone else he could actually start being better himself.
Diego had spent the last few weeks worrying about what they were up against.
For the first time, he started to think about what the Umbrella Academy was truly capable of.
-o-
At first, sitting with the police scanner felt a little weird to Diego. He’d made such a point to walk away from it after the car accident, and now that everyone was on two-man shifts, it was elevated to a whole new level of importance. He was used to do this alone at night with subterfuge. To have it be a sanctioned family activity took a little getting used to.
And sure, Diego knew that the reason for all of this was serious. They were waiting to hear any hint of a major attack. That wasn’t the sort of shit you did for shits and giggles. The stakes were high -- really high.
Yet, still, somehow awesome.
Diego liked sharing this time with his siblings. He enjoyed getting to do the things he loved with the people he loved. In fact, the people made this whole thing more than a job.
A lot more than a job.
This was a calling.
Shit, this was more.
This was family.
This was finally family.
-o-
After two days, there was no sign of anything amiss. In fact, if anything, things were quieter than ever on the police radio. Diego hadn’t heard more than two calls his entire shift with Klaus, and he’d been more than a little relieved when Luther and Five came to relieve them. Diego wasn’t opposed to hard work -- to the contrary. Sitting there with Klaus rambling on at him made him feel unnecessarily useless.
It was late, and there was no further training to complete. Ben was reading a book in the library, and Vanya was sipping a cup of tea. Allison was already asleep, and Klaus had disappeared to take a bath. Diego knew he should probably sleep -- with an attack at any moment, he needed to be rested -- but he felt too restless to sleep.
It was a little weird, how they could live in a mansion and Diego still felt like there was no place to hide. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to be with his siblings, but he was still a person. He still needed his privacy from time to time.
This was probably one of those times. The last few days had been go-go-go, which was how Diego liked it. But it wasn’t indefinitely sustainable. He needed to rest, and if sleep wasn’t going to do the trick, then a little time to himself just might.
That was how he ended up in the kitchen, rooting through the refrigerator just shy of midnight on a Tuesday night. He wasn’t hungry -- they had been eating perfectly balanced meals together in preparation -- but the thought of food wasn’t as hard to hold onto as the thought of sleep, so it seemed like an apt alternative.
Besides, if one of his siblings found him here, they wouldn’t ask questions.
Diego didn’t want them to ask questions.
Not now.
Not when he still wasn’t sure of so much himself.
That wasn’t to say he wasn’t sure of anything. He was sure of a lot of things these days, a lot more than he had been two months ago at any rate. But for as ready as his family was, there were times when he wasn’t sure if he was ready. He could do the job, sure. But against this adversary?
He could still remember the man in the basement. The moves that had matched Diego’s own. The confidence in his voice. The six digit passcode Diego knew without hesitation.
The Umbrella Academy was formidable, but Diego couldn’t deny that he had doubts. As ready as they were, would it be enough? Or had Diego assembled them to face an enemy they couldn’t contain? Had Diego found his family just in time to lead it into destruction?
They would follow him, he reminded himself grimly. Five’s limp, lifeless body was proof of that.
Numbly, Diego pulled out a carton of orange juice and poured himself a glass. As he turned to put it back in the fridge, he was surprised to see Mom in the doorway.
“Diego, darling,” she said with a smile. “You’re up late.”
Diego cocked his head before placing the juice inside the fridge and turning back around. “Me? What about you? Shouldn’t you be charging?”
She swept over to the counter. “Didn’t Pogo tell you? He made a few upgrades to give me increased capacity in case of emergency,” she said. “I am now able to operate with only five hours of charging time. It’s silly, maybe, but I like the idea of staying up late finally.”
He couldn’t help but smile. Mom had been the only good thing in his life growing up, and it was remarkable to him that she was finally getting the freedoms he’d taken for granted. The idea that she could steadfastly raise seven kids and just now get her own bedtime was surreal.
“It seems wrong,” he said softly. “That you get a freedom just because it finally serves the rest of us.”
She was utterly nonplussed. “Don’t be silly,” she said. “I know the difference between what must be done and what I want to do. I have no objection to keeping to my priorities.”
“Yeah, but even those are programmed,” he said. “We could look into changing that. See if we can give you more of a choice.”
