Chapter Text
Shaking fingers pressed against the glass of a photograph behind a case dedicated to the Vietnam War. A photograph of his unit displayed like a trophy.
He took a deep breath, let it rattle from his lungs and finally found the courage to focus on the one face he’d avoided looking at the longest. The second he did he found himself unable to look away, drinking the sight of windswept hair and a large grin on that familiar, beautiful face in like it was water and he was dying out in the desert (again).
“Hey Dave,” he whispered, tears already welling up again even as he smiled.
He sighed quietly, pressed a few fingers against his lips and brought them back to curl against the glass before the tears overtook his vision and he found himself sobbing in front of a board in the middle of a Vet bar.
God, Dave.
The sounds of gunfire and choppers and explosives quickly took over the quiet sound of Vets mumbling and Memory Bound playing in the background. He lowered his head, remembering crying out Dave’s name, remembered the awful, blood-chilling realization that Dave had been hit.
He shook himself out of it, wiped his eyes and sniffed before bringing up his patch and kissing it, a sad smile back on his face.
Caught up in memories he startled when Diego’s hand landed on his shoulder.
“Just go away, please,” he sighed.
“Not until you talk to me,” Diego answered, eyes roving over the display.
Klaus rubbed his eyes. “Is that a threat? You threatening me?”
Diego opened his mouth to answer but was instead interrupted by a Vet.
“Hey, guys. This bar? It’s for vets only.”
“I am a vet,” Klaus snapped back. Diego looked back at him, something like reproach written all over his face.
“Really,” the vet chuckled. “Where’d you serve?”
“None of your business.”
“You got balls comin’ in here, pretendin’ you’re one of us,” the vet scoffed.
“Oh, I have every right to be here, just like you,” Klaus turned around, glaring at the man. “Asshole.”
That was the limit, apparently, and the vet stepped forward.
“Whoa. Hey. Slow down, Marine,” Diego intervened. “All right? My brother’s just had a few too many. Let’s just call it a day, all go our own way.”
“Sure thing.”
“Thank you. Klaus-”
“As long as you apologize.”
The vet had that insufferable look on his face as if he was sure he’d won this argument. Klaus wanted nothing more than to knock it off his face and he couldn’t help but giggle.
“Oh, shove off Harry,” a woman stepped in. She worked at the bar. The owner, maybe?
“Jamie,” the vet, Harry, protested.
“You got no right to be harassing this kid,” Jamie scowled. “He’s not obligated to share the story of his service any more than you are to share yours with him. He doesn’t have to tell you shit about shit.”
“But he’s not even a vet. This is a vet bar. ”
Jamie straightened her spine. She must’ve been a commanding officer of some sort, with how she managed to project the very obvious order and threat in her voice. “I said leave it, Harry. He’s a vet, he’s got a right to be here, now leave it . Go back to your beer.”
Harry threw him one more suspicious look, then skulked off back to his table where his buddies surrounded him.
“I’m sorry about him. He gets suspicious about anyone new,” Jamie sighed, offering Klaus a half-smile. “Jamie Harrison, Navy. You?”
“Klaus, Army,” he grinned back. “And my brother, Diego.”
“The Vietnam display, hm?” she hummed. “We got a vet from there if you want to talk to him? He loves chatting, loves making new friends but the bar tends to only have the usuals who know all his stories.” She shrugged, grinned wryly. ”He’s not like Harry, you’ll probably like him - he can talk your ear off about his stories if you’ll let him. I think it helps him - the talking, I mean. It might help you too.”
“Uhh, sure,” Klaus shrugged off Diego’s hand.
“Klaus we should go,” Number Two hissed, his voice strained.
“I’m staying. You go.” Diego made an exasperated sound.
“I’m sticking with you until I know what’s up with you.”
“Then I guess we’re both staying, now hush,” Klaus waved. Diego just sighed and followed them to a corner of the bar where an elderly man sat hunched over a table, sipping his coffee and watching the news.
