Chapter Text
Ben supposed he'd actually managed to fall asleep.
Before he knew it, morning had rolled around. The last few hours had been rough, caught in that hazy space between awake and almost asleep. One moment, he blinked, and suddenly the sun was creeping through the same spot where moonlight had lingered just moments before.
It was seven am, the usual time he and his siblings were called to rise and report downstairs for first, breakfast, then inspection. After that, they'd move into their daily lessons, followed by some form of training. Since it was Friday, Ben wasn't sure which approach Dad would take. Some Fridays leaned more casual — less tactical drills and physical conditioning, more focus on mental skills.
Whatever he chose, Ben would rush through all of it. There was a lot on his mind.
"Morning, Ben!" their mom chirped from the stove, flipping bacon with the kind of cheerful energy that felt almost suspicious this early. Diego carefully eyed her from where he sat at the breakfast table, twirling a knife between his fingers.
Ben padded into the kitchen, hair gelled and gleaming like always, dressed in the crisply pressed uniform that had been laid out for him—not the one from last night.
He'd made a point to shove that one deep into the laundry bin, just in case his father had developed a new superpower: sniffing out disobedience through fabric.
He couldn't take any chances.
"Good morning, Mom," he said with a small smile, even though she couldn't see it, since her back was still to him.
Ben caught Klaus's eye — well, tried to. Klaus was busy staring very intently at the wall like it was The Most Interesting Thing in the World. One eyebrow crept up as Ben tilted his head, trying to figure out what was going on... and then it clicked. Oh. He was high again.
Fantastic. That was definitely going to throw a wrench in their investigation.
"D'ya sleep well last night, Benerino?"
Yep. Definitely high.
Klaus shot him a toothy grin, all faux sunshine. Ben narrowed his eyes, silently praying the drugs wouldn't mess with his ability to keep their little expedition under wraps.
"Just fantastically, thanks for asking," he added, the last part strained through clenched teeth.
"Well, I didn't get a single wink," Allison said with a yawn, proving her point. "My mind was racing."
Mom turned around briefly to say, "Sometimes it can be difficult to soothe a sprightly mind like yours, sweet Alli. You'll sleep better tonight," then turned towards the fridge to retrieve the carton of eggs from the fridge.
"You look like death, Diego," Five remarked as Ben pulled out a seat in his usual spot.
Diego's eyes narrowed, an acrimonious smile spreading across his features. "Why, thank you."
"Well, no wonder!" Klaus said breezily, drumming his fingers across the table. He seemed completely unaware of the growing panic tightening Ben's face. "Last ni—"
That was it. Ben practically launched out of his chair, slapping a hand over Klaus's mouth before he could dig the hole any deeper. The screech of chairs dragging across the floor, plus the sudden burst of movement, was enough to make Mom glance over her shoulder, spatula still in hand.
Confusion fleeted her eyes. "Is everything alright?"
Klaus's muffled protests continued under Ben's hand, but he held firm, flashing a strained smile.
"Yep! Great!"
"You should utilize that reflex during training, Number Six."
Everyone jumped—of course, Reginald had chosen that exact moment to stride into the room, as severe as ever. The term "you need to wear a bell" surely came from him and his impeccably precise timing. It was almost as though he had an alarm pinned to his suit that alerted him when one or most of his children were at their most vulnerable. Ben thought it was an inhumane trait, in a way. Something he'd only read about in books snatched from the supernatural fantasy shelf.
"It would serve you far better than your usual dithering."
Ben's eyes were as wide as a lemur's. It felt like his feet had frozen to the ground, rendering him embarrassingly immobile. Across from him, Five- thankfully seated low enough on the other side of the table that Reginald couldn't see his face- shot him a sharp look that clearly meant: Get your hand off Klaus before this somehow gets worse.
He obliged, scarily lowering back down to his seat. Klaus shot him a sneer of indignation, obviously perturbed that had just happened. The two of them would have to chat about inconspicuousness after mealtime. And maybe the timing of when he chose to inebriate himself.
"Where is Number Seven?" he inquired coolly, settling into the head of the table.
Grace hurried over, her smile a little too brittle as she served him the freshly fried bacon.
