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Diego couldn't remember the last time he had been so tired.
He could take training—usually. Sir Reginald Hargreeves was off to some long trip for the weekend, so he'd decided to spend his remaining hours at the Hargreeves manor pushing The Umbrella Academy to its limits.
Stretching, running, combat—with and without powers—more running, more stretching…
Diego had certainly reached those limits.
The moment their father left their home, while everyone else prepared themselves for all sorts of stuff they weren't allowed to do normally, Diego headed for his room. His bed, to be more specific.
He fell on his bed head-on, and sighed deeply as he felt every single last one of his muscles relax.
Finally.
Diego had never looked forward to a nap more in his life. A fourty-eight-hour nap. Yes. That sounded amazing—
—TO A NEW KIND OF TENSION, ALL ACROSS THE ALIEN NATION…
Well that certainly didn't sound the way his nap was supposed to; quiet.
Diego groaned and dragged himself out of bed, opening his door to kick whosoever's ass had decided to play music at full volume.
Of course it was coming from Klaus' room.
Number Two made his way to his brother's door—he was in so much trouble—and started banging it as hard as he could. "KLAUS I SWEAR TO GOD, I'LL MURDER YOU IF YOU DON'T TURN THAT DOWN THIS INSTANT."
The music stopped.
But then something weird happened.
There was a sound of something heavy falling on the floor—which wasn't of any suspicion at first, Klaus dropped things all the time—but the thing was, the sound didn't come from Klaus' room, but rather the room right next to it.
Vanya's.
Diego raised an eyebrow and opened the door to Number Four's room; no sign of him. He closed it again, and his gaze fell on the next door in line.
The sensible thing was to move on. To just go to bed, like his body was begging him to. But Diego didn't have enough brain cells to stop himself at that moment, so he took a step closer to his sister's room and knocked like a human being.
"Yes…?" he heard Vanya's muffled voice from behind the door. Diego took that as a sign to open, and found Vanya on her bed, with a pair of headphones on her head, and her music player on the floor; so that was what had fallen. "I'm sorry, I thought the headphones were plugged in, but it turns out they—"
"Were you listening to Green Day?"
The question seemed to have caught Vanya by surprise. "I, uh, well—yeah, I was."
One second went by. Then another.
"Hell yes, I love Green Day," Diego said and invited himself in, sitting next to Vanya.
"Y-You do?"
She seemed even more surprised than before, but pleasantly surprised. She hurried up to pick up her music player from the floor, which Diego immediately reached out for.
"Hey!"
"Let me see," Diego said and started scrolling down her music library.
He was not expecting to find that much punk music.
"Hey, what's that?" he asked and tapped on a song he had never seen before. It wasn't by Green Day.
"You might not know them," Vanya said, playing with a string of her hair. "This one was released around the same time as American Idiot, so, uh… Three months ago."
I'm Not Okay (I Promise) — My Chemical Romance.
"Dope," Diego said after a while. "Show me more."
Vanya's eyes lit up. "R-Really?"
"Yes, really!" Diego said. "You should have mentioned you have a good taste in music years ago, we would have become best friends, you know."
Number Seven giggled at that, and she held out her hand for Diego to give her her music player back.
They spent the entire evening like this—listening to music, recommending songs back and forth, actually chatting for once. At some point they even discussed starting their own band, and having Klaus make posters for them.
A few hours—yes, it had been hours—later, there was a knock on the door. The siblings looked at each other for a second before Vanya told the person behind it they could come in.
"Hey." Ben poked his head through the door. "Do you guys mind turning that down—or actually, stopping? I can hear you all the way from upstairs, and it's almost midnight."
"Midnight?!" Diego said. His afternoon nap was certainly not a thing anymore.
"Midnight," Ben repeated. "I'm trying to sleep. All of us are."
Vanya paused the music and gave him a sympathetic smile. "Sorry."
Ben returned it and waved them both goodnight without saying another word. He'd looked exhausted.
"Maybe we should go to bed too," Diego suggested, to which Vanya nodded.
"Yes please," Vanya said.
"Okay," Diego said. "Goodnight then."
He was about to get out of the room but then—
"Let's continue tomorrow?" Vanya asked, and Diego could hear the hesitance in her voice.
He turned around and nodded. "I have some amazing recs, you're going to love them."
"Same here," Vanya said through a thin smile.
Diego reached for the door again. "Oh, and I'll talk to Klaus about the posters for our band."
Vanya chuckled. "Okay."
"Goodnight."
"Night."
Years later, in the tiny boiler room he was sleeping in, Diego found himself staring at the very same poster.