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Missions go easy most of the time. There are unspoken rules, the basics all evil-doers seem to abide by in their 'master plan'. Diego is used to the routine now, craves it even; get in, kill the bad guys, protect any hostages, get out, have their photo taken for the news. Repeat.
He enjoys it when there’s something new; a bomb that needs to be disposed of, a building that needs to be scaled, maybe even one of those sporadic solo missions that Dad lets him have a few times a year. Luther gets more of those, but when it comes to stealth, Diego knows he's their father's first choice. The best choice.
This mission had been one of those no-nonsense ones. Diego had brought up the rear after the others, managed to get three bad guys with one throw, and even saved Klaus’ ass when a hostage got a hold of a gun and went a little power-crazy.
“Number Two!”
Diego shakes his head free and looks up the car to find Reginald Hargreeves staring back at him impatiently. His siblings are watching too, their expressions making it clear this isn't the first time Dad's called his number.
“S-Sir?”
“Number Two, pay attention,” Dad says sharply, tapping his cane on his knees. Diego can see the swing of it over the top of the car bench. “Despite what you seem to presume, participation in mission reports is mandatory for all of you.”
“S-ssss-” Just picture the word in your mind, Mom’s voice says, soft and sweet as she strokes a hand over his short hair, kisses his cheek. “S-sorry.”
Dad looks irritated. He turns his head in dismissal, gave fixed back out the window. Diego's summarily dismissed. Luther, sat next to Dad, has a smug little curl at the corner of his mouth, as if Diego's failure is endlessly entertaining. Diego’s fists bunch-up so hard his leather gloves squeak.
Diego looks down at his lap, at the two straps he has secured tightly around his thighs. His knife holsters. He touches the handle of one gently, carefully, and takes a sharp breath, holds it in his lungs. He’s not allowed to take his knives out of their holsters unless he’s training or on a mission, but touching them when he dares to is often enough to ease the tightness he feels sometimes. Stop the rush of blood in his ears from escalating to where he has to hit somebody to make it stop.
“Psst,” a soft voice says. “Psst, Diego!”
Diego has the back row. He likes it there because he can pretend he’s somewhere else, close his eyes and tilt his head back against the seat without Dad seeing. Dad always sits in the first row, behind the driver, a man who never speaks and whose name they don’t know, and usually next to stupid Luther.
Allison sits behind Luther, mostly so she can nudge at his feet under the chair and whisper in his ear. The back of his neck always goes red when she does that, and Diego hates it. Why do they have to be so gross all the time?
Vanya sits next to Allison, right behind Dad. Diego’s not sure why she even bothers to comes along, but so long as she doesn’t sit next to him, he’s okay with it. When Diego looks at Vanya, his stomach feels strange, like he’s jealous or something, but he’s not sure why. What’s there to be jealous of Vanya for?
Behind Vanya and Allison sit Ben and Klaus, who like to play thumb war and make up secret friend handshakes during long car rides. Sometimes they turn around to include Diego, but not often. Klaus says he’s too quiet and boring to play proper games, and Ben says its best they don’t twist round in their seats too much. Lest Dad notice and separate them.
Diego used to sit next to Five, but not anymore. He sits in the back row by himself, doing a lot of thinking. It’s nice to say words in his head and not have them come out all jumbled. If only he could make the words come out of his mouth normally. Then maybe he’d whisper over the seat to Ben or Klaus, or ask to sit in the front with Dad like Allison sometimes gets away with doing, or - or -
“Two!”
Diego looks up. Klaus is peering at him over the seat back, eyes crinkled mischievously.
“What, Klaus?” The words come out normal. His stomach does an excited flip at the thought of telling Mom. Maybe she’ll touch his hair, or rub his back, or even hug him.
“Thanks,” Klaus says. The car is quiet of conversation, but the drone of the radio and the engine's rumble cover enough sound that they can get away with whispering. “For saving me back there, I mean. You were like my knight in shining armor.”
Ben nods. He’s shorter than even Vanya now, so Diego can barely see the top of his head over the seat.
His face burns, his cheeks hot with pride. Klaus is annoying, but Diego would always have his back, keep him safe from danger. He’s Number Two, so he’s gotta look out for Three, Four, Six and Seven. Luther is the boss, but Two is the second in command, which makes him responsible for the others. Five...Five could look after himself.
“S’okay,” Diego mumbles. “Don’t m-m-m, don’t mmm -” He closes his eyes, feels a hot flush of shame. “Don’t m-mention it, Four.”
Klaus bobs his head. “Wanna come hang out with us after dinner?”
Ben has the biggest bedroom out of everyone, so he and Klaus like to string their blankets up in the closet and pretend they're camping. Mom even sneaks them marshmallows and mugs of hot cocoa with whipped cream when she can get away with it. Diego gets invited sometimes, but he never goes—he stands in front of Ben's door with his hand raised to knock until his knees start trembling, and he always ends up slinking back to his own room in shame.
"It'll be fun," Ben adds. Everyone loves Ben. He's Klaus' favorite, he was Five's best friend, and Dad probably even likes him best because his powers are so strong, despite how sure Luther is that he's Dad's pride and joy.
Diego nods. "Alright." He'll do it this time. Maybe Mom will make cookies too if he asks nicely—the oatmeal ones are his favorite, even if Allison says they're boring, and he always requests them on October first, since their birthday is the only day they're really allowed to have special treats.
Klaus and Ben smile secretly, and Diego yearns to be part of it, but they go back to their game and his opportunity is over. He's alone in the back again, next to Five's empty seat.
When Five was still around, months and months ago, he never said much on car rides. Dad always let him get away with more—scribbling math equations in his notebooks or muttering theories under his breath while the rest of them had to stay silent. Five wasn't like the rest of them, after all; he loved math and order and pushing boundaries, which made him more like Dad than Diego and his other siblings, and Dad probably liked that similarity a whole lot. But sometimes, when Diego had messed up and gotten hurt, or when his words would come out slipping and sliding too quickly for him to grasp and pull back, Five would hold his hand. Secretly, just in the space between their seats and without looking away from his notebook, his hand would slide down into Diego's and their sweaty palms would press together.
Their last mission had been the day before Five ran away, and that had been a bad one. Diego missed a bad guy, and a woman running from the fight got hit with a stray bullet; he tried to keep her insides where they were supposed to be, but by the end she was dead and his hands were slick with blood. He sat in the back afterward trembling, the crystal clear image of her gasping mouth and the crimson spilling from her chest playing on a loop in his mind. Five had touched his arm, ignoring the blood caked under Diego's nails and in the lines of his palms, and intertwined their fingers.
Diego misses Five like a bullet wound throbs, like a stab to the chest leaks blood. His brother may have been hot-headed and arrogant and impatient, but he'd also been kind and sweet at heart, always looking out for them. Five had always seemed older—perhaps fourteen to their thirteen—and wise beyond those years besides. Diego likes to fantasize that one day his brother will come back and take them with him to wherever he ended up, to a new home with a big garden and a dog or two, maybe. Mom will come with them, and they'll all go to school to make friends, and Diego will learn to speak normally, and they won't ever see Dad again. It's a sweet dream, even if impossible.