Ben wondered, not for the first time, why he was already eating the bacon when the rest of breakfast hadn't even hit the table. Reginald Hargreeves, after all, did nothing without exact timing and structure. Routine said, since their earliest memory, that meals were to be eaten as a whole, all of their pieces strewn together, or not at all.
Luther, who'd been quietly picking at his toast, quickly straightened, jumping at the opportunity to regain favor. "No idea, sir," he replied. Maybe a little too fast.
"She is to be accounted for," he stated.
Ben glanced across the table, his appetite evaporating. Vanya's chair sat untouched, and conspicuously so. He just hoped she was running late. Maybe she'd spilled mouthwash on the bathroom floor and had to hang back to mop it up. She was on her way.
"Number One. Number Two. Retrieve your sister."
Diego glanced up from the tabletop, not far off from stunned that their father had included him at all. Usually, he'd just send Luther to do any bidding that called itself to be done. It was in his name - he'd always take second place, second pick.
So his brow twitched with intrigue at this opportunity.
"Yes, sir."
The two got up in unison, assigned the not-so-simple and supremely vague task of finding their sister, wherever she may be. Diego had already begun cataloging in his head where they'd look first -- while Luther was rather fretful at the fact he'd be missing breakfast.
His eyes clouded. "So, I guess we'll eat later?"
"If we find her fast enough, we might make it back down in time. She's probably still in her room."
Being told to find anyone, or anything, in the massive corn maze that was their house was, in short, a death sentence. Hallways stretched on for hours, and rooms invaded every empty corner. (Not that there could ever be an empty corner, because the whole mansion was packed to the brim with things overutilizing its space.)
The first stop was logically Vanya's room. Diego and Luther both reached for the doorknob at the same time, their hands toppling over each other. Luther gave him a withering look.
"I was here first."
Diego raised his eyebrows, lifting his hand out from underneath, then stacking it back up on top to prove a point. It seemed that his brother's face just shrank into even more disdain at this.
"Yeah? Well, I'm the one who actually wants to find her. You're just here to nudge onto Daddy Warbucks's good side. You hate Vanya."
"I don't hate her." His hand still rested underneath Diego's. "She's just... hard to connect with sometimes."
"You better hope she's not in here. She might cry if she heard you. " his head jerked toward the door they faced.
Luther twisted into a murderous glare but ultimately, and with a flare of attitude, snidely retracted his hand. He motioned toward the doorknob like he was doing Diego a favor. "Be my guest."
Diego threw the door open, not even slightly surprised to see Vanya's bed left unmade. Still, she was nowhere to be found. They could cross this off their list.
"I say we check the library next. That's usually where she goes when she wants to be alone."
"Why would she be in the library before breakfast? Seriously, she knows we have to eat — she's not that much of a hermit."
Diego now wanted to slap his father for ever choosing to pair him with Luther. He should've just stayed back. Then he would've gotten to eat his food.
As the years went on, especially in the last few months, he'd grown more insufferable by the day. Their rivalry had always been ever-present, seeing as they were neck and neck in the rankings, but it had only gotten worse with age.
Most of the kids liked to say Luther was maturing backwards, slipping deeper into the utter trenches of a child's mindset. Not at all how a sixteen-year-old was supposed to act. Diego was pretty sure everyone hated Luther, except Allison, their innocent little love being something he found himself questioning every single day.
They bickered a bit longer before finally making their way to the library. Of course, there was still no sign of Vanya. It was clear they'd have to start searching everywhere. They poked their heads into every room they passed, making for a lengthy and doom-inducing search. The longer they were around each other, the harder it was not to want to punch the other square in the face.
Eventually, they found her in the basement. As soon as they clattered down the stairs, Diego and Luther spotted Vanya perched at the vault door, her fingers tracing the edges as if searching for a way in. The wrought-iron metal and massive lock at its side made it more than abundantly clear that it would not be possible. They looked at each other, mostly with concern for her lack of sense.
Diego softened his voice, clearing his throat. "Hey, Vanya?"
Startled, she immediately whipped around to face them. It was eerily dim in this area of the Academy, but that didn't hinder Diego from noticing the zany look that had flooded into her eyes. He had to fight himself not to flinch at the sight. "Oh. Hi."
"What are you d-doing down here? You missed breakfast. Dad's mad."