“Hey Kenny,” Jamie greeted. The man waved, turning his attention onto the woman. “Got a new person for you to meet.”
Kenny smiled at them, eyes drifting over their features and sizing them up. When he reached Klaus’ face, his face dropped into one of astonishment.
“On my word, I can’t believe it,” Kenny rasped. He stood up, took a few steps forward towards Klaus. “ Dave’s Klaus?”
“I- yeah?” He blinked. Wait. Kenny. Kenny, Vietnam, Army, knew him and Dave . “Holy shit Kenny you’re ancient .”
“ At least I aged you dumb fuck, ” Kenny, wonderful Kenny who talked about his fiancee and his dreams of starting a little rose garden so he could give her a rose every day during their blooming seasons. Kenny who had taken Klaus’ oddities in stride, who had accepted his and Dave’s relationship with ease and leapt to their defence whenever someone tried to start shit.
God, Kenny was alive.
“Kenny? You know Klaus?” Jamie asked. Both she and Diego had looks of total confusion on their faces - something that would’ve been quite comical if he and Kenny weren’t locked in a mutual stare-off of holy shit you’re alive .
“How are you alive?” Kenny blurted out. “I mean- I’m glad? But you’re so, so young , and- Dave was- They found him but you were gone? And we thought you’d ran off into enemy fire or got hit too but we just hadn’t been able to find you and we- we got you listed as killed in action and-”
“Okay hold up, Kenny, breathe for a second,” Jamie slapped him on the back as he coughed. “I’ll get you something to drink. Jesus Christ, what the fuck is going on in this place nowadays?”
“I don’t know,” Klaus said dazedly, dropping down in a chair prompting both Diego and Kenny to do the same. “Thank you,” he glanced up at Jamie as she set four glasses down along with a huge pitcher of iced tea.
“How are you here, Klaus?” Kenny suddenly asked after a minute or two of silence. He pointed at him. “We thought you were dead and even if you weren’t, you shoulda been my age - a tired old man, not some shiny twenty-something-year-old.”
“Time travel,” Klaus offered a grin at Kenny’s groan. He’d always said he’d gotten into the cabin by means of time travel and, mostly, it was brushed off as one of Klaus’ many enigmas. But to hear it again, to see the young man who should not have been a young man? That made it real. Which made it a pain in his ass.
“Time travel,” he growled, tipping the glass back in one hit as if that would somehow magically make it alcoholic and not just iced tea (great iced tea, but just iced tea nonetheless).
Jamie held up her hand, squinting at him. “You’re the weird kids with the powers from the news those years ago aren’t you? The, what, the Underwear Academy or whatever?”
“Umbrella Academy,” Diego corrected. Jamie waved a hand at him. “And yes. That a problem?”
“Not unless you make it my problem,” she snorted. “But it makes your story more believable. Saw you all on the news some years ago. Jumping around and throwing knives outside the bounds of physics and just launching grown ass men out of high up windows. The world’s gone crazy and we’re all gonna die, but what else is new?”
“How’d you-”
“Your brother here is covered in tattoos,” she pointed. “Hands, wrist and upper arm. Probably more if I were to guess. But one of ‘em is that funky logo. Recognized it.”
“You’re good,” Klaus grinned.
“I was trained to be,” she shrugged. “But back to this whole mess. So you time travelled to Vietnam in, what, 1965, round that time?”
“1968,” Kenny corrected. He’d put a hand on Klaus’ knee and occasionally he’d squeeze it as if to make sure he was still there and not some… advanced hallucination caused by getting old. “My squad.”
“I’m shit at remembering years,” Jamie sighed. “Anyways, so you find yourself in Vietnam in 1968 - God, you’re the one Kenny joked about who had no fucking training aren’t you?”
“That’s me,” Klaus raised his hand. “Nothing but a bloodstained towel and a briefcase on me.”
“Damn. So you somehow drag your ass through the army untrained for ten months, your… partner? Dave, right?”