Her look now was quizzical. “But why would I want that?” she asked. “Just because something is obligatory does not mean that it is not the most worthwhile thing of all.”
“Yeah,” he said. “But you have to say that, Mom. You see that, don’t you?”
She lifted a hand, cupping his face for a moment. “All I see is my son in the kitchen at midnight,” she said. “You must be hungry. Can I make you something?”
Diego opened his mouth, to protest, to deny, he wasn’t sure.
Mom ignored him, tutting a bit as she took out a pan. “With all this free time, I’ve started experimenting with some new recipes. Your father always insisted on such hardy meals, but I’ve always been fascinated by Japanese dishes. Raw fish seems unnecessary, but I imagine some of it is quite tasty. I’ve tried a few, but I can’t tell if they’re any good. Would you like to try one?”
She turned to him, eyes bright with what Diego could only describe as hope. Mom didn’t breathe, but it still seemed like she was holding her breath.
Diego wasn’t about to leave her wanting.
Not Mom.
Never Mom.
He smiled. “Of course,” he said. “I’d love to.”
Because not all victories were in the field.
Sometimes they were much, much closer to home.
-o-
Two more days passed.
Then three.
No one said anything; no one even looked at him funny. But the tensions were rising -- and fast. Everyone was on edge. Meals were quiet. Training was precise. They honed their response time to the fastest it had ever been, and Luther drilled them with procedural questions whenever things were quiet.
For the record, it was always quiet.
Allison supported this as best she could, but Klaus was starting to show signs of fatigue. Ben did his best to prop Klaus’ spirits, and Vanya looked so anxious that it seemed like she was ready to burst. Given Vanya’s history, this was an actual concern they had from time to time, but Allison seemed to have a sisterly touch that came in handy.
Only Five seemed to handle it with relative aplomb.
In fact, Five seemed to be in his element.
They all liked to conveniently forget the fact that Five was a trained killer with more experience in the field than any of them. When he walked and talked like a teenager that was easy enough, but as he grew increasingly calm in the face of impending conflict, Diego found the truth impossible to ignore.
Mostly because he needed some way of explaining how some tiny 13 year old was cool, calm and collected when Diego felt like he himself was going insane.
Finally, Diego just asked.
“How the hell are you so calm?” he demanded as they sat idly through their second hour of a police scanner shift. He sounded a lot angrier than he felt, and it came out like an accusation.
For all that Diego’s tone had been unintentional, it didn’t seem to matter to Five. He barely glanced at Diego, rousing nothing but boredom in response to Diego’s invective. “Well, it’s not like anything is happening,” Five replied reasonably. “In my experience, it is pointless to waste your energy when nothing is happening.”
That sounded like the kind of thing you might say after surviving the apocalypse. Or maybe it was the kind of thing you said when you worked as a time traveling assassin.
No, that wasn’t the kind of thing anyone said in this situation.
Diego shook his head, and now he was starting to get annoyed. He knew he wasn’t really mad at Five, but Five was the only one here. “I’m serious, though,” he said crossly. “We’re waiting for an impending attack that is worse than the one on the mall. Everyone else is on edge.”
Five looked almost offended. “So I should be, too? Nothing is happening.”
“But it’s going to happen,” Diego said, and then he hesitated. “You think it’s going to happen, don’t you?”
Five’s expression lapsed back into boredom. “Curb the self doubt. I’m here to listen for calls, not babysit your ego.”
Diego scowled. “I’m just saying,” he said. “If you think we’ve got it wrong, you should say something.”
This time, Five rolled his eyes outright. “I was there when we all agreed,” he said. “I’ve gone over the intel more than you have since. I ran the numbers. I don’t think we’re wrong.”
“Then why?” Diego asked, sitting back and crossing his hands over his chest. “Why are you so calm?”
“Because panic is counterproductive,” Five said. He shook his head. “It’s like when you’re trying to hold your breath. The more you panic, the higher your heart rate gets. The higher your heart rate, the faster you drown. You can effectively kill yourself while trying to save yourself. If we’re going to be stuck holding our breath for an indefinite period of time, then we need to stay calm.”
Diego winced. “Not the best analogy there, bro.”
“Actually, I don’t think there’s a better one.”