"I did?" Vanya was frantic, eyes madly darting around the room. She glanced around the basement, neither of the boys entirely sure what she was expecting to find. "I must've lost track of time."
Luther let out a nervous chuckle. She must've barely slept, if at all, last night.
"You know Ben still has the key from last night, right?..." How was she expecting to get inside the vault? "I'm pretty sure he wanted us all to come down here as a family tonight." He gulped. "To, uh, look into it."
"Yeah. I know. I just wanted to come down here to see if anything else stuck out."
"Okay. Well. Time for breakfast."
Vanya nodded, and, with her eyes now grimly shadowed and concerningly darker than usual, she strode in their direction. Diego pursed his lips as he watched her approach them and placed both of his hands on her shoulders to guide her forward and up the stairs. She had undoubtedly come down for a reason far less mundane than the excuse she gave them.
They managed to make it back upstairs in time to snatch some uneaten leftovers from breakfast. Luther was crestfallen to discover he'd only be receiving two slices of overcharred bacon left on the skillet for breakfast. Diego wasn't really hungry anymore.
Mom, who had finished cleaning up the last of the dishes, brightened upon seeing the trio. Luther was leaning against the mahogany table, attempting to chew the burnt slices with a sneer.
"Oh, good! You found Vanya. How are you, silly?"
"Fine. Thank you."
"I saved you a few bites of eggs if you want them. Though I know that when your father's not around, you don't usually enjoy eating in the mornings. So it's up to you."
Vanya forced a tight-lipped smile and shook her head no. At least this was one thing she hadn't broken routine on. Reginald never let them escape his will, commanding them with much vigor that skipping a meal consequently meant all would be skipped. Vanya always claimed eating first thing in the morning would make her feel nauseous, which she blamed on the timing of the dosages of her anxiety medication, being ordered to take it the moment she opened her eyes. Hence, whenever Reginald wasn't present for the first meal of the day, she would skip.
Luther wasn't slow to offer himself to the leftovers the moment he saw Mom stride over to the trash can to dump the eggs out. "I'll take them."
"Careful not to break a tooth on those. I didn't think anyone would eat them," the blonde lady said with a teasing air in her voice. She put the remnants of the eggs on a small plate and gave him a plastic fork to eat them with.
"Where did everyone go, Mom?" Diego asked.
"Oh, they all headed off to inspection! Which reminds me that your father asked me to send you three over to the front hall to participate once you returned. Hurry along with those eggs, Luther."
Inspection was Diego's least favorite time of the day. Something about his father going up and down the line of his siblings in numerical order and carefully scanning, sometimes verbally questioning anything he deigned necessary, made him jittery - a branch of somewhat nervous.
Once Luther finished his eggs, the three of them hurried to catch up with the others. Reginald was waiting at the front of the foyer, posture callously straight. They'd gravelly held up inspection, the clock three minutes past the typical starting time.
Though he did allow a sliver of satisfaction to escape his tensely scrutinizing expression at the sight that his two best had located their sister.
"Boys. Line up. Number Seven, you will bookend me."
They did as they were told and assumed their positions in line. Vanya's stare sank downward, distant and dim, refusing to look anyone in the eye. Her hands gathered behind her back, only stiffly complementing her harsh posture.
Reginald approached Luther. "How many hours did you sleep?"
He attempted not to falter at the question he was asked daily, opting for the answer he gave every time. "The complete eight, sir."
"State your primary thought upon waking," Reginald grabbed a pocketbook out of the inner pocket of his blazer, clicking his ballpoint pen.
"I thought about how to improve yesterday's punch execution by adjusting my left foot angle."
Klaus stifled a snicker from a few spots down in the line. He knew everyone else lied on this question each morning, obviously, but doubted Luther ever actually did.
Their father only gave a curt nod in response, jotting something down on the paper. "What will you accomplish today?"
Luther's eyelashes fluttered. "I will lead by example. I'll complete all training objectives ahead of schedule and ensure the others stay on task."
He clearly had no qualms with any of these responses, evidently perfectly tailored to what he thought his father wanted to hear. Ben thought he sometimes lost sight of what he actually wanted by being so hyperfixated on what he thought Reginald wanted to see and hear from him.
"Look at me. Align eye contact." The old, greying man angled a few inches downward to make direct eye contact with the boy. "Do you flinch?"