He looks out the window at the cloudy grey sky slowly making its way toward them. He doesn't recognize the street, but it can't be far from the Academy—the drive to the mission hadn't been much longer than an hour, but they've been driving back for ages. He's tired, but he knows better than to fall asleep; the last person to do that was Klaus, and Dad left him locked inside the car all night as punishment.
"Woah," Luther blurts out loudly, and Diego stares down the car at him—since when does Luther talk in the car unless he's giving Dad a report? "Dad, do you see that?"
"Quiet, Number One," Dad orders. "Pull over here!"
The driver stops the car, and Diego cranes his neck, trying to lean over Five's empty seat to see what all the commotion is about. Now that he's concentrating, he can hear car horns honking and people yelling. Has there been an accident? Are people hurt?
"Stay here!" Dad's command cuts through the air like a blade as he climbs out, the driver trailing behind him. The moment their doors slam shut, the car erupts with voices.
"What's happening?" Klaus strains to see from the wrong side of the car, trapped like Diego and Vanya in a blind spot. "Please tell me there's a flash mob!"
Luther's glare could curdle milk. "Don't be an idiot, Klaus. It's a bad accident."
"Then we should get out and help." Allison has already leaned forward, her fingers threading through Luther's hair like she's soothing a nervous pet.
"No." Luther's voice brooks no argument. "We wait for Dad."
"But people could die out there," Vanya whispers, her eyes fixed on something Diego can't see. "They could fall."
Diego's stomach drops. "F-f-fall? Into what?"
"We're on a bridge." Luther glances back at Diego with an expression that says how are you this dense? "A lot of people are hurt, but—" He hesitates, just for a second. "Dad said stay."
"I'm sure he'll survive the disappointment." Klaus is already out the door, the screaming from outside flooding in like a tidal wave of panic. "Now move!"
Diego's hands twist in his lap as Klaus vanishes. They should help. Every instinct screams it. But Dad's anger is a living thing, and Diego is already buried in it up to his neck.
"Oh no." Ben hides his face, and Diego knows what he's picturing—the same blood, the same dying faces that haunt them both. What lives inside Ben's stomach has never made him cruel; it's only made him soft.
"Don't worry, Six." Luther's confidence is almost convincing. "Four can handle himself."
Ben just shakes his head.
Thirty seconds crawl by. Then Allison yelps as a face slams against her window.
Klaus stares in at them, impatience radiating off him like heat. "What are you waiting for? A written invitation?"
Luther opens his door cautiously. "Dad said—"
"Dad says a lot of things. Move."
Diego steps out and the noise hits him like a physical blow—screaming, honking, the sickening crunch of metal settling. The bridge stretches out before him, massive and wrong, one of those suspension bridges he's only seen in Mom's lessons. A dozen cars are crumpled together like discarded tin cans, and beyond them, an overturned school bus is crushed against the railing, its yellow paint smeared with something dark. People are everywhere—running, crying, bleeding. Sirens wail in the distance, but they're not here yet. The Umbrella Academy is first.
"Number One!" Dad stands on the sidewalk with the driver, cane in hand, looking less like a man witnessing a catastrophe and more like someone annoyed by traffic. "Evacuate the civilians. You know the drill."
"Yes, sir." Luther snaps into command like a soldier. "Allison, keep people calm and get them off the bridge. Klaus, stay with Ben—make sure the injured aren't in more danger. Two!" Diego flinches at the number. Luther never uses his name, and it burns. "You're with me."
Diego wants to argue, but he's not Diego right now. Diego likes hugs and oatmeal cookies and holding Five's hand and practicing his words in the mirror. Two doesn't. Two saves people. Two throws knives. Two makes Dad proud.
Or tries to, anyway.
Two follows Luther down the street. He jumps up onto a car to escape the scramble of people trying to run in the other direction. He runs up the trunk and stands on the roof for a better view. The bus' door is on the side flat to the ground, but there’s a guy with a bloody face trying to smash open one of the windows at the back. He looks like he's going to give up soon, though.
"Luther!" Two points. But Luther is already wrenching open a crumpled sedan, pulling out a baby carrier with an infant screaming bloody murder inside.
"The cars first!" Luther barks. "The ones at the front!"
Two's jaw locks. The bus is right there, teetering near the edge, full of kids. It's the obvious priority. He looks between the bus and the cars, then back at Luther, who's already turned away. So Diego jumps to another rooftop, heading toward the bus—
And stops.
Dad is staring at him. Shaking his head. Diego can feel the disapproval from here, heavy as a hand around his throat. He knows what comes next if he disobeys—worse training, colder shoulders, another long night of wondering what he did wrong this time.
His heart hammering, Two changes course.
He drops to the street, shoves past the frantic crowd, and reaches an overturned SUV with tinted windows. His knife punches through the driver's side glass.
A woman with dangling hoop earrings hangs upside down, still belted in. Diego touches her arm. Shakes her. Feels for a pulse that isn't there. The steering wheel has punched into her stomach, blood dripping down her floral dress into the roof of her car. She died alone.
"Sorry," he breathes, and moves on.
The next car is less mangled—smashed into the central divider, probably the first in the pile-up. The driver's door hangs open. In the passenger seat, a man groans, blood matting his hair, his face a mask of red. In the back, a dog barks like its life depends on it.
"Max," the man slurs, head lolling. "Max..."
Two unbuckles him, shakes his shoulder. The ground rumbles beneath his feet. The dog hasn't stopped barking.
"Wake up!" Two shouts.
The man's eyes flutter open, unfocused. "Who're you?"
Two grabs his arm, tries to pull him free, but the man is heavy and his leg is twisted under the dashboard. "One!" Diego calls desperately. "One, over here!"
Luther turns, vaults a car, and shoves Two aside like he's nothing. "Sir, stay calm." He lifts the man like he weighs nothing. "I'll get you to safety."
"Wait!" Diego catches his brother's arm, leans into the backseat, and grabs the dog's leash. It snaps at him, but he hauls it out anyway, wrapping the leash around Luther's hand. "His dog. Max."
Luther gives him a strange look, but then he’s gone, the dog pulled along beside him.
Two picks up his knife from where it’d fallen and turns to the last of the five cars right at the beginning of the pile-up. It seems to be the worse off, even more crumpled than the SUV, and he doubts anyone would have survived that, but he has to check. Dad always says to never assume anything because people can survive a lot more than you think.
Surprisingly enough, the lady in the minivan is still alive.
The woman in the minivan is alive, awake, trying to twist toward the backseat while the mangled seatbelt pins her in place. Her face is bone-white, her lap soaked red. A broken leg, probably.
"Please." Her voice cracks. "Help my daughter first."
Two smashes the back window and reaches inside. A girl about his age stares up at him, hyperventilating, an old blanket pressed to a long gash on her thigh. Missed the artery, thank God.
"I know you." Her eyes go wide. "You're from the Umbrella Academy. Like the comics!"
"Don't m-m-m—" Diego's face burns. "Stay still." He crawls through the broken window, glass tearing through his knees, and tightens the makeshift bandage around her leg.