Uncrossing his arms, Diego rocked in his chair with a sigh. Instead of pursuing an analogy that reminded Diego of things he’d rather forget, he decided to stay on point. “So you do think they’ll attack, then? You think it’s coming?”
Five made a face, something like mild disgust. “You put together the initial analysis. You based your entire pitch for the Umbrella Academy on that very predication. And you’re having doubts?”
Diego felt his cheeks burn. “I was sure. I mean, the data makes sense. It makes a lot of sense,” he said. He made a helpless gesture. “But I don’t know. Data can be wrong. Even you said the equations can be wrong sometimes.”
The look Five gave him now was tedious. “You can get the equations wrong, but the numbers are never wrong,” he said. “Diego, you know this. Self doubt doesn’t suit you. The attack is coming. It’s just a matter of time.”
Miserably, Diego slumped back. “You make it sound simple.”
“Oh, please,” Five said. “You can make it sound like anything you want. That doesn’t change what it is.”
“Dude, I’m looking for encouragement,” Diego replied flatly.
Five sighed. “This is the job. This if the family. What more encouragement do you need? Because what it is, you’re not going to find it. This is it. This is all there is. You have to decide for yourself if it’s enough or not.”
Diego sat back again, chewing the inside of his lip. That made sense; it was logical. It was probably the kick in the ass he needed to keep focus.
Still.
He cast a disparaging look at his brother. “Would it kill you to tell me that things are going to be okay?”
“It might.”
Diego rolled his eyes but suspected that Five might be telling the truth about this much.
More likely, Five was telling the truth about everything.
-o-
After another two days, Diego was about to lose his shit. The others were handling the wait as best they could, and to their credit, not one of them had questioned it. That was remarkable. Diego doubted he would be so magnanimous if the roles were reversed.
That was why Diego was still the one learning how to be a good brother.
He was also learning that being the leader kind of sucked. Either Luther was really good at believing all the shit that came out of his own mouth or he handled his doubts better than Diego had given him credit for. By the time a week had passed, Diego was practically beside himself.
By this point, he had all but given up sleep. Sure, he made the pretense of it for the sake of his siblings, but he couldn’t stand to close his eyes. He still showed up at meals, but he couldn’t taste any of the food that he managed to shove down his throat. His training was impeccable, and no one could fault his form or response, but the motions felt mechanical to him now.
He had everything he had ever wanted.
And he had never felt so completely terrible.
That was irony, damn it.
During an early morning shift, Vanya kept dozing off at the police scanner. Diego couldn’t bring himself to rouse her; he didn’t want to honestly. In fact, he was this close to calling the whole thing off. Telling the others he’d been wrong, that they weren’t ready, that this wasn’t a need. Maybe they could go back to how things were.
Shit, maybe they needed to go back altogether. Maybe it wasn’t just time to disband the Academy. Maybe Diego needed to leave, get the hell out. Maybe his only mistake was thinking that he belonged here at all. Maybe the idea of family was a fantasy, just like this mystery assailant in the basement.
Maybe he’d dreamed it. Maybe there was no assailant. Maybe there hadn’t been a bomb, and maybe Diego hadn’t difussed it.
Maybe.
But just past seven AM, there was a crackle on the radio.
“Hey, uh, we’ve got some weird reports here. Over at the Mercy Medical Clinic. The one on Broadstreet?”
Diego went still, listening. Broadstreet was two blocks over. The Mercy Medical Clinic was where he went for checkups.
“Something has tripped the security, but no one seems to know what,” the voice continued. “It’s the only early morning clinic in the vicinity, so it’s going to fill up fast, so they’re requesting someone to come check things out, just to be sure.”
The call wasn’t urgent; there was nothing there to suggest anything imminent.
And yet.
Diego went stiff.
He tried to swallow but couldn’t.
His breath was stuck in his throat.
Next to him, Vanya stirred. “What is it? Did I miss something?”
Diego wasn’t sure how he knew, but he knew that he knew. He knew.
“Suit up, call the others,” he said numbly. “It’s going down.”
-o-
Diego was a man of action, so you would think that after all this waiting, he would be ready.
You would think.
And you would be wrong.
Diego was trained, briefed, prepped and organization but he wasn’t ready.
How the hell could he be ready?
Unfortunately, there was no way around it. Ready or not, here he came.
Ready or not, here the Umbrella Academy came.