"No, sir."
Diego's inspection went okay, but it hitched when a sentence overflowed with stutters. "Stuttering is for degenerates, boy. I expect more care in your verbiage."
Once he reached Klaus, Ben had admittedly begun to spiral on the inside out of worry for what he would accidentally reveal -- or not reveal -- that would spring Reginald onto their case about the events of last night's expedition. Even on mornings when he was sober as a judge, he'd still do something notoriously stupid that only earned him a tepid scold. This would either not go well at all or be satisfactory, at the very least, he was certain.
"How many hours did you sleep, Number Four?"
"Well... hmmm. I know I ended up falling asleep at like eleven thirty," Reginald leveled a withering stare in his direction, somehow already displeased. "Because I kept having to pee. Some nights my bladder has a mind of its own."
He was already overcompensating for his lie. At eleven thirty, Ben and Klaus were cooped up inside his NON-walk-in closet, smashed between a cubicle shelf and the dustballs on the wooden planks beneath, trying to make some kind of sense out of the documents they'd found in his secret room.
"Then I woke up at seven o'clock, as usual. If I account for the time that it took for me to walk to the bathroom, pee, wash my hands, then go back to bed and fall back asleep again four times, then maybe..."
"Number Four. Spare us the drivel. An approximation will suffice."
"Oh. Then, maybe like, five hours."
His math skills had suffered greatly in the last few months. Reginald gave no reply to this clear flub, only a long, appraising look. It took only a couple of seconds for him to write something down in his book. "Your primary thought upon waking?"
"I'm gonna be honest, I thought about that guy who gave me the nastiest, gnarliest stare after our interview on The Today Show last week. He sucked."
Grudgingly, Reginald jotted something else, and added a period with a rather intentionally loud peck on the paper. "What do you reckon you will accomplish today?"
"I dunno," Five and Ben both internally facepalmed in unison, wondering how Klaus could be so careless in his manner. "Get through the day, or something." He somehow never learned that jokes would never land in front of their father.
"Vague answers are failures," Klaus gulped at this. "Your response must be quantifiable."
"Sorry. My goal is to, uh," he thought on his toes, coming up with: "break my record in calisthenics this morning."
A stare with silent censure reflected from the man onto the young boy's face, as Reginald deigned to move down the line. Ben breathed a sigh of relief at the fact that he hadn't revealed anything detrimental.
This went on in repetition until the inspection finished with Ben, Vanya watching longingly from ahead. He caught her eye and shot her a sheepish grin, which she only returned with a movement that could barely pass as a smile. He wondered why she was more somber today.
A calculated sigh came from their father. "I have determined there is a pertinent need to review my notes and adjust my approach accordingly." Luther immediately looked to Klaus, whose interview had bombed more than usual.
"As a result, we will be twenty-five minutes behind schedule and shall resume thereafter."
Allison's hand shot up. "Yes, Number Three?"
"Just to confirm my understanding - does the twenty-five minutes allow us free time, or are we to do something structured? Sir."
Reginald regarded her coldly. "If you consider this an opportunity outside our usual regimen, then yes, it could be described as such."
He then left the room, leaving them standing helplessly like sticks in the ground. As soon as he was out of sight, Klaus released a long, exaggerated sigh that filled the space. He theatrically grasped his chest. "I always feel like I'm gonna, like, die, when we do that."
"Okay. Klaus? You need to play it cool. You got this close," Ben pinched his pointer finger and thumb together, leaving an almost imperceivable space between the two. "To outing us, like a dozen times today. And it's only eight fifteen."
"Yeah, bro, you're kinda playing it hot," Diego added.
"I was never going to say anything that gave us away," Klaus rolled his eyes. "You just never let me finish what I was saying. So it may have seemed that way."
"Whatever. Just be careful, okay? We want to be able to get down to you-know-where tonight." Ben's eyes instinctively flicked over to Vanya, who had visibly stiffened at the mention.
Reginald had called for all the children to reassume their original positions in the foyer, precisely one minute short of the twenty-five minutes he'd predicted it would take to do... whatever he'd assigned himself to do. Five and Klaus had been the only ones to wander off, the others sitting on the stairs and discussing seemingly unimportant things, only to throw any possible suspicion off their behavior.