"I can walk," the mother insists, already stumbling out of the car. "My ankle's twisted, but I can walk. We need to get her to a hospital."
Two saws through her seatbelt with his knife. She catches her daughter as he lifts her out, cradling the girl in arms that are stronger than they have any right to be, even as her ankle swells purple and black.
"Wait," the girl gasps, craning to see him over her mother's shoulder. "Are you... Number Four?"
Something ugly twists in Diego's gut. "I'm Two," he says, climbing out of the minivan. "Number Two."
"Thank you, Number Two!" The girl's voice follows him as her mother carries her away, and Diego pretends it doesn't sting that she got his number wrong.
Two grabs his knife from the backseat, surveys the scene.
He scans the scene. Luther is lifting a truck while Allison drags an unconscious man out from underneath—except Allison is struggling, and Diego can see why. The man is huge, and Allison's movements are wrong, like something's hurt. But Luther has her, and Diego doesn't have time to care.
The school bus is still on its side. The good Samaritan is gone.
Two runs.
He scales the bus, foot on the bumper, knife through the window, and tumbles inside.
Kids. Middle schoolers, none older than ten, fifteen of them packed into the sideways coffin. Most are crying. Some are unconscious. Diego freezes for one terrible second—gas leak, fire, the bus could go over at any moment—and then he moves.
"I want my mom!" a kid wails, and suddenly they're all screaming, a chorus of terror that makes Diego's head pound. He tries the back door. Stuck. He kicks it. Wiggles the lock. Jams his knife between the frame and the door and throws his whole weight into it—
The seal pops. Diego crashes to the floor, his fingers screaming as glass grinds into them. Blood smears the handle as he tries again, and the door flops open like a pirate's plank, hanging halfway. The bridge groans beneath them. The railing creaks. The bus shifts.
"Come here!" Diego shouts over the screaming. "It's okay! Don't be scared!"
He grabs a little girl, hoists her onto the door, and leans out. The ground below is glass and blood and—beyond that—the dark rapids of the river, churning and hungry. They're too close to the edge. Too close.
"Let me help!" The bus driver crawls out of her seat, blood streaking her face and arms. "You're from that Academy thing, right? I'll climb out. You pass them to me. Quick—I think the bus is going."
Diego is terrified she's right.
He helps her through the door. She drops to the street and holds up her arms. "Pass them down! Hurry!"
So Diego grabs kids. One after another, tossing them to the driver like cargo. His arms burn and his hands are shredded. A little girl kicks him in the face as he drags her from under a seat, and he feels the bruise blooming before her foot even leaves his jaw.
"I can't leave my brother!" an older boy screams, clinging to a younger one whose unconscious and twisted in his seatbelt.
"Hang on," Diego says. He'll come back for them.
There's another unconscious kid half on the floor. Diego checks his pulse—faint, but there—and drags the boy over his shoulder, stumbling down the uneven aisle with sweat stinging his eyes.
"Is that all of them?" the driver demands as Diego passes the boy down.
"Three m-m-mm—" Diego shakes himself violently. "Three left." The brothers. And an older girl near the front with a broken leg who made him save the little ones first.
He turns toward her.
The world lurches.
The older brother screams. The bus teeters, metal groaning like a dying animal, glass shattering. Diego catches himself on the wall just as the river yawns open through the windows, far below, waiting. The wind slams into the bus, shaking it like a dog with a rat.
The driver's face appears in the doorway, haloed by the storm-dark sky. "It's going! Hurry!"
"S-shit!" Diego yells. He reaches the girl, who's sobbing now. "This m-might hurt!"
He shoves his shoulder into her stomach and hauls her up. She's heavier than him, maybe, but he stumbles past the two brothers, past the shattered windows, past the creaking metal, and nearly falls out of the door.
The girl screams as her broken leg jars. Diego doesn't care. He shoves her into the driver's arms. "GO!"
The driver nods, hefting the girl with the broken leg over one shoulder and the unconscious boy under her arm. "Run!" she commands the remaining kids, and they follow her like ducklings as she stumbles around the damaged cars and down the broken street toward safety.
Two watches them go for just a second before a sound cuts through the wind—a sharp twang that stops his heart. He lifts his head slowly. The cable supporting the bridge directly above the bus has snapped, and now it's flailing in the gale like a monstrous whip, thick enough to kill a man in one blow.
He throws himself back into the bus just as the cable screams through the space where he'd been standing, shearing the back door clean off. The door ricochets into an abandoned car. One second slower, and he'd have been decapitated.
"Please! Help!" The older brother is scrabbling at the little kid's seatbelt, which has wrapped around the unconscious boy's arm and neck three times over. The smaller one is turning blue. "Nicky—you've gotta help him!"
Two crawls on his hands and knees as the bus rocks like a raft in a hurricane, careening into a seat hard enough that his ribs scream in protest. He'll have bruises tomorrow—if there is a tomorrow. He grabs a knife and saws through the seatbelt in three frantic swipes, yanking the kid out and onto his lap. The storm is so loud now he can barely hear the older boy screaming over it.
"Two!" Luther appears at the back of the bus, peering through what's left of the door. His eyes are wide. "Get out of there!"
Two drags the unconscious boy across the floor, and every movement grinds fresh shards of glass into his knees in tiny, biting needles that feel like they're working their way down to the bone. The kid's head lolls against his shoulder, warm and heavy, and the older brother's fingers are knotted so tight in Two's blazer that he can feel each fingernail digging through the fabric into his ribs. The air smells like gasoline and copper and the wet-metal tang of the storm rolling in.
Luther's hand closes around the older brother's wrist as he hauls him up through the door like he weighs nothing. The kid's sneakers catch on the twisted frame for a second before he disappears into the grey light. Two doesn't watch. He's already shoving the unconscious boy onto his shoulders, the kid's limp body draping across his neck like a sack of wet sand. He shoves his head into the small of the boy's back, using his skull as a lever to lift, and the kid's weight settling across his shoulders makes his spine want to buckle. The bus groans beneath him, a deep metallic moan that vibrates up through the soles of his shoes.
"Hold him!" Luther barks, and Two feels the unconscious boy's weight lift away as Luther passes him off to someone—Klaus, maybe, or Ben, someone Two can't see through the haze of sweat and blood stinging his eyes.
Then he wedges his foot into the door frame, the metal biting through the worn leather of his shoe, and starts to pull himself up.
That's when the shrieking starts.
It's not a sound Two has words for—not a scream, not a groan, but something in between, a high-pitched wail of tortured metal that drills into his ears and makes his teeth ache. He doesn't have time to wonder what it is. The bus lurches beneath him, and then he's falling.
Falling, his fingers scrabbling for purchase on nothing, his stomach rising up into his throat as he tumbles backward down the aisle. He crashes into a seat back with his shoulder—a white-hot flare of pain that shoots down his arm—then another one catches him in the ribs, then another one in the hip, each impact a different kind of agony. The world becomes a blur of grey vinyl and rusted metal and shattered glass spinning around him, and he can't tell which way is up anymore.