That was something, Diego told himself as he affixed his mask with shaking fingers.
At least that was something.
-o-
It went exactly as planned.
That was probably the first time in his life that Diego could say that.
His family responded according to protocol. They were dressed and ready in record time, each armed and ready to be dispatched. Allison had alerted Beaman to their plan as a precaution, and within minutes, they were locked and loaded in two cars. Luther was driving one (to Five’s dismay), but it was Diego who was behind the wheel and in the lead.
No one had questions.
No one had doubts.
Perfectly according to plan.
That should have been Diego’s first clue that something was about to go terribly, terribly wrong.
-o-
They made good time getting to the clinic, easily beating out any police presence. As a non-emergency, the clinic was still up and operational. It was only a quarter past 7, but the parking lot was already full. Diego tried not to think about any parallels to the incident on Highland as he piled out of the car, the rest of the Umbrella Academy behind him.
He wasn’t the only one feel trepidation. At his back, Luther whispered in a low voice. “Maybe this is a false alarm?”
Diego wished he could agree, but the question in Luther’s voice made it plain that he didn’t believe it either.
“We can wait for police,” Allison said as she leaned in.
“But doesn’t that defeat the purpose?” Klaus asked.
“If this is a real emergency, having less people inside is a plus,” Five pointed out.
“But if this is a trap…,” Ben ventured, the only one brave enough to give voice to the gnawing doubt.
“Then that’s all the more reason we need to do this,” Vanya said. She swallowed convulsively, glancing from Five to the others before her gaze settled on Diego. “Isn’t it?”
Diego nodded woodenly. “Come on,” he said, moving forward toward the building as the others fell in step behind him. “Keep alert. It’s time for the job now.”
-o-
The fact that the waiting room was operating like it was business as usual could be construed as a positive sign.
“Maybe it’s a false alarm?” Vanya whispered to him, even as a few people looked up to gawk at their entrance.
“We’re going to cause alarm if we don’t do something,” Luther whispered back, blushing a little at the attention.
It occurred to Diego that they were turning toward him for the answer. They were still following his lead.
“This is weird,” Allison said in a low voice, shaking her head.
“A little more than weird,” Klaus said, smiling and waving at someone for no apparent reason. The person waved back. Ben did a face palm.
“It’s going to be bad is what it is,” Five muttered, sounding put out. “We need to do something.”
Diego opened his mouth, ready to form search parties to spread throughout the five-story building. But, almost as if on cue, the second the words started to form, the lights cut out. The electricity whirred down, plunging the room into darkness. There were a few startled exclamations. A child started crying and someone cursed.
Diego wished like hell he could say his stance on coincidences at changed.
He looked at his siblings, their eyes wide behind their masks.
Suppressing a curse, he flattened his lips.
Coincidence be damned.
They still had a job to do.
“Search party, formation C,” he said but before he could elaborate, five dark figures entered from the back, shooting machine guns into the ceiling.
“Everybody, hands up!” one of them yelled. “This is a hostage situation!”
Well, shit.
“Scrap that,” Diego said. “Assault plan F with full evacuation.”
“But what about these guys?” Luther asked, clearly primed to act.
Diego grunted, his knives already in hand. “Leave them to me,” he said.
When Luther hesitated, Diego looked at him again.
“Assault plan F,” he repeated, more steadfast than before. “Trust me.”
Diego, despite all the progress they’d made as a family lately, was still surprise when Luther complied, with the others falling into line behind him as they retreated toward the stairwell. Diego covered their exit with two quick throws, and the crowd was scampering for cover by the time the assailants opened fire in return.
He threw another knife, landing another kill, glancing back in time to see the last of his siblings disappear into the stairwell. Assault plan F was geared for multi-floor spaces, splitting the team into groups. This would allow them to effectively move throughout the building, thus containing any attackers throughout while also clearing each floor of potential hostages as they went. Diego, as the point man, would be in charge of securing the first floor and the exit. Once the cops arrived, the exterior would be secure and hostages would be sufficiently protected.
A fresh round of gunfire came at him, and Diego ducked out of the way, mindful to steer clear of as many hostages as possible. With guns in the mix and some happy trigger fingers, the possibility of collateral damage was real. More than that, Diego knew that these guys weren’t afraid of getting their hands dirty.