He waited for them to arrange themselves numerically before formally addressing them.
"Let us begin. The Today Show has extended an invitation for us to appear on tomorrow morning’s broadcast. We depart this afternoon to accommodate the taping."
Ben wanted to melt into a puddle on the floor, to be soaked up by his mother’s mop and wrung out into some forgotten bucket — never to be seen again. This was his worst nightmare. He hated television appearances and cherished the fact that invitations had massively slowed down in the past year. Back when the Academy first debuted, it felt like they'd leave in Hermes to some off-putting, horribly plain and empty television studio almost every day. This had already begun to bring back bad memories for him, some of his worst failures being broadcast to the entire country.
He shuddered.
"Ensure you are well-groomed and suitably dressed. I will not have this family disgracing itself on national television."
In a drastic opposition, Allison beamed like it was her favorite kind of leisure activity - every chance to light up millions of screens was a chance she never passed up. Her siblings knew well enough: she was America’s Sweetheart, the one who said yes to magazine shoots and red carpets without a second thought. In these situations, there could never be an ounce of worry in her bones - she'd done this so often that there was no reason to be nervous. She was a natural.
"I have a question," she asked sweetly, her posture impeccably straight.
"Yes, Number Three?"
This was awfully familiar. Ben was spiraling on the inside while his sister appeared to be feeling eerily calm and unbothered towards the matter.
"Are we to wear our uniforms, or street clothes?"
He thought for a moment. "I would prefer you wear your uniforms to best represent our team."
Ben's question was next, one he had to ask. He raised his hand, and it trembled in the air. Reginald seemed to take notice of this and narrowed his eyes.
Judgment infiltrated his tone. Ben flushed. "Number Six?"
"I was just wondering if you knew what kind of questions they're going to ask us?"
He would rather die than answer any questions about The Horror. He'd been raised and forced to believe the fact that The Horror was simply a monster utilizing a portal in his stomach to travel between dimensions, but the way Ben saw it was short and simple - a killer lived in his stomach. Which, in turn, made him a killer - or a killer's aide - with an unforgivingly high body count.
He'd been voted Scariest Member in Teen Vogue. Civilians or bystanders would scream with terror whenever he was forced to unleash it on a mission. Interviewers, like whichever ones he would have to face today, crinkled their noses in disgust and nodded absentmindedly, acting like they hadn't just been the ones to pressure him into explaining how it worked, even though he'd done that time and time again. "Do you ever feel bad about yourself, having to kill so many people every mission?" or "Do you ever feel like less of a hero and more of a murderer?"
It made him feel like a monster.
It was a long-established rule that some form of acknowledgement was required to close off a conversation with Reginald. So Ben's nod was slow and laden with unease. The moment he dismissed himself, Klaus went out of his way to lean behind Five, very intentionally nudging Ben's upper arm. "How much you wanna bet they bring up Little Guy?"
Little Guy was the name Klaus had assigned to The Horror, in a fleeting attempt to make it less of a taboo topic. Though Ben deeply preferred it to go unmentioned. He hated talking about it, perhaps even more than using it.
It prodded a sensitive spot for him today. "I don't wanna talk about it," he told his brother, more referring to this conversation right now, rather than the one he'd surely have at the interview.
Klaus lowered his voice to a shrill whisper. "When do you ever!"
He just didn't understand. He was painfully unaware. Klaus’s power was kind of terrifying, too, sure, but nowhere near as dark or misunderstood as Ben’s. The public? They didn’t even blink. To them, it was just “wickedly cool," to see and commune with ghosts, as put by one of the magazines Ben couldn't bother to remember the name of. There was always a massive influx of invitations for Klaus to go places around Halloween time so his ability could be exploited for the season. He never seemed to mind.
"Well, I'm going to go get dressed," Allison practically giggled as she skipped up the nearest flight of stairs. "Takes me a while to do my makeup."
Five rolled his eyes and followed, the others trailing after without much thought. Vanya hadn’t said a word the whole time, but she still came along, probably heading off to practice her violin like always. It was one of those settled, unspoken yet painful truths in the house -- Vanya wasn’t part of the Umbrella Academy. She wasn’t invited to missions or interviews or anything that involved being seen. The world didn’t even know she existed.
Ben felt like he didn't exist either.