He hits the front window back-first, and the glass doesn't break but it does crack, a spiderweb of fissures spreading out in every direction. The impact punches the air out of his lungs, and for a moment he just hangs there, suspended against the window, staring at the white lines branching across the glass like lightning frozen in time. His vision swims with black spots that pulse in time with his heartbeat. He can see Luther at the far end of the bus, backlit by the storm-dark sky, small and distant like a figure at the end of a very long tunnel.
Two groans and pushes himself up. His palms slide on the glass—it's wet, he realizes, wet with something warm and sticky—and he has to try twice before he can get his knees under him. He brings a hand to his face, and his fingers come away red. There's a cut above his eyebrow, maybe, or maybe it's his nose; he can't tell anymore, and everything hurts too much to care.
Then he looks down.
And he wishes he hadn't.
The window is all that's between him and the drop. Through the cracked glass, through the webbing of white fractures, he can see straight down—a hundred feet of empty air, and then the river. But the water isn't blue or green or any color he's ever seen a river be. It's black. Black like oil, black like ink, black like the space between stars, churning and frothing and hungry. The wind whips spray up from the surface, and he can feel it misting against his face through the broken places in the glass, cold and saltless and wrong. The bus is swinging out over the edge, suspended by nothing but the twisted wreckage of the railing and whatever mercy the storm has left to give. The only thing keeping him from the water is this thin sheet of glass, and he can feel it flexing against his back, ready to give.
"W-w-w-One." His voice comes out as a whisper, frozen in his throat. "One!"
"Don't be scared!" Luther's voice cracks on the last word, and Two has never heard his brother sound like that before. "Just climb over the seats! I'll grab you!"
So Two climbs.
He plants one hand on the armrest of the nearest seat, then the other, and pulls himself forward. The bus sways beneath him like a living thing, and every movement sends fresh shards of glass grinding into his palms. He can feel the warmth of his own blood slicking the vinyl as he goes, can smell it mixing with the gasoline and the wet copper of the storm. The wind howls through the broken windows, whipping his hair into his eyes, and the rain hasn't started yet but he can taste it coming—ozone and static electricity, the promise of a sky about to split open.
Hand over hand. Foot over foot. The bus creaks and sways like the old tree in the backyard, the one he climbs when he wants to be alone, and he pretends that's where he is now—pretends the grey light is just evening settling over the Academy gardens, pretends the roar in his ears is just the wind through the leaves, pretends the pain is just the scrape of bark against his skin. But the bus groans again, a deep, low sound that vibrates through his chest and reminds him exactly where he is.
Somehow, impossibly, he reaches the back. He stands on the very last seat, the vinyl squeaking under his feet, and stares up at his brother's face. Luther is nearly vertical above him, leaning so far through the door that Two can see the whites of his knuckles where he's gripping the frame. His blond hair is plastered to his forehead with sweat, and there's a smear of something dark on his cheek—blood, maybe, or grease, Two can't tell.
"Take my hand, Two!" Luther reaches down, his fingers stretching toward Two's. Suddenly, Two is absurdly reminded of the time Luther caught him when he fell out of the oak tree, how safe he felt in those arms knowing nothing could hurt him as long as his brotheer was there. "Two!"
Two stretches up. His arm feels like it weighs a hundred pounds, but he reaches, his blood-slick fingers brushing against Luther's palm—
The bus rocks.
It's not a gentle sway this time. It's a lurch, violent and sudden, and Two's hand snaps back down to brace on the seat before he can stop it. The leather is slippery with his own blood, and for a terrible second he thinks he's going to fall anyway, that his grip won't hold, that he'll slide backward into the dark. Luther nearly tumbles through the door with how far he's leaning, and Two catches a glimpse of the sky behind him—black and bruised and boiling with clouds that look like fists.
Two wonders if the others are safe. Allison, with her gentle hands and her whisper-soft voice. Klaus, annoying and brave and stupid. Ben, who hates violence but always shows up anyway. Vanya, who sits in the back and never says much but always looks at him like she sees him. He wonders if they ran when the bridge started to sway, if they're standing on solid ground right now, watching the bus hang over the edge.
And he wonders if Dad is watching too. If Dad is standing there with his cane and his cold eyes, watching Two fail. Somehow that thought is worse than the water.
"W-w-w—" The word won't come. His brain is foggy, thick as molasses, and his face is wet with blood and tears and something else—sweat, maybe, or rain starting to fall. His stomach lurches with the bus, and he tastes bile at the back of his throat. "W-w—"
"Just grab my hand!" Luther begs, and now Two can see the panic in his eyes—the way they've gone wide, the way his jaw is clenched so tight the muscles stand out like cables. "Please, Two, just—"
Two reaches again. Their fingers brush—he can feel the calluses on Luther's palm, the warmth of his skin, the solid realness of him—and he's so close, so sure that he's about to be saved, that he's about to feel Luther's hand close around his and pull him up into the light—
Then Luther flies backward. His face twists in surprise, his mouth opening in a shout Two can't hear, and then he's gone, ripped away from the door by something Two can't see.
Two's fingers close on empty air.
"One!" The scream tears out of him, raw and ragged. "One, please!"
But Luther doesn't come back. The door is empty. The sky is empty. Two is alone.
He jumps for the door anyway—launches himself off the seat with everything he has left—and misses. His fingers scrape against the twisted metal frame, and then he's falling back down, landing hard on the seat below, the impact jarring up through his spine. He stares up at the hole, at the grey sky visible through it, and tears slide down his face, hot against the cold wind.
It's not fair. It's not fair.
He scrambles for the side window, pulling his knife from its holster. The handle is slick with blood, and he nearly drops it twice, but he holds on, because this knife is all he has left, the only thing between him and the dark. If he can just break the window, if he can just climb out onto the side of the bus, maybe he can—
"Two!"
The bus tips again.
Two screams—a raw, animal sound that tears out of his throat without his permission—and falls backward, tumbling down the aisle again, crashing into seats and walls and things he can't name. He lands on a row of seats halfway down, his body so exhausted he can barely breathe. Every muscle screams and every bone aches. He wants to close his eyes. He wants to sleep.
But he drags himself up anyway, because that's what he does. That's what he's always done.
He tries to climb again, but his foot won't move.
He stares down at it. A seatbelt has tangled around his ankle—looped in on itself, wrapped around and around, twisted up with the laces of his shoe. The more he pulls, the tighter it gets, biting into his skin through his sock. He reaches for a knife, but his holsters are empty. He pats his belt, his thighs, his waist—nothing. They're...gone. He lost them in the fall.
"No, no, no, no, no—" The word spills out of him.
He yanks at the seatbelt with his bare hands, but it won't give. The nylon saws into his palms, opening fresh cuts, and his blood slicks the straps but they won't break—
"Diego!"
Two looks up. Through the broken windows, through the rain that's finally starting to fall, he sees nothing but dark, stormy sky.
Any shame he felt before is gone now. Any pride, any fear of Dad's disapproval, any need to be the best, the fastest, the sharpest—all of it is gone. There's only one thing left.
"Luther!" he screams into the wind. "Luther, please! I'm sorry! I'm sorry, please—"
His stomach tells him before it happens.
