Chapter Text
Diego doesn’t usually go for white boys but for some reason this one has him entranced. With his bright green eyes and swoopy blond hair and skin so pale that the strobe lights at this party practically reflect off of him, Diego can’t bring himself to leave his side. And yeah, maybe part of it is because this boy - Victor, he introduced himself as - has also been fawning over Diego ever since he followed Klaus into this house party that he apparently got an invite to.
All night he has been laughing at Diego’s awkward jokes, and finding excuses to fling his arm around Diego’s shoulder (“I’m a swimmer!” Diego had to yell over the shitty rap music for Victor to hear him. Victor had grinned and yelled back, “I could tell! Your shoulders are so broad and strong!”), pressing closer than necessary to him when they sat on the couch or leaned against a wall, and when Victor praised Diego for his excellent aim when playing darts, Diego could feel his knees get weak.
He isn’t at all surprised when Victor takes his hand and starts to lead him to one of the bedrooms.
Diego is barely sixteen, and he knows he should stay downstairs with his brother - hell, he knows he shouldn’t even be here with his brother, considering they both had to sneak out to come over - and he knows that both he and Victor are bit too drunk, but he lets himself be pulled into a room with a bed.
He doesn’t think about condoms, because he hasn’t had his period in three months. To his credit, Victor barely falters when Diego doesn’t let him touch his chest, or when he gropes Diego’s crotch and doesn’t find a dick.
In retrospect, Diego guesses they were both too easy going that night. Or maybe the better word is stupid.
Either way, the next morning Diego wakes up with a hangover, hickies, and with Klaus shaking him, grinning like a lunatic.
They both get yelled at when they get home and are made to scrub floorboards with a toothbrush as punishment, but Diego can’t bring himself to care.
At least, Diego doesn’t care until two months later he’s peeing on a stick and it tells him he’s pregnant.
--
Diego admits that his first (okay, second) wrong move is telling Klaus in the hallway, where anyone could hear. Because someone does hear.
It’s Luther. Luther is the one who hears Diego’s panicked whispers of, “I don’t know what to do! You can’t tell anyone, Klaus!”
So of course, Luther goes and tells Reginald.
More humiliating than when he came out and Reginald demanded Diego’s journal (the journal that he made all his children keep) to find out his inner thoughts and feelings, more humiliating than when he took measurements of his body twice a month to study the changes that hormones brought on, even more, humiliating that when Reginald would ask across the dining room table, “So, Diego, do tell, have you felt an increase in libido yet?”, more humiliating than all of that is Reginald throwing open the doors to the living room, grabbing Diego by his hair to drag him into the hall and scream at him, all while his siblings are able to hear.
Diego returns to the living room with tears running down his face, Reginald’s hand at the back of his neck, and barely manages to stutter out, even though by now they have all heard, “I-I-I’m pr-pr-pr-pregnant.”
The room is silent except for Diego’s sniffling. Dinner is silent too. It becomes a theme, there on out.
--
Diego, for his part, pretends like nothing is wrong. He goes to school, goes to his swim and archery practices, goes to his track meets, and complains about biology being boring, or about waking up early like he’s just a normal teenage boy with normal teenage boy problems.
He does a good job at ignoring all his problems, until the next Wednesday when he knocks on his mom’s door, holding a first aid kit, and asks for help with his injection.
Grace furrows her eyebrows and smiles, “Why would you need help?”
“Uh, well, it’s Wednesday and I still don’t like to do it myself,” Diego mumbles, embarrassed at his mom’s question. He thought that this was their routine now, their thing. Grace had never denied him help before, but he guesses she has been helping him for over a year, so maybe it is time to try and do it himself.
“Oh, sweetie, I know that, but you can’t take testosterone anymore.”
Diego looks at her confused. “What do you mean?”
“Sweetheart,” Grace starts gently, “You’re pregnant. You can’t take testosterone or else you’ll have complications.”
Diego stares at her. “But. But. I’m not keeping this.” He nearly hisses out.
Grace tilts her head. “Your father told me that you were.”
And, fuck, maybe Diego should have seen this coming after all the scoldings and all the insults about not being responsible.