“Yeah.” Klaus absently patted his dog tags.
“Dave dies? And you go back? Did I get it about right?”
Klaus snorted. “Nailed it, actually.“
“That Dave’s tags too?” Klaus looked down at them, nodding slowly.
“I took them when he - y’know? I needed something of his and he told me that- told me how he had no one to give them to if he died. So I took them.”
Kenny nodded, misty-eyed. “Better that it’s you. He’d have wanted you to have ‘em.”
Klaus nodded, looking lost and small and Kenny wanted nothing more than to hug him that moment. So he did. He, little old man he was, lifted Klaus’ scrawny ass out of that chair straight into a bear hug that would make a grizzly proud.
“You’re still as big a dumbass as you were back in ‘Nam,” he groaned. “Don’t go blaming yourself, boy.”
“Well I have been back for all of half a day,” Klaus mumbled into Kenny’s shirt which, upon closer inspection (very close, actually, his nose was kind of pressed into it) was found to be a bunch of little flamingoes on beige that Klaus did not approve of even if he’d been too distracted to notice before. “Your fashion sense still sucks by the way.”
“Say what now,“ Diego, Jamie and Kenny all said at the same time in a way eerily similar to some horror movie Klaus can hardly remember watching.
“Back for half a- half a day?” Jamie gaped. “You’ve been back. From Vietnam. For half a day . And you’re here?”
“Yes? I thought we covered the whole time-travelling schtick earlier-?”
“Jamie means you’ve probably got some wild psychological issues, Klaus,” Kenny interrupted. “She a psychologist of sorts. Helps vets. Helped me. ”
“I mean you’re not wrong,” Klaus pointed at the woman. “But not the time.”
“It’s always the time,” Jamie countered but relented. “Also can’t disagree on Kenny’s shirt. It is an eyesore.”
“Thank you,” Klaus said, gesturing wildly at her and back at Kenny. Kenny rolled his eyes, all too used to Klaus’ eccentrics.
“Focus,” Kenny sighed. “You’ve been back from Vietnam for half a day? So what, you just… left immediately after Dave’s death?”
Klaus looked away, grin fading quickly again. “Yeah, basically,” he shrugged, his hand drifting up to touch the dog tags. A nervous habit, Jamie noted. “He died and I couldn’t - couldn’t help. He was the only reason I even stayed as long as I did and I - I wasn’t thinking anymore, I just needed to go. So I grabbed my stuff from camp and ran.”
“Why didn’t you say goodbye?” Kenny asked quietly, hand once again back on Klaus’ knee. Klaus shrugged, his gaze firmly on the floor.
“Don’t know. I just- I ran. Dave’s blood was on my hands - literally - and I couldn’t think about anything except wanting to just go home and cry. So I did,” Klaus curled up a little, trying to hunch in on himself that just looked wrong for the man Kenny knew as a hyperactive, lovable pain in his ass. “‘M sorry.”
“It’s okay, kid,” Kenny pat Klaus on the shoulder. “It’s okay now. You’re here and you’re safe. I’m glad you’re still alive.”
Klaus sniffled. “Me too, even if you’re ancient .”
“Oh, I’ll show you ancient, you-”
“Boys,” Jamie reprimanded. “Not to change the subject, but that picture you were looking at. It had Dave in it, didn’t it?”
“Yeah,” Kenny nodded. “Our whole squad was on there."
“I’ll see about getting you a copy. I keep multiples of everything in the back, I’ll go grab it,” she nodded, getting up. “Don’t break the bar down in the few minutes I’ll be gone, please and thanks.
So of course, this is when someone tried to break the bar down.
Well, that was an exaggeration, sort of. There were only two knives in the bar itself and Klaus was privately very proud of Diego for his restraint.
Harry had walked up the second Jamie disappeared behind the door to the back office, a buddy of his behind him.
“Just because you convinced Jamie ‘bout you being a vet doesn’t mean I believe you. And you still owe me an apology.”