It flips—a slow, sickening roll, like cresting the top of a roller coaster, like the moment before a fall—and then it flies up into his throat, and the bus is falling.
There's no sound. That's the worst part. The wind should be roaring, the metal should be screaming, the water should be rushing up to meet him with a terrible crash. But there's nothing. Just silence. Just the terrible, perfect silence of the end.
The air is ripped from his lungs. His eyes water. The grey sky spins above him, then the black water, then the sky again, over and over, too fast to track. He opens his mouth to scream, but no sound comes out.
This is how it ends. Bloody and bruised, alone in an empty school bus, falling toward water so dark it looks like the end of the world.
A second before he hits—just a blink, just a heartbeat, just long enough to think I don't want to die—he hears Luther.
Somehow, impossibly, above the wind and the rain and the roaring in his ears, he hears his brother's voice.
It might not even be real. It might be a hallucination, his terror-stricken brain conjuring one last comfort before the dark takes him. But it doesn't matter. Real or not, he knows—with a certainty that feels like faith—that this is the last sound he'll ever hear.
"DIEGO!"
The bus hits the water like a fist slamming into a gut.
The impact rattles through Diego's bones, snapping his head forward so fast his teeth clack together and his tongue splits against his teeth—copper floods his mouth, warm and thick. The metal around him screams, a dying animal noise that vibrates up through the seat and into his spine, and Diego is panting, gasping, sucking in the cold air as fast as his lungs will allow, but it's not enough, nothing is enough, his chest is a cage that's shrinking around his heart—
Is he hyperventilating?
The front window gives way with a sound like thunder cracking open the sky. A wall of water rushes in, black and freezing and hungry. It crashes over the seats, swallows the aisle, climbs up Diego's legs before he can even think to move. He has seconds. Maybe less.
He pulls at the seatbelt. His fingers are shaking so badly he can barely grip the nylon, and it's digging into his leg now, rubbing raw welts into his skin. He pulls and pulls and pulls, but the water has tightened the knot, has made it slick and unyielding, and it won't budge—
"H-help!" The cry tears out of him as the water crashes up to his feet, his knees, his thighs. "H-h-h—"
The cold steals the breath from his lungs, turns his muscles to stone, sends pins and needles screaming across every inch of his skin. His thin uniform might as well be made of paper for all the good it does. The water is freezing—not cold like a bath gone tepid, not cold like winter air, but cold like death itself, cold like something that wants to eat him alive.
It eclipses his waist. His chest. His shoulders.
Diego tilts his face up, stares at the roof of the bus as it rights itself in the current. The water sloshes against his chin—briny and cold and tasting of rust and gasoline and something metallic that might be his own blood.
He doesn't want to die.
The thought hits him with the force of a second impact, clear and sharp and devastating. He doesn't want to die, not here, not like this, not alone in a dark bus at the bottom of a river. Is this what that lady in the SUV felt? Seeing the crash coming but unable to stop it? Knowing she was helpless, that she'd die alone, that no one would hold her hand at the end?
He wants to fight. It's not fair. He's not ready yet. He's only thirteen. He's never had a birthday party. He's never told Mom that she's the best thing that ever happened to him. He's never kissed someone or gone to the movies or learnt to drive or seen a cow in real-life or eaten at a fancy restaurant, or been on an airplane or—or—
But Diego knows life isn't fair. It never has been.
He sucks in one final gasp of air—his last breath, the one that will have to last him forever—and feels it fill his lungs, feels his chest expand one last time. He closes his eyes tight, and lets the water finally cover his face.
The silence is the strangest part.
One moment there's the roar of water in his ears, the crash of the river, the pounding of his own heart. The next, there's nothing. Just a stillness so complete it feels like the world has stopped turning.
Diego drifts in the sudden quiet, weightless and numb. His hair floats around his face like seaweed, brushing against his cheeks. The cold is still there, but it's distant now, like something happening to someone else.
He thinks about Dad first.
How disappointed he'll be. How he'll make Allison second-in-command now and probably be glad about it. He's always hated Diego, always thought his power was useless—throwing things is no good when there's nothing to throw, after all. That makes him a liability. A weak link. And with his stupid stutter, it's not like he strikes much of an intimidating picture. Dad probably won't even hold a funeral. He'll just assign Diego's number to someone else, some new kid he finds in a crib somewhere, and pretend Diego never existed at all.
He thinks about his siblings.
Ben and Klaus, inviting him to their secret sleepover. Vanya, with her boring violin hobby that he's insanely jealous of because it lets her be normal sometimes. Allison, who waits for him to find his words and never interrupts. And Luther—
Luther, peering down at him through the door of the bus, so close, so close, his hand reaching out—
And Five. Five, who's probably dead, who ran away and never came back. Diego will see him any second now, won't he? That's what happens when you die. You see the people who went before you.
Mom—
The thought of her hits him like a knife to the chest.
Mom, no—
Diego's eyes snap open.
It's dark. Nearly pitch black. The bus is still sinking, drifting down through the murky water, and it will take a while to reach the bottom of the fast-moving river. His hair drifts in front of his face, slow and lazy, and if this is dying, it's strangely peaceful. He's alone, sure, but everyone's alone in the end, aren't they?
Tethered to the seat, Diego sways in the faint current like a long sliver of seaweed. Just a small boy in a river ready to drown. He sways and sways, waiting for the end, but there's no light, no tunnel, no Five reaching out to take his hand.
Just swaying.
And then, slowly, Diego realizes that something should have happened by now.
He knows how drowning is supposed to feel. He's seen the educational videos during training, watched diagrams of lungs filling with water, of bodies going limp. He's even done CPR on civilians before, felt their cold skin under his palms, listened to the hollow silence of their chests. He knows about the intense burning, the panic, the agony of a watery death.
But there's nothing. No pain, no fear. Just a strange, floating serenity.
He ponders this as time passes, as his vision slowly adjusts until he can at least see his own hand in front of his face. The water is murky, full of silt and debris, but there's some light filtering down from above—not much, but enough.
Diego pulls himself down and tugs carefully at the seatbelt wrapped around his ankle. The tightness of his blazer restricts his movement, so he wriggles out of it—the fabric peeling away from his skin with a sucking sound—and returns to the tangled straps.
Without his knife, it's slow going. The water has tightened every knot into something almost impenetrable, the nylon swollen and unyielding. He picks and picks at them with his fingernails until they ache, until the tips feel like they're going to peel back from the nail beds. His fingers are wrinkled up like prunes, soft and useless, but he doesn't stop.
He pulls off his shoe, and that makes it easier. His ankle is rubbed raw beneath—he can feel the sting of the river water seeping into the wounds—but his foot slides free with little fanfare.
Diego stares at his socked foot, stunned.
He's free.
He's alive.
He toes off his other shoe so he's balanced and kicks wildly toward the roof of the bus. It's completely submerged now, nearly pitch black, and Diego spends what feels like an eternity feeling along the cold metal, his numb fingers searching for any kind of orientation. He feels detached from his body, from the panic, from everything. So when his fingers finally hit something sharp, a broken window, glass jutting out like teeth, he doesn't really react.
