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It worked.
Sort of.
Five’s plan, that is. None of them expected to be shoved back into their 13 year old bodies, least of all Ben, but hey. They wouldn’t be Hargreeves if odd things didn’t happen to them on the daily.
As soon as they showed up in the courtyard of the house, all drastically shorter and lankier, Five said something snarky about ‘welcome back to puberty, now you know how I feel’, then lost consciousness in the dirt next to Vanya. He had passed out with Vanya’s hand clasped in his, but none of them said anything.
Everyone was quickly distracted by Ben standing there like he’d never died. Klaus started crying, launched himself at his very much alive brother to hug him, and then rest of them followed suit.
The reality of everything started to settle in after that, unfortunately.
The day after they landed in the past, they had a meeting up on the roof. Five looked them all in the eye one by one, and told them to get their shit together and act like a family. Be decent siblings for once or they’d have another apocalypse on their hands, and Five wasn’t going to fix it for them again.
Ignoring the hypocrisy - Five hadn’t been what they’d call a ‘decent sibling’ in a long time - the underlying blame in his words stung them all.
There’s a lot to point fingers at for what led Vanya to snap the way she did(cough, dad, cough), but the fact that they all collectively helped to isolate Vanya? That they all helped lead to her feeling miserable and alone and vindictive enough to try and kill them and the world?
Ben looked around and noticed they all shared that same weight on their shoulders, the guilt of realizing just how their tiny dismissive actions added up and snowballed until Vanya turned against them. None of them really blamed Vanya, not after all they’ve seen and done.
With Five’s chiding in mind, the topic of the meeting moved on to what they’d do when Vanya woke up, how they’d handle things going forward.
To no one’s surprise, the ‘good sibling’ thing didn’t stick with Luther as he played devil’s advocate, trying to do what was Right and Just. He went on saying they should do this and that until Vanya was ‘neutralized’, shooting worried looks at Allison the entire time.
Thankfully, Luther’s words no longer held much weight with any of them.
Five seethed and called him an idiot, asking him to kindly remove his head from his ass. Allison shook her head sadly at Luther, didn’t say anything even though she could now, a steely look in her eyes. Diego looked like he might start a fight with his brother at any moment. And Klaus..
Klaus was fidgety and unsettled next to Ben. He knew just how much seeing Vanya locked up had rattled him, so Ben had a steadying hand on his shoulder while he sighed and told Luther that he was kinda tired, and he really didn’t feel like risking another fucking apocalypse just to satisfy Number One’s Hero Complex™. Then he added a ‘screw you’ in for good measure.
Luther looked indignant, opening his mouth to speak after everyone else had their say, but Ben hadn’t chimed in yet. Maybe nobody expected him to, or they’re just used to him not being around, not including him.
But Ben, now having a say after everything? A voice? After watching them all make terrible decisions and not learn from the consequences for years? Ben spoke up and interrupted his brother with an unexpected amount of anger, saying that if Luther locked anyone up again, he might as well start calling himself Sir Reginald Hargreeves and find some children of his own to torment.
Everyone was stunned at the venom in small, quiet Ben’s voice. Luther looked like someone knocked the wind out of him. Klaus was silent for a moment, then whistled while he held up his hand to high five Ben. He obliged, stone faced but relishing in the feeling of the contact and the sound it made. Then, the two of them walked out of the room.
Klaus complimented him on his exit, saying how he always knew Ben had some dramatic flair in him, the spooky bastard.
After that, they.. tried. They’re trying. Five’s words were easier said than done for most of them, but they all tried in their own little ways to be less prickly, less reactive, more tolerant. Ben noticed this, like he notices most things.
Even before his death, he was the most docile aside from Vanya, and tended to keep to himself unless Klaus dragged him somewhere. He mostly stood back and watched, filed away all of his siblings little habits and quirks in his head and kept his cards to himself. Now he’s noticing more and more tiny improvements and he feels a small bit of pride for his siblings.
Luther and Diego still get into fights once a week, but Diego, surprisingly, is usually the one to throw the towel in, to give Luther a sort of measuring look and then walk away like it isn’t worth it. Luther doesn’t seem to know what to do with that, so he makes his sad puppy dog face and walks off to wish he was on the moon or something.
Klaus is… Klaus, of course, but Ben is taking full advantage of having a body and he’s keeping Klaus from the worst of his habits. When Ben asked Klaus to promise him that he’d stay clean this time around, Klaus gave him a sad little smile and told him he couldn’t promise that, they both knew it. Ben told him to try and Klaus gave him a solid maybe.
So of course, he’s Klaus and he still smokes cigarettes in his bedroom, still rolls joints under the kitchen table if he’s too stressed, and Ben has caught him with a glass of something once or twice. But he doesn’t do anything worse than that, as far as Ben knows.
