Chapter Text
The boiler room is warm and dry and…not as bad as Diego thought it would be. He needed a job- or, well, he wanted the money that had nothing to do with Dad, and a place to stay, and it was just convenient. He didn’t think he’d actually kinda like the room he got in exchange of full pay for mopping up the floors. All in all, he thinks he pulled out the long straw in the whole deal.
He unzips his bag and shakes out its content onto a freshly made bed. A mess of clothes and knives falls out in a heap and the shirt with police academy’s logo on front looks at him like a mockery and a strange memory of something that doesn’t even feel real. To Diego, it’s almost like it didn’t happen if it weren’t for people who thought his more than average skills were “pretty cool” and “useful” and not something unsettling. But then again, his skills aside, his personality would’ve cut his stint there short if Patch- “Call me Eudora and I will end you,”- didn’t make it her job to rein him in a bit.
He generally makes it his job to be as difficult to those in charge as he can be (an automatic response to any figure of authority, thanks Dad), and he wasn’t planning on being much different in the academy, but for some reason Patch believed, had actual faith, that his place was on the force and she was determined to not let him fuck up his chance to get there.
Jokes on her, he thinks with a hint of bitterness, because no matter what, he’s just not cut for it.
He shoves the shirt into a bottom of a drawer next to his bed and starts folding other shirts on top of it. He doesn’t have a closet here, but he also doesn’t really have so many clothes that he’s couldn’t fit them into a dresser. His jackets will go to the coat rack near the stairs, boots, and sneakers next to them, and his jeans, sweatpants, and shirts into drawers, along with his socks and underwear. His knives will be in the metal case underneath the bed, the one he had to go fetch from the mansion because there are only so many knives he could bring with him before they decided to forget all about his “incredible” combat skills and endurance, and kick him to the curb. And there is enough suspicion and gossip around his family name- he didn’t want to confirm any of them.
It’s been years- over a decade, shit- since the Umbrella Academy made its first public appearance, and years since its last, too. Though, there will always be people obsessed with a team of kids with superpowers that showed up out of nowhere, and then just as suddenly disappeared a few years later. There will always be people obsessed with discovering the truth and solving mysteries that are none of their business.
Hypocritical, Diego knows, considering his vigilantism and semi-hunting-ness. But it’s all different when people are poking into your life, assuming and accusing.
There is no hard proof the Hargreeves are the Umbrella Academy, of course. Dear Reginald Hargreeves made sure they know to never remove their masks and speak unless necessary in public. In fact, Luther has been his only spokesperson, the one to declare to the world that they’re “The inaugural class of the Umbrella Academy.” But still, it wasn’t long before the suspicion fell to the strange, isolated family that lived in a huge mansion with an umbrella on their front door.
Really, Dad, good job on that one.
He sighs, shaking off the glum thoughts, and sets to moving into his new home.
- ●●●●
He locks up the gym that night, spinning the spare key Al gave to him when he first moved in around his ring finger, and wonders what Vanya is up to.
They haven’t- he hasn’t spoken to any of his siblings since he joined the academy. Klaus is… Klaus is who knows where. Last Diego knows, he’s pawned off his phone for some cash, for drugs, and he’s really only seen him on an odd night here and there while driving around the city. Klaus doesn’t spot him most of those times, and when he does, he’s so doped up that his eyes hold no recognition. That, out of all things, is what makes Diego feel the worst.
He tried to call Allison once, a few weeks after she moved to L.A. and he saw her on TV in Griddy’s one night. She changed her number. He didn’t bother after that.
Luther doesn’t have a phone. Never had one, and besides, as time went on, the two of them drifted apart even more than Diego thought was possible.
He’s not sure if Vanya too doesn’t have a phone, or if he just doesn’t know her number (surprisingly, or maybe not, Vanya was the one to move out before Diego did). He’s not sure which one’s worse, but both makes him feel like shit.
Really, his phone would’ve been completely useless if Dean wasn’t calling and texting him on an almost daily basis. And- yeah, he’s going to sound cheesy as fuck, but it’s not like there’s anyone he has to pretend for- Dean’s voice or texts are the highlights of his days.
He was holding onto a sliver of hope- or not hope, exactly, more of an unlikely possibility- that his crush, his feelings, whatever it is, will go away, or at least dim a little the longer Dean stays away, physically. That didn’t happen. Instead, he’s missing Dean like a limb, like a vice he’s itching for a hit of. He doesn’t enjoy the feeling, but at least it doesn’t leave space in his body for more anger to nestle into. He got enough of that through the last few years.
As he finishes up with the cleaning, he makes his way to the boiler room to change to his usual “vigilante attire”. There’s still an odd supernatural case, a hunt, in or near the city, but most nights, Diego is just patrolling the streets. Nights vary from quiet to chaotic, and everything in between.