He just wiggles through, pretty sure he's at the front of the bus given the vast open space, and kicks himself free.
For a moment, he floats weightlessly, suspended in the dark. The current tugs at him gently, like a mother trying to guide a child to bed. And high, high above his head—maybe sixty feet?—is a speck of light, swaying with the current.
The surface.
Diego kicks, but he's leisurely about it. He feels like he could float here for a million years and be at ease. What is there to worry about when he's alone and free like this? No Dad. No numbers. No missions. Just water and darkness and the slow, steady pulse of his own heart.
But the closer he gets to fresh air, the more he can feel the rough waters of the river. Deep below, it had been peaceful—a quiet grave. Up here, he's tossed about like a tiny fish in a storm, the current grabbing him and spinning him, slamming him against debris he can't see. Swimming gets harder, his arms burning with the effort, but he keeps his pace and listens to the crash of the waves above. Watches bubbles explode across the surface. Feels the rain before he sees it—cold droplets mixing with the river, making it impossible to tell where one ends and the other begins.
He breaches with a gasp so violent it hurts.
It's like being born again.
The rain hits him immediately, fat drops that sting his skin and blind his eyes. The sky is black with clouds, so dark he can barely tell where the river ends and the storm begins. The rain pelts down in large sheets that roughen the already-churning water, and Diego wonders how he's even keeping afloat with how violent the current is.
The bridge is lit by bright floodlights, but down here the world is dark. It's...nighttime?
He paddles, trying to get close to the muddy banks, but the current is sweeping him further and further from the bridge. His teeth chatter so hard his jaw aches, and his legs are cramping from the cold, but he remembers his rescue training (float on your back, conserve your energy, don't fight the current) and finally, finally, his feet hit something substantial.
The bottom of the river.
He stumbles up on shaky legs, cold and hungry and so tired he can barely see straight, and collapses in the mud. His uniform is ruined—torn in a dozen places, stained with blood and river water and something green that might be algae. Dad is going to be so angry.
Diego drags himself the last few steps on his hands and knees. He's still half in the water, but it's not like he can get any wetter. He presses his face into the silt, uncaring of the mud and grit. He needs to get back. He needs to give Dad his mission report. He knows this. But...he's so tired.
Can't he just rest for a moment? Surely no one would ever find out.
He blinks his eyes open sometime later. The rain is still pelting down, and it slicks his hair heavily into his eyes. His mask is still on—he'd forgotten about it—and he reaches up to pull it away from his skin. The river water has eaten at the glue, so it barely hurts. He puts it in his pocket because he's already lost his blazer and his shoes, and he's not about to let Dad punish him for losing his mask too.
The bank is steep, slippery with mud, but Diego climbs it with the help of tangled bushes and a dumped shopping cart that digs into his stinging palms. He reaches the street, which is mercifully lit with street lamps, as the sky has gone completely dark now.
He walks. His socks squelch with every step, leaving wet prints on the sidewalk. The stores are all closed, their windows dark, and there's no one on the streets except for the flashing lights in the distance. It's definitely past eight. Probably later.
How long had he been down there?
Diego examines himself as he walks, trying to keep his mind off his aching muscles and the bone-deep tiredness sunk into every pore. His fingers are torn up from the glass, though shredded is probably more accurate. His knees are worse. One has a deep gash that will definitely need stitches, but the cold water has stopped the blood, and it only throbs with a vague, distant pain now. He palpates his face carefully, feels the tender swell of his left eye. It's going to bruise like a bitch. His nose isn't broken, but his lip is split and sore.
He reaches the bridge and stops.
"DIEGO!"
He jumps so hard his teeth clack together, his heart slamming against his ribs like a trapped bird.
Now that he can see them better, he realizes the floodlights are mostly pointed down into the river, casting long white fingers across the churning black surface. There's a boat bobbing on the water, its spotlight sweeping back and forth, and a news van he recognizes from Allison's stupid teen beat interviews, its satellite dish pointed at the bruised sky like an accusatory finger. They're filming everything—the rescue workers crawling over the wreckage, the blue and red lights of the ambulances painting the rain-slick ground in pulses of color, the police cars with their doors hanging open.
Then he spots a familiar head of dark curly hair, waterlogged and plastered to a pale skull.
Klaus.
He's peering into the bushes beside the bridge, soaked to the bone, his thin uniform clinging to his shaking frame. He's out of the way of the lights and the people—off to the side, where no one is looking—but Diego caught the ghost-white pallor of his brother's skin in his peripheral vision, and now he can't look away. "Diego!" Klaus calls again, voice hoarse. "Diego!"
"K-k—" The word comes out even worse than usual, his jaw shaking so hard from the cold that his teeth are a percussion instrument in his skull. "K-Klaus!"
Klaus jumps like he's been electrocuted, spinning around so fast he nearly loses his balance. He looks back up at the bridge first, at the crowd of people who hadn't called him, then turns in a slow, confused circle, his brow furrowed. His gaze skims across the skyline, past Diego at first.
Then he does a double-take.
His eyes pop so wide Diego can see white all the way around the irises. The flashlight in his hand slips from his numb fingers and clatters on the wet sidewalk, the beam casting a long, wavering line across the cement like a question mark.
Diego realizes he probably looks insane, standing in the dark like this, shoeless, jacketless, his uniform torn and bloody, his hair plastered to his face. He hurries over to his brother, his bare feet slapping against the wet pavement, and nearly goes down in a puddle.
Klaus remains frozen stiff as Diego approaches, his chest rising and falling in short, sharp gasps.
Diego takes in his brother's expression and ducks his head sheepishly. "How m-m-mm... ow pissed is Dad?"
Klaus makes a sound that isn't a word and isn't a sob but something in between—a wet, broken noise that seems to come from somewhere deep in his chest. Then he sits down very suddenly on the wet ground, his legs simply giving out beneath him. He puts his head between his knees, his shoulders heaving, breathing so fast Diego can hear the whistle of it.
"This isn't happening," Klaus mutters into his own lap. "No, no, no—"
Diego feels like he's lost again, drifting out in that dark, silt-slicked river, pulled by a current he can't see. He's not sure what to do. His hands hover uselessly at his sides. "F-f-ff-Four," he tries, panic creeping into his voice. "It's me, it's Diego! Number Two!"
"Right," Klaus says, but it comes out wrong; breathy, distant, like he's talking to someone far away. He peers up at Diego through his rain-soaked bangs, his green eyes red-rimmed and glassy. He stares and stares, taking in Diego's soaked uniform, his bloody hands, his torn-up knees, the gash on his leg that's still oozing dark blood. Then his breath starts coming even faster, his chest hitching, his whole body beginning to shake.
Diego reaches for him.
Klaus yelps a sharp, animal sound and scrambles backward on the wet ground like a crab, his palms slapping against the pavement, his heels digging in. His breath whooshes out of his lungs in irregular gasps that make his whole body jerk.
"Hey!" Diego yelps back, stung. He kneels, ignoring the sharp pain that shoots through his battered knees, and hesitates with his hands hovering in the cold air. "W-w-what's the matter?"