“And for what,” Klaus spat. “Should I be apologizing? A dickhole like you thinking I’m not a vet?”
“You aren’t a vet,” Harry growled back, stepping into his personal space. “Just because you made sad eyes at that girl and she fell for it don’t mean you’re one of ours.”
“Fuck off, Harry,” Kenny grunted, getting to his feet. “He is a vet. I know him.”
Harry looked at Kenny, eyeing him. “Then why won’t he even tell me where he served, huh? What’d he do, get dishonourably discharged? Get his partner killed?” He pushed even closer to Klaus, who had frozen. “You get someone killed, pretty boy? It that why you won’t tell us where you’re from? Scared we’ll find out?”
Klaus stared at him. He was completely still, deathly quiet and pale with rage.
One second passed. Then two. The clock ticked in the background and sounds of gunfire and choppers and explosions faded back into his hearing. He heard his own voice, calling Dave’s name and screaming desperately for a medic.
Felt the blood on his hands, the fading warmth of Dave’s face, the last breath he’d let go of.
The clock in the background ticked again and Klaus lunged. In one strike, Harry was on the floor, Klaus on his chest and beating into his face. Diego moved quickly to stop Harry’s friend. A knife at his feet had him stumbling back and two more had him pinned to the bar.
One man slipped into the back, likely off to warn Jamie.
“ HOW DARE YOU! ” Klaus fairly shrieked, raining down hits and scratches. “HOW DARE YOU, HOW DARE YOU, how DARE YOU, how dare you, howdareyouhowdareyou...”
Screams trailed off into sobs and Kenny, who’d motioned the other vets to stay away, wrapped his arms around Klaus, lifting him up and away.
“It’s okay,” Kenny said, framing Klaus’ face in his hands. “It’s okay, you’re here, you’re safe. You’re okay, Klaus.”
“What the fuck is going on here?” Jamie yelled, storming back in. She took in the scene - one man pinned to the bar with knives, Klaus’ weird brother holding more of said knives, Harry on the ground with a bloodied up face and Klaus himself wrapped in Kenny’s arms, breathing harshly into the older man’s shoulder as he shook out what looked to be a PTSD episode.
His knuckles were bloody.
“Christ, John go get the medkit. For fuck’s sake,” Jamie moved forward. “Well, any of you fuckwits want to tell me what happened?” She asked the room at large. It seemed the men were well acquainted enough with Jamie’s temper to offer a quick answer, because one man - large and muscular, probably in his fifties - stepped forward immediately.
“Harry started trouble, ma’am,” he said. “Kept complaining about how the young man can’t possibly be a vet and finally went back to confront him again when you left for a minute. He crossed a line - taunted him about how he must’ve gotten someone killed and that’s why he won’t tell where he served.”
Jamie started, wide eyes turning to Harry whose face turned red. Well, redder - the blood had done a decent job already.
“What in the hell is wrong with you, man? This is like the fourth time you’ve stirred up trouble for no goddamn reason,” she turned back to the other man. “Get his face cleaned and see about getting him to a hospital. He’s not welcome here for a month. I’m done with his shit.”
“Yes ma’am,” the man nodded. “C’mon, Harry. We told you, man.” Two men scraped Harry off the floor and got him into a side room, presumably to clean his face.
“John, get me the disinfectant and some bandages and take the rest to the boys in the side room - Harry’s face is busted open.”
Meanwhile, Diego had retrieved his knives and Jamie had told Harry’s friend to either help Harry or fuck off, but when he left he’d better not show his face again for a few weeks.
“Alright,” Jamie sighed. “Klaus, I’m gonna have to clean your hands, okay?”
Klaus nodded, still curled up in Kenny’s arm like a child. The image wasn’t helped by the thin hand that clutched at the older man’s collar.
She made quick work of it, obviously experienced. Diego, who had been oddly silent the entire time, finally deigned to speak up.
“We should go,” he sighed. “Sorry for the damages.”