He told Ben once that his 13 year old self is right before he started popping pills and sneaking out of the house for something harder and heavier to keep him numb. So right now, he doesn’t have the cravings per se, not the full craving where he feels like he’s crawling out of his skin and his entire body is screaming for a hit of something. But! he said, waving a joint around languidly while lounging in bed, he still remembered how it felt to be so high, be so out of his mind he barely knew his own name. Remembered how easy it was to just pop a few pills and let the world and it’s trauma float away.
(Ben really doesn’t want him to do that anymore, and he let Klaus know he’s more than willing to Patrick Swayze him again if he slips. Klaus had just cracked a grin and offered him the joint.)
So these days it’s less of a craving and more of a longing for something to make him forget. He handles the ghosts better now, there’s less screaming and less need to ‘medicate’. But there’s still nightmares, and Vietnam, and that haunted look he gets when someone drops a glass or a book or makes too loud a sound, and Ben knows it sent him back to gunfire and death and grief. Those are the times when he really wants something heavy.
Ben stays with him those harder days, glued to Klaus’ side like he did when he was dead.
Meanwhile, Vanya is timid and regretful about the whole apocalypse thing. She never wanted to end the world and tells them that, but she’s still upset with some of them, Luther especially. Ben notices the subtle flinch whenever Luther walks into the room with her, and Ben and Allison both seem to unconsciously put themselves between Vanya and Luther whenever they’re all together. Protecting their little sister. Progress.
(Luther learns to look into a room before he enters it, keeping a distance from the sister he hurt and showing some tact for once. Ben considers that a kind of progress, too.)
With the others, at first, she looks lost and hurt most of the time and has days where she doesn’t quite trust them, where Ben catches her staring at one of them in anger and she raises her voice and throws blame and hurt around and demands to know why weren’t they there for her. She asks what difference does it make if they’re only being kind now, after an entire lifetime of Vanya being snubbed.
They don’t have answers for her, but they still try. It pays off when Vanya starts to relax over time. Somedays Ben thinks he sees her slowly opening up and letting them in, one by one.
Considering he’s been dead for a long time, Vanya thankfully held no true hard feelings towards Ben. They don’t really know how to interact, but they try, and Ben finds himself finally getting to know the stranger he lived with his entire life.
Sometimes they have hushed conversations in the kitchen when they’re left alone together, and Ben will make some sarcastic crack and the corner of Vanya’s mouth will lift. One day she asks, her voice breaking, how he kept control over a power that seemed to try to overpower him, a power that would eat him alive if he’s let it.
In the back of his mind, he’s grateful Vanya came to him and not Klaus. Because Klaus’ ways of dealing with anything are not for the faint of heart. Ben gives her the honest truth of how hard it was, and still is. After that he’s silent for a moment, but then he looks at her and tells her he’ll help however he can. She smiles at him.
Vanya feels more guilt than anger with Allison, and the two are often found together doing sisterly things. He notices them falter sometimes in conversation, and he chalks it up to them always being such different people. Vanya still doesn’t like reading magazines and talking about boys, and Allison still doesn’t like talking about music history and famous composers. But that doesn’t mean Allison doesn’t try and Vanya doesn’t let her.
She seems closest to Five - which Klaus says is unfair because he wasn’t blameless in the whole apocalypse thing either, come on - but Five’s always been closer to her than anyone else. No surprise that it’s easier to let him in. He also seems to be helping her find some control of her powers - no pills anymore, thank you very much, Luther.
Eventually, Klaus and Diego start to be let in as well. Klaus has very little issues crossing social boundaries, so any tension between them dissipates quickly enough. It helps that Klaus can babble about whatever and Vanya will just sit with him and zone out. He doesn’t say anything about her not listening, because he knows that look in her eye and knows that sometimes, you just need a little white noise to drown out the past while it comes back to haunt you.
Sometimes he’ll be in Allison’s room with her and Vanya. Allison will paint their nails and Klaus will do their eyeliner. There was once where he looked at Vanya and announced she needed a little flair in her clothing, something bolder and something her. She looked hesitant, but apparently he took her shopping later, and Allison was outraged that she wasn’t included. In the end, she definitely manhandled Vanya’s makeover away from Klaus and he pouted about it while he watched Allison hold different blouses up to Vanya.
In the end, her appearance doesn’t change much. She’s a creature of habit and she likes what she wears when she isn’t in her uniform. Mostly muted colors and comfy shirts. But Klaus gives her a pendant necklace with a little color in it, Allison finds a nice ring that fits her, and Ben notices Vanya wears both whenever she can.
Diego is hard for her to adjust to, as he’s capable of being so cruel so quickly and never really let go of the book thing. But even that starts to heal over time. As they settle in to their tentative friendship, he’s grows protective of her, especially in front of their father. He’s always ready to get in fathers way when he corners Vanya.