He finally sets his hands down on his brother's shoulders, unsure if the touch will be welcome. They're not exactly a hugging family, after all. Klaus's shoulders are bony under his palms, shaking like a leaf in a hurricane.
Klaus stiffens at Diego's touch, every muscle going taut, his breath catching in his throat. He stares down at Diego's hands, at his fingerless gloves, at his bitten-down nails and the blood caked under them. Then he follows that gaze up Diego's arm, past the torn once-white sleeve of his uniform, to his anxious, rain-streaked face.
"Diego?" Klaus's voice cracks on the second syllable.
"Yeah?" Diego's mind is racing. Has Klaus taken something? He likes to steal from Dad's alcohol stash, and Diego's pretty sure he sneaks out to do weed or something, but...surely not before a mission, right? He can't be that stupid. He can't.
"You're..." Klaus's voice breaks entirely, splintering like glass. His hands cup Diego's face, freezing cold palms pressed against freezing cold cheeks, and he turns Diego's head side to side, tilts his chin up, examines him like he's looking for something.
"I've..." Klaus swallows hard, his throat bobbing. "I've never been able to touch them before."
Them.
Who the hell is—
Oh. "I'm okay," Diego says quickly, the words tumbling out in a rush. He feels sick, his stomach churning. Klaus thinks he's dead. Klaus thinks he's a ghost. "I'm not—"
"Diego!"
Both of them jump, turning toward the voice like flowers toward the sun. Clustered further down the bridge are two figures in familiar uniforms, their silhouettes blurred by the rain. Vanya, her long braids stringy and wet, her bare legs probably freezing in the downpour. Allison, who has her blazer pulled up over her curls in a futile attempt to protect them.
But the voice came from Ben.
He's staring straight at them with his mouth hanging open, his dark eyes huge in his pale face. He's shivering—Diego can see it from here, the way his whole body trembles—but he hardly seems to care.
"Six!" Klaus cries out, still sitting in a puddle with Diego crouched in front of him. "Can you see him too?!"
Ben breaks into a run. He weaves between parked cars, his arms pumping hard, his bare feet slapping against the wet pavement. Diego stands to receive him and is stunned when his brother leaps into his arms and clings like a baby monkey, his legs wrapping around Diego's waist and his arms locking around Diego's neck.
Ben's uniform is soaked through, but his breath on Diego's neck is hot and shaky, his face pressed into the curve of Diego's shoulder. His body is trembling—no, shaking, great wracking shudders that seem to come from somewhere deep inside.
He's crying. But...Ben hardly ever cries.
"What?" Diego asks, just standing there like an idiot, his arms full of his sobbing brother. Ben's legs drop down to the ground, and then Klaus wraps them both up in his skinny arms and laughs madly as he twirls them in stumbling circles.
"We," Ben gasps between sobs, his voice muffled by Diego's shoulder. "Two, we thought you were dead!"
His grip is so tight Diego is pretty sure he'll have even more bruises come morning, but he doesn't care. He's never seen Ben so upset before, not even after the Horror misbehaves on a mission, not even when Five left and Ben stood in his empty room for an hour without saying a word.
That awful swirl of shame makes itself known in Diego's gut—hot and acidic—for letting them all down this much, for failing so badly to be a good second-in-command. What will Dad say? How badly will he be punished? Will they even let him keep his number after this?
Only a few moments after Ben attaches himself, Vanya appears in Diego's line of sight. She stares at his face, taking it in, her eyes wide and her lips trembling. Water drips from her chin, from the ends of her braids, from the tips of her fingers.
"Diego, is that really you?" Her voice is barely a whisper, barely audible over the rain. "Dad... he said you drowned."
"You sure look like you did," Klaus says, finally pulling back to sweep his wet, stringy hair out of his eyes. He picks up his fallen flashlight and turns it off, giggling to himself—a nervous, breathless sound.
"L-l-l—" Diego shakes his head, frustrated. Focus, idiot. "Likewise."
"Ben, get off him." Klaus tugs on the shorter boy's arm, but Ben remains stubbornly clinging to Diego's side, his fingers fisted so tightly in Diego's sweater vest that his knuckles have gone white. "Ben! You'll kill him for sure if you keep holding on that tight! He's okay!"
"It's okay, Six." Diego pats Ben's back awkwardly, his palm flat against the wet fabric. Hugs are definitely Mom's area of expertise—she knows where to put her hands, how long to hold on, when to squeeze and when to let go. Diego has no idea what he's doing. Not to say he doesn't enjoy it, though. It's just... weird. "Come on, let's get out of the r-r-rrrain."
Klaus bobs his head in agreement, grinning madly, his teeth chattering. "Before we freeze to death!"
Diego can't believe how stupid he'd been earlier. Of course Klaus would have thought he saw a ghost—that's literally how his powers work. Diego can't imagine how that must have felt, seeing his brother's waterlogged ghost appear out of the darkness, especially with how high-strung Klaus has been about potentially seeing Five suddenly pop up. At this point, they've all silently agreed that there's little chance their missing brother is merely living it up in Portugal. He would have come back for them by now if that were the case.
He would have come back, damn it.
Ben reluctantly peels himself away, looking like one of the bedraggled kittens they'd found in the backyard last summer—all wide eyes and wet fur and trembling limbs. He scrubs at his nose with the back of his hand and mumbles a weak little apology, his cheeks flushing pink under the rain.
Diego, familiar with this particular part of being a brother, gently slaps him upside the head. "Quit it."
"I'm just glad you're okay," Ben whispers. Though he's let go, he stays pressed right up against Diego's arm, and Diego doesn't mind it. The warmth is nice, even if they're both freezing.
"I found you a blanket," Vanya says shyly, tucking a strand of wet hair behind her ear. "It's in the car."
"Oh." Diego blinks, surprised. It's not like he ever talks to Vanya—she sits behind Dad, and he sits in the back, and their paths don't cross much except during missions and meals. So why'd she do that? He feels a bubble of shame now, for ignoring her so much. After all, she is his sister, even if she doesn't have powers like the rest of them. "Thanks, Vanya."
She smiles back at him—a small, tentative thing—and hesitantly touches his arm. Just a brush of her fingertips against his wet sleeve, there and gone. But he still grins at her, because he's freezing cold and not wearing any shoes, and they're all standing around in the pouring rain, and somehow none of that matters.
The only thing that would make him happier is if Luther and Allison and Mom were here as well. And Five, of course.
Not Dad.
"W-w-where's Allison?" Diego asks before they head back to the car. He scans the crowd, the flashing lights, the people in uniforms. "I saw her just n-now..." Why hadn't she come to see him with Vanya and Ben? Had Dad told her not to? Was he really that disappointed? Is Diego in massive trouble?
Vanya frowns and looks over her shoulder at the people scuttling about. None of the adults have noticed Diego yet, which hopefully means there also won't be evidence of him hugging Ben like a big baby. He loves his brother, but he doesn't want everyone making fun of him. "She ran off. I think to find Luther."
"Luther," Diego repeats. The name sits heavy on his tongue. He can still see his brother's hand reaching for him through the school bus door, their fingers brushing, and then—nothing. Empty air. He shivers, and it's not from the cold. He doesn't want to think about that ever again. "He's—"
"With our old man." Klaus's voice is sharp, edged with something Diego can't name. "Dear old Dad was not happy about his little golden boy risking his behind to—ouch!"