Bullets danced off the wall in front of him as he took cover.
He also knew that the hostages weren’t the point. It was Umbrella Academy they wanted, so if Diego could maintain their attention, that meant the bystanders would have a greater chance of escaping without injury. It wasn’t a perfect plan, probably, but Diego was hard-pressed to find a flaw in it at the moment.
With another quick throw, Diego downed another man. He threw another gun and heard a thunk, but it was answered by gunfire. The gunfire was wide, but it wasn’t wild. Someone was down but not out. Diego dared a peak around the corner. Three men weren’t getting up again, knives straight to the head. He had only managed to nab the other two in the extremities.
He had to duck back again before more gunfire took his own head off. He had to get this under control -- and quickly. If he let this go on, hostages would get in the way. Worse, if he failed to secure the exit, his siblings and all their hostages would be vulnerable.
Diego inhaled and held it.
He smiled at how easy it was.
From his back, he withdrew to larger knives. They were harder to control in flight, but it wasn’t a problem for him. They flew slower, but the assailants had taken cover. They didn’t realize that Diego could bend the air just as readily as he could hold it in his lungs indefinitely. They wouldn’t see it coming until the blades were lodged in their throats.
He pictured it in his mind, kept his breath steady and let the knives fly. He could hear them whistled through the air. There was one yell and then another.
Diego waited a beat in the silence before poking his head out to be sure.
Five dead assailants.
Just as planned.
“Come on,” he said, stepping out of his hiding spot. He helped the hostage closest to him to her feet. “Everyone needs to get out of here, now.”
Apparently, people listening to Diego was a thing now. The woman hobbled from his grasp to the door, and the others started to following suit. Then, more people rushed at the door, a few of the nurses holding it open while starting to keep the people in check. Diego watched them for a moment before checking on the assailants. Finding them all dead, he proceeded to do a sweep of the room, checking all other rooms and entrances just to be safe.
His job was done, it seemed.
Anxiety churned in the pit of his stomach, dark anticipation.
If the job was over, then he suspected the hard part was just about to begin.
-o-
Trepidation aside, Diego wanted to make sure that the rest of the family was having luck with the plan. Worry was a luxury on a mission; he had to stay on point. Since he was, after all, the one on point.
At the staircase, it was easy to see signs of success from the upper floors. While he wanted to go check on his siblings, he knew that their teamwork relied on trust. They had put faith in him to secure the bottom floor; it was his turn to return the favor. Instead, he focused on overseeing the evacuation, getting periodic updates from a few of the doctors and nurses who had been the last to evacuate their respective floors.
He caught sight of the cops outside, operating at a distance under Beaman’s direction. He knew that protocol would dictate they remain at bay for now, and the way things were going, Diego and his siblings might be clear of the chaos before the cops ever came in for official security. That would be preferable, no doubt, though Diego was hesitant to hope.
Hope, after all, was another luxury on the job.
Why had Diego never fully appreciated how difficult the job was?
Or, more to the point, why hadn’t he cared? He could point out everyone else’s faults and weaknesses -- and he would, to be sure -- but he’d been so blind to his own. It didn’t matter why Allison’s marriage failed or why Vanya had written the book or even why Luther had stayed as long as he did. It mattered why Diego had obsessed over the job, singularly focused to the point of distraction. The job he had resented his father forcing upon him was the very job he had embraced wholeheartedly.
And here he was, running point just like his father would have wanted.
Diego wasn’t sure where the logic was in that, but that was probably because there wasn’t any logic. Family wasn’t logic; he knew that by now.
As the crowd thinned coming down the stairs, Diego snagged one of the doctors. “What floor are you from?”
She looked to have her wits about her, hurried but unruffled. She met Diego’s eye. “The fifth.”
“Top floor?” Diego clarified.
She nodded. “Your friends up there have it cleared. We were the last ones out.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah, I’m sure,” she said. “Whoever you guys are, you saved a lot of lives today.”
That was the kind of feedback that made it worthwhile. Diego was a bastard, but he wasn’t a heartless one. Saving people had always been more than about keeping score for him. He liked saving people; it gave him meaning when the rest of his life had been devoid of it.
Therefore, there was no valid reason for this praise to ring hollow.
All the same, it did.