Diego barges into Reginald’s study without knocking, and Reginald tells him, with no uncertainty, that Diego won’t find a doctor in all of New York who’ll give him an abortion. Nor will he find one willing to prescribe any more testosterone until after the baby is born.
His mother tries to console him, telling him how he’ll make a great parent - a great daddy, and he knows she’s trying to help, but it stings.
-
Diego still pretends like everything is normal at school. He pretends even as his face gains weight again and as he starts to slow down during track meets.
He always wears a swim shirt in the pool - previously he was able to make up for any drag with sheer power and will - but even with that people soon begin to notice his body changing.
It’s only after he barely manages to crawl out of the pool to vomit that he finally caves and admits over dinner that he can’t attend school anymore.
Reginald is smug, as he tells him that he’s already signed him up for homeschooling for the next few months.
--
Diego tells Victor because he feels like he should. He has to beg Klaus for his phone number, and he can tell that it makes Klaus uncomfortable to know exactly who knocked his brother up.
Victor doesn’t go to the same school as Diego and his siblings, so he doesn’t even know that Diego isn’t attending anymore.
They meet up outside Victor’s house - because Diego thinks it would be a dick move to make Victor travel very far to drop the news on him - and before Victor can even say hello, Diego is telling him.
“I’m keeping… it.” Diego says when he sees Victor’s mouth open again. “You can be involved or not. It’s up to you. Either way, I won’t hold it against you.”
Victor nods, and slowly says, “Will you be okay? Like, if I’m not involved?”
Diego nods. “Yeah, my family is well off, you won’t even have to pay child support or anything.”
“That’s not what I meant, but okay.”
Diego doesn’t ask him what he meant, but he takes the response as a solid Leave me out of this . He doesn’t blame him, he wishes he could be left out of it too.
--
Once he’s out of school and off all his sports teams, Diego is basically alone. His friends try to reach out, but Diego doesn’t reply, and eventually, they stop texting him. He looks at his calendar and sees all the events he’s supposed to be at - all the tournaments and practices and meetups - and more than anything he just feels sad.
More than anything, Diego wishes that his siblings would talk to him. He’s not stupid, he can hear them whispering about him after they catch him staring down at his stomach, he hears conversations come to a shrieking halt when he walks into a room.
They don’t even invite him out to Griddy’s anymore. He never thought that missing out on donuts and shitty coffee would hurt so much.
---
Grace is the one who takes him to all his appointments. She smiles and hums as he sulks in the passenger seat, wearing hoodies and sweatpants two sizes too large all the time now. It’s Grace who holds Diego’s hand as gel is smeared on his stomach, and who hugs him in the parking lot as he sobs.
She is also the one who goes out and picks up all the furniture and helps clear Diego’s room to fit a crib.
Grace tells Diego that she can teach him anything he needs to know about taking care of a baby, so he doesn’t have to go to any of those baby care classes.
The bigger Diego’s stomach gets, the more excited and anxious his siblings get. On some level, he resents that he’s now the vehicle for their fantasies of a new ‘sibling’, but he’s also just glad that they’re spending time with him again.
Ben is back to giving him buzzcuts in the bathroom. Vanya is back to shyly asking for his help at beating a level in Smash Bros. Klaus is back to annoying him about anything and anything. Allison is telling him about gossip that he doesn’t care about again. Even Luther is back to glaring at him when he talks back.
It still isn’t the same, since he doesn’t get to experience any of this at school and because he doesn’t leave the house. But it’s still nice, not being forgotten.
--
Diego knows early on that he’s not going to be able to handle giving birth naturally. After arguing with Reginald for a few weeks, he finally gets permission to have a c-section.
He’s told that his appointment for the surgery is at two pm on September twentieth. He feels nauseated when he writes it in his calendar.
---
“So, what’re you thinking of naming him?” Klaus asks, laying on Diego’s bed, decidedly ignoring Diego’s annoyance at his interrupted studying.
Diego didn’t even want to know the gender of this kid, but Reginald did, so now everyone knows.
“I haven’t thought about it,” Diego says, only partially lying. He knows he wants to name this kid something Spanish, something that Reginald can’t claim for himself. “But I’m not naming him after you so don’t ask!”