“Don’t worry about it. My son’s a street away, let me just call him and he can take over. I’ll go get my bag.”
Diego blinked. “What-”
“There’s a lot to talk about. And I’m not leaving until I know your brother is somewhere safe,” Kenny said. His hand was absently running through Klaus’ hair, petting him. “Jamie’s already taken a shine to him. Not surprised, he fits right up her alley of ‘kids who need some goddamn help and support’.”
Diego stared for a moment but figured it wasn’t worth the fight. “Yeah whatever, you can come to our dad’s house. He should be going back home anyway, he was drinking from a bottle of vodka earlier.”
Jamie, who’d disappeared behind the bar again, hummed. “Great. Also meet my son, Robin.” A kid, about a head taller than his mother and ridiculously muscled, waved. “I’ve got my phone, call if something’s up and lock up early tonight.”
Klaus and Kenny had retrieved their coats, both of them now waiting by the door. Kenny was still talking in that quiet, soothing tone, his arm slung around Klaus’ shoulders. They quickly packed into Diego’s car, Kenny and Klaus in the back and Jamie and Diego discussing the whole end-of-the-world situation in the front.
It wasn’t until they slowed in front of Griddy’s Doughnuts however that Diego’s eyes drifted to the side, looking at the place. He hissed Klaus’ name, motioning to the place where a man in a blue suit was climbing into a small car.
“That’s our man.”
“Hey, I know that guy,” Klaus mumbled.
“How could you possibly know that--”
“He and a really angry lady tortured me,” he continued. “I barely got out with my life.”
Diego eyed him, concern back on his face.
Jamie’s eye twitched. “Say what now?”
Kenny groaned. “Kid, what the fuck.”
“We gotta get this guy,” Diego put the car in reverse and followed.
If Jamie hissed a quiet idiot under her breath, that was purely between her and the air and no one else.
It didn’t take that long for them to arrive at a motel - a sight that had Klaus recoiling into Kenny’s side and the two other vets sharing dark looks while Diego ducked outside and placed a tracker on the other guy’s car before returning and checking the windows.
“This is crazy, you should call the cops-”
“They’ve already killed a cop.
My friend
, the cop.”
“
All the more reason to call them then.
”
Diego ignored that, leaving Jamie to huff and lean back in her seat. She turned around and looked at Klaus, who was, in turn, staring intently at Diego.
“You okay?”
He made a small gesture to yes, then spoke. “You do know killing these people is not gonna make you feel any better?”
“Yeah, but when it’s done,” Diego made to get out. “I’m gonna sleep like a baby.”
“You sure about that?” Kenny asked quietly.
“Stay in the car,” Diego said instead of responding.
Jamie tugged him back, raising her voice over Klaus’ complaints. “Are you crazy? Going in without backup? These guys have apparently killed and tortured loads of people so they’re definitely armed, you can’t go by yourself!”
“I have a plan.”
“ You have a death wish,” she retorted. “I’m going with you, Kenny and Klaus can wait some ways away in case they try to go for the car.”
“You wouldn’t be safe-”
“I’m a trained Navy vet , you dumbass,” she slapped his arm. “I’ve got a firearm with me. Now let’s go, since you wanna die so bad.”
Diego glared at her the entire way to the stairwell, up until they reached the right floor and he focused on his objective.
She raised her gun, siding up to the door and nodding for him to go ahead. With one kick, the door was opened, revealing a mostly-empty room with the TV still playing.
Jamie kept her eyes sharp, eyes flickering for signs of movements.
There was none, but there was the very distinctive screeching of tires and, looking back, she noted the car coming around the corner at worrying speeds. Light blue, small, would’ve been cute if it hadn’t been used by murderers for hire - yup, that was the car Diego had followed. A masked person was leaning out and years and years of service had her pushing Diego back into the stairwell when the first shots fired.
“Damnit,” she hissed, peering behind and quickly firing a few shots back. It wasn’t enough to stop them, but a set of bullet holes might at least serve for a distinctive mark they could look for.