He nodded curtly. “Hurry it along, then,” he ordered crisply. “Make sure everyone is out until the building is secure.”
She made a face. “But what about you--”
“This is our job,” he told her, moving back toward the main floor. “Don’t worry about us.”
She ultimately accepted that, joining with the last few hostages as they made it out the door. Diego lingered a moment, tempted to go out and suggest police backup sooner rather than later. But he remembered the attack on the mall, the number of first responders who died, and thought twice. There was no harm in checking the area again, for assailants and boobytraps.
In the past, Diego wouldn’t bother being thorough.
Now, with his family on the line, he didn’t suppose it was a choice.
Choices, you see, were a hell of a thing.
Consequences, Diego knew, were so much worse.
The second the door closed and the last of the hostages were evacuated, there was a rumbling. Something jolted, and a high pitched noise sent Diego to his knees. The building shook tremulously, and a pulse of energy coursed through him before he descended into darkness.
-o-
Diego came two with a pounding headache and a pit of dread that filled his stomach so viciously that he thought he might be sick. The obvious conclusion was that he was suffering from a concussion. Even before Diego opened his eyes, however, there was no time for obvious.
There wasn’t time for dread, either. Instead, Diego gritted his teeth and opened his eyes, quickly realizing three simple points.
First, there had been an explosion.
Second, the explosion had been made with a nontraditional weapon. While Diego could still feel the effects, there was no sign of actual damage to the building around him. Everything was perfectly intact, which meant that the device had been designed to incapacitate and not kill. There were implications from this, but Diego didn’t have time to consider them.
Because the third realization was this: he was no longer alone on the first floor. Standing in the empty waiting room, dressed in black, clad with knives and smiling expectantly, was the man from the basement on Highland.
It was surreal, and Diego stared at him, dumbfounded for a moment. It seemed crazy, the long string of events that had brought him here. As if every moment of the last few weeks had been building to this. The attack on the mall, the bomb on Highland Street. Five drowning in the river, and the reinstatement of the Umbrella Academy. The call at the clinic; the streamlined evacuation punctuated with a blast designed to incapacitate and not destroy.
Just to bring Diego face to face with this man once more.
It seemed impossible.
And yet was still utterly plausible.
“Hello, Diego,” the man said, eyes bright as a smile widened on his face. “It’s nice to see you again.”
Diego was still shaky on his feet, but he fumbled for one of his knives. His vision was still too blurry to throw it, though. “Who are you? What the hell do you want?”
The man looked vaguely disappointed. “I was hoping for a better greeting.”
Diego swallowed, forcing back a swell of nausea along with his stutter. “How about a knife to the forehead? How would that be?”
“At least that would seem like you,” the man said. He shook his head. Armed as heavily as he was, he made no move to go for his weapons even as Diego approached.
“You know nothing about me!” Diego said, his ire rising.
The man was still nonplussed. “Haven’t I already proven that I do? I mean, you guessed the passcode of the bomb. You keep asking how you knew that answer, but why aren’t you asking the real question? How did I know that answer?”
He was right, of course. But Diego wasn’t good at admitting he was wrong. Not with his family. Not with psychotic strangers who tried to kill him on a semi-regular basis. He blinked his eyes a few more times to clear his head even more. He would be able to throw a knife soon, and that would be all it took. But he found himself hesitating.
What was it about this guy? How did he know the answers to the questions Diego wasn’t even aware he was asking? Why was he so familiar?
“Well, I’m here now, so you might as well tell me,” Diego said, making an innocuous gesture to himself. “It’s just me and you now.”
The condescending smile he got in reply almost made him gag. “About that,” he said, glancing around in the dimness. “It’s not quite true.”
On cue, the lights flickered on, and Diego winced as the artificial light blinded him. It took his eyes a moment to acclimate. It took his brain another moment to understand. And it took another moment longer before the weight of reality was accepted.
Along each wall flanking the waiting room were six tanks, two on one side and three on the other. They weren’t small, but they weren’t big. Big enough to hold a person. That assessment was easy because in each clear case a person was held and bound upright. Their eyes were open and wide, all locked on Diego.
Diego stared back. He didn’t feel sick anymore. He just felt numb.
Because he knew those five people.
Clad in black and wearing masks, the hostages were Diego’s siblings, the rest of the Umbrella Academy.