He and Five help train her in basic things like hand to hand combat, because she didn’t even get the bare minimum of training and it’s time that changed. Ben hangs out with them when he can, offering the occasional pointer as he sits on the sidelines and reads.
Of course they’re found out, and their father looks so angry when he sees them, going off on a tangent about how Vanya doesn’t need to waste her time with these skills because she’s ordinary and will never be on a real mission and the other three should be doing real training, not messing around. Nice, fatherly stuff like that.
They don’t bother telling him that Vanya hasn’t taken her pills in months and can throw people across the room with her mind, but Ben likes to think that that smugly runs through all of their minds as Sir Reginald goes off thinking he’s in control.
Vanya looks at the floor and says nothing while clenching her fists, but before her emotions can get the best of her, Five stands up and gives him a tangent right back about how they’re surrounded by danger constantly and it’s not a crime for his sister to protect herself, and do you want your daughter to die? While he’s ranting, Diego moves to put a protective hand on Vanya’s shoulder and stare at their father defiantly. Ben slowly shakes his head at him and goes back to reading, knowing their father doesn’t present any real threat anymore.
Speaking of their father.
It was weird, of course. Weirder than usual. Once again they lived in a house full of constant stress and suffering, and knew they only had more to look forward to. They had to navigate their fathers questions and rules as well as his training without letting the cat out of the bag.
Five wanted them to keep quiet about the apocalypse with dear old dad until he ran some more calculations, but that didn’t mean they acted the same as they did growing up the first time. He kept finding them out of bed having meetings late at night, whispering to each other at the dinner table, and became increasingly frustrated that they weren’t lining up like toy soldiers anymore.
Punishments racked up, but at least they sort of had each other. The only thing Sir Reginald appreciated about this new behavior was the sudden teamwork they all sprung into. However, it often worked against him. If they were sent to bed without dinner or one of them got grounded, Five would vanish in a flash of blue and then come back with his tiny arms full of snacks for them. If he’s telling Vanya something hurtful, someone always steps in and tells her the exact opposite and not to listen to him.
Even Luther contributes when he can. Every single one of them is shocked the day Reginald is getting on Vanya’s case during dinner, saying more cold, callous things than usual, and Luther stands up and tells him not to talk that way about his sister.
It’s sort of a new, better version of Luther’s old loyalty and leadership schtick. Father’s expression has Klaus laughing so hard he falls out of his chair, and Vanya stares at Luther in careful contemplation.
An even more startling sibling moment was when, one day, their father had had enough of Klaus’... everything, and had grabbed his arm, telling him he was overdue for some ‘personal training’.
Ben completely lost his shit on Reginald.
None of the others knew quite why, but Klaus had his eyes wide and terrified like a cornered animal as dad tried to drag him away, and Ben had a certain look about him that they all associated with The Monsters. Allison quickly piped up with a rumor to diffuse the situation, getting their father to leave and let Klaus free of his training.
A white-faced Klaus disappeared to his room. Ben followed, cursing about their father’s abuse.
At least this time around they knew thats what it was. Abuse, plain and simple. Now that they had lived entire lives, it didn’t feel like some personal failing on their part anymore. It didn’t like they deserved to be punished in twisted ways just because they were ‘bad’ children.
No, now this time they know. They know that no child deserved what they went through. They know that manipulating a little girl into thinking she’s nothing and nobody for her entire life is wrong. They know you can’t just send your son to the moon for 4 years because you don’t want to look at him anymore. They know you can’t justify locking your child in a mausoleum.
They know. And they find strength in that when Sir Reginald does something twisted or tries to get them to do something twisted.
Ben would never say this out loud, because it’s horrible and cheesy, but he likes to think they find strength in each other these days, too. Even if they have their differences and sometimes lash out, sometimes let each other down, they’re still family. Not perfect, and they’re beginning to realize that’s alright.
They’re at Griddy’s, having all snuck out one night. They claim it’s for privacy during one of their ‘apocalypse meetings’, but really, those have turned into an excuse to just hang out with each other without their father around.
Ben watches from afar, noticing his family's new habits and quirks with a small smile, and Five walks up next to him on his way back from the counter. They both observe their siblings for a moment.
Diego is watching with interest as Klaus pours salt into Five’s coffee while he’s away getting them more donuts. Luther rolls his eyes, but lets the antics continue and pretends like he isn’t watching. To their right, Allison and Vanya are trying to hold back their laughter, Vanya holding onto Allisons arm while she tries to stay strong and not lose it.
Five eyes the scene in front of him with a flat look, then turns and tells Ben every detail about how he plans to make Klaus miserable for this. After that, he pats Ben on the shoulder twice and walks off into the chaos with his siblings, pretending that he didn’t see Klaus ruin his coffee so he can enact his revenge plot.
Before he gets to the booth, Five turns and looks at him for a moment. He asks if Ben is coming, or what.
Ben pauses, takes a moment, and then nods as he follows his brother into the chaos.