“They’re getting away,” Diego yelled, sprinting downstairs, finding his brother and Kenny hiding downstairs in the stairwell. “Get in the car!”
Across the parking lot, the tires of the car had been flattened - presumably shot by the driver of the car. There would be no driving that thing.
Which is apparently how Jamie found herself behind the wheel of an ice cream van, Kenny cursing about his age in the middle seat, Klaus almost on his lap (cursing at someone called Ben and ‘where the fuck he had been’) and Diego squished against the window.
She wondered about the day, how it went from a peaceful breakfast with her wife and their kids to a chaotic mess that had her struggling to keep up from down. All this while driving an ice cream truck that Klaus had somehow rigged to play ‘Ride of the Valkyries’ down a road in the middle of nowhere.
What had her life become?
Klaus leaned over her lap, waving out of the window at a little boy and some weirdly proportioned man on the side of the road.
“Go faster!” Diego yelled, prompting Jamie to push the gas pedal down as far as it would go,
The two murder maniacs they were after started firing, but somehow missed the windows completely and Jamie found a vague sense of justice when the truck sent them flying back.
They smashed into the car, her and Kenny both instinctively bracing and holding out a hand to protect Klaus and Diego respectively in the manner of loving parents everywhere.
“Shit,” Kenny groaned, opening his door and nearly tumbling out as she did the same, turning to catch Klaus and Diego and sending them to the man they seemed to recognize.
The man was shouting for someone called ‘Five’ and the kid had seemingly vanished (which, Jamie hoped Five was not the kid’s actual name because what kind of parent would name their kid that?).
The man threw a briefcase into the field and opened the doors for them to dive into the car, which they did. Diego, Klaus and Kenny huddled in the back while Jamie fairly vaulted over the car to the passenger’s side and dove in.
“DRIVE,” she ordered.
“Luther,” Klaus’ voice almost broke even as he twisted around to hold up a middle finger to the back window. “Go, go, go!”
(Klaus noted Ben’s presence in the front with Jamie when he patted the dashboard with a wide smile, saying “let’s go” as if they weren’t about to be hunted down by two sadistic lunatics, whooping when Luther stepped on the gas, the adrenaline junkie.)
Finally,
finally
, they arrived at the Academy and Jamie hopped out, helping Kenny (and by extension Klaus) out before rounding on the two Hargreeves boys she had become familiar with.
Two quick pinches had their ears in her grasp and she expertly ignored their complaints.
“If I ever, fucking ever , hear about you doing stupid shit like that again, I will personally hunt you down and ground you.”
“You were with us!” Diego protested.
“So what?” Jamie yelled, twisting his ear. “No unnecessary risks. No trying to go after murderous lunatics without backup, no antagonizing the crazy people, do you understand?”
“But I didn’t-”
“Don’t think Kenny hasn’t told me about the shit you got up to in ‘Nam,” she cut Klaus off. “ Do you understand? ”
“Yes ma’am,” Diego finally yelped when her grip tightened in warning again, and he rubbed his ear with a curse when she let up.
“Good,” she turned expectant eyes on Klaus, letting him go too when he nodded frantically. “I’m glad we understand each other. Christ, I’m too old for this.”
Luther, who had mostly just been watching with wide eyes, finally stepped forward.
“Diego, Klaus, who are these people?”
“Jamie and Kenny,” Klaus pointed to them both. “Meet Luther, one of my dear father’s many bought babies.”
Jamie gave him a look but seemed to decide it wasn’t worth the fight and simply held out a hand to Luther. “Jamie Harrison.”
“Luther Hargreeves,” he said, careful not to squeeze her hand and doing the same with Kenny when he strolled up and introduced himself.
“We should go to my room, it'll at least be somewhat private,” Klaus sighed.
“Lead on,” Kenny motioned.
The four of them trotted up the stairs, leaving Luther behind in the entrance.
There was a lot to talk about.