He didn’t expect his life to take this turn, but as far as things go, he’s not complaining. If he was different, he might’ve still be stuck in the mansion, sitting on his ass and twiddling his thumbs.
- ●●●●
It’s a slow night, nothing that would catch Diego’s attention right away, so when his phone goes off, he parks in front of an alley next to an apartment complex and grabs his phone.
It’s Dean, though Diego doesn’t even need to look at the caller’s ID to know that.
“Hey, what’s up?” He asks, jamming the phone between his shoulder and ear to take off his gloves.
Dean is silent on the other side, only his slightly ragged breathing audible, and Diego frowns, feeling something’s wrong.
“Dean?”
Silence, then, “Sam left.”
Oh.
“I- tonight?” He asks, assuming Dean called because he needs to let off some steam, but still feeling like something is wrong.
Dean hums. It sounds angry and Diego imagines him clenching his free hand into a fist. Then he says, “I just dropped him off at the bus station. He and Dad got into a fight. A serious one, Dad told him to never come back if he leaves.”
“Shit,” Diego breathes out. There’s nagging in the back of his head, yelling “Watch out!” because it feels like Dean and he have a bit different perspectives on this.
“Yeah, shit,” Dean agrees harshly.
Diego chews on the inside of his cheek and then dares to ask, “Are you okay?”
“What do you think?” Dean retorts bitterly. “He just left. He had his mind made and he left like he doesn’t give a fuck about his family,” he tells him.
Diego swallows, feeling like this is somehow his fault. His mind flashes to the talk he had with Sam, back when they lived in the city for a while, when Diego was 17. He pops his knuckles, says, “Dean, I’m sorry.”
Dean huffs, “Why? It’s not like you made him do it.”
Diego shakes his head although Dean can’t see him, “Well, no. But we talked-“
“You talked?” Dean interrupts him. “About what?” He asks, his voice holding a dangerous tone that Diego doesn’t like.
“Dean, it’s not lik-“
“What did you talk to him about?”
Diego sighs, “Family, what he wants to do. It’s not-“
“It’s not important? Well, what the hell did you tell him that made him decide to leave?”
“You think I talked him into leaving?” Diego asks just of sheer need to make sure he’s getting this right.
“Why else would he?!”
“Maybe because he wanted to!” Diego yells back, genuinely hurt because he thought that Dean knew he’d never do that.
“Please! He had it good here! And, yeah, things were not perfect, but he was safe and he had his family with him. We were doing fine!”
“That’s what you think! Christ! Pull your head out of your ass, Dean, maybe he didn’t like how you guys are living!”
They’re full-on yelling now, Diego knows, but he’s hurt and angry and he doesn’t care even though he knows he’ll kick himself over it in a bit.
“Fuck you! Not everyone’s got a fucked up family life, Diego!”
They both shut up then and the silence that stretches between them is deafening. Diego recognizes the jab, knows it was meant to hurt him and that Dean just said it in rebuttal to Diego’s own jab (which was really the same thing, just different phrasing, wasn’t it?) but he feels stunned numbness for a moment, listening to Dean’s harsh breathing into the speaker.
The worst of all, said in anger or not, it’s true. Not everyone’s family is fucked up and Diego’s sure takes the cake. Not even Dean’s- by a long shot- and he still has so much more to say, a shit ton of reasons and ways to get through Dean’s thick skull and explain to him why Sam decided to leave.
He takes the phone away from his ear and hangs up instead. He stares at his phone for a moment, screen black, then tosses it onto the passenger’s seat and slams his hand on the steering wheel.
Here it is- the ‘kicking himself over it’ moment. He really doesn’t know when to shut up, hackles rising to the smallest of things.
He shucks off his jacket, deciding to just call it a night and go home because he’s angry- with himself the most of all and that’s just no state in which he should be handling knives. He knows from the previous experiences.
He just fucks it all up, he thinks, reaching out to fire up the engine- and then something crashes in the alley. His head snaps to the sound- a turned over trash can- and he locks eyes with a tattooed figure hidden in the dark for a second. The figure turns and starts running, and Diego realizes there’s a girl, unconscious, tossed over his shoulder.
He jumps out of the car with a start, shouting “Hey!” and then races after them.
It’s probably a stupid move. No. It’s definitely a stupid move, but Diego realizes he left most of his knives and his phone in the car when he’s already gaining on the guy. He’s not sure how he’ll catch him; if he tackles the guy, there’s a possibility that the girl will knock her head against the ground and he’d rather not be responsible for any brain damage, thank you. Then again, he can’t just ask the guy to stop and expect him to listen.
He swears, rounding the corner and finds out the guy choose another option.
The girl is lying on the ground, and Diego spares her a glance before hands come around him, around his throat. He rolls his eyes- same old, same old- but then the tattoos start glowing. Toxic, neon blue, and his head spins, vision going to hell and he thinks, fuck. He thinks, you gotta be kidding me.
He thinks, this might as well happen, and passes out.