Ben poked him. Hard, by the sound of Klaus's yelp. "Quit talking about that."
Klaus frowns and folds his arms across his wet blazer, sticking out his lower lip petulantly. "I was just saying."
But Diego isn't listening anymore. He's startled by a pair of arms grabbing him tightly from behind.
Then a pair of arms grabs him from behind—tight, almost crushing, wrapping around his chest and squeezing the air out of his lungs.
"See, I told you!" Allison's voice rings out, bright and fierce, muffled against his back. "I told you he'd be okay!"
She presses her face between his shoulder blades, and Diego can feel her warmth seeping through his soaked shirt, can feel the rapid beat of her heart against his spine. He doesn't think he's ever been hugged so much before, especially not by Allison. She's always been more of a shoulder-toucher, a hair-stroker, someone who shows affection in small, careful gestures. This is different. This is desperate.
She pulls away, and Diego turns around.
Standing behind her is Luther.
At some point since Diego last saw him, he's lost the majority of his uniform. He's wearing only his formerly-white undershirt, which is now more grey than white and clinging to his chest like a second skin, his uniform shorts, and his mask. Everything is caked with mud and dirt, thick brown sludge that's dried in cracks across his arms and neck and face. Even his pale hair is matted with it, streaked brown and grey. He must be freezing. Diego can see him shivering from here, his whole body trembling like a leaf in the wind.
"Fancied a dip?" asks Klaus. He's got that look on his face and Diego knows exactly how well that will go over. Luther's temper is already frayed; one wrong word and he'll snap.
So Diego quickly diverts Luther's attention away. "W-w-what happened to you?"
He's never seen Luther so filthy before. Not even that one mission where they ended up running through the sewers, wading through things Diego still tries not to think about. Mom always says Luther is as 'fastidious' as she is—he irons his own uniforms, polishes his own boots, keeps his room so clean it looks like a museum. Seeing him like this is almost unsettling.
"I was looking for you." Luther's voice comes out rough, scraped raw. His fists are balled up at his sides, knuckles white. He looks pretty pitiful, standing there in the rain with mud dripping down his face, and Diego still kind of hopes the press have snapped a picture of him like this so he can frame it above his bed. "I've been searching up and down for hours—"
Diego's brain stumbles on that first bit. His brain snags on it like a record skipping. "Did Dad sent you in there?"
For him? Had Dad really thought—
"What?" Luther blinks.
"Luther, for God's sake!" Allison cries out, throwing her hands up. Rain drips from her elbows. "Give him a hug!"
Diego feels a hot trickle of embarrassment crawl up his neck. "A-Allison!"
Luther apparently doesn't feel the same way, however. He stumbles forward and, both hands fisting in the wet fabric of Diego's shoulders, and lifts Diego's feet clean off the ground in a bear hug. He hangs on tightly, his arms like iron bars around Diego's back, his face pressed into Diego's wet hair.
Diego is confident that he's never hugged Luther once in their entire lives. They've tackled each other, wrestled each other, pinned each other to the ground during training. But this is new. It's not bad, exactly. Just...weird. Luther's body is warm despite the cold, and he smells like river water and mud and something underneath that's just his brother.
"I'm sorry, Two." Luther's voice cracks, splintering like ice under pressure. Diego can barely hear him—it's muffled, pressed into Diego's shoulder, swallowed by the rain. "I'm so sorry, I—"
"Did you really look for me all this t-t-time?" Diego can't imagine big, show-off Luther swimming about in some muddy river just to look for him. Not when they spend so much time trying to one-up each other at every available opportunity. Not when Luther is Dad's favorite and Diego is...Diego.
Luther sets him down gently. They stand close together, close enough that Diego can feel the heat radiating off Luther's skin and see the way his chest is still heaving. Their siblings are hovering nearby, but Luther angles his body so the others can't see his face. Still, given the heaviness of the rain Diego doubts they would have been able to hear anything anyway.
"Of course." Luther frowns, fidgeting with his hands, refusing to look up at Diego's face. He's picking at his own fingernails, a nervous habit Diego has never seen him display before. "You're a part of this team."
Diego feels that familiar swell of bitterness rise up in his throat, hot and acidic. Is that all he's worth to Luther? A part of the team?
"Right," Diego mutters, angry at himself for even asking.
"I just meant—I—" Luther stumbles over his words, his jaw working. He growls in frustration, thumps his fist against his own thigh. "I'm just...really glad you're okay, Number Two."
The bitterness recedes, just a little. "It's not your fault, w-w-One." Out of all their siblings' numbers, One is the hardest for him to get through without stumbling. Something about the 'w' sound is particularly hard for his tongue to form.
Luther sniffs. Diego is stunned to see a few tears slip down his brother's cheek—fat, glistening drops that cut tracks through the mud on his face—before Luther roughly scrubs them away with the back of his hand.
"But I should've jumped in after you!" Luther's voice rises, cracking on the last word. "I could've held the bus long enough for you to escape, or—or carried you to land, or—"
"Stop." Diego's voice comes out sharper than he intended, a blade cutting through Luther's spiral. "I don't b-blame you."
"But you should!" Luther cries, his face scrunched up in self-hatred, his brow furrowed and his lips pressed into a thin white line. "I'm the leader, Two. I'm supposed to look out for all of you. And I should've listened when you wanted to clear the bus first—"
"Luther!"
It cuts through the rain like a bell. Luther's mouth snaps shut. His eyes, red-rimmed and glassy, lock onto Diego's.
"All of that doesn't m-m-mmm—" Diego flushes with embarrassment, the heat crawling up his cheeks. He takes a breath, forces the words out. "It doesn't m-m-matter. I'm not dead, and so w-w-we don't need to think about that stuff. Okay?"
Like how he survived being down in the river so long. Like how he didn't drown when he should have.
"But how did you get out?"
"I'd like to know the answer to that too," Allison pipes up.
Diego and Luther jump away from each other, startled, their faces flushing. Obviously, their brothers and sisters had heard more of their conversation than they'd thought. Allison is standing with her arms crossed, her head tilted, her eyes sharp. Klaus is grinning like a cat. Ben is watching with wide, worried eyes. And Vanya shields her eyes from the rain, says, "Dad said—"
Diego's heard enough about Dad to last him a lifetime. "I..." Does he tell them what happened? Surely, Luther will go straight to their father, and then Diego will have to do even more specialized training. He can imagine how awful that will be—extra hours in the gym, extra drills, extra disappointment in Dad's voice every time he fails. "I swam out as soon as the bus hit the w-w-wwwater."
"And you managed to get to shore?" Klaus looks impressed, his eyebrows climbing toward his hairline.
That, at least, is true. "Yeah."
"Did you stay there the whole time?" Luther's brow furrows. He looks like he's buying it, but there's something in his eyes—doubt, maybe, or suspicion. "I... I must've missed you..."
"It was dark," Diego hedges. The lie sits heavy on his tongue. "I think I p-passed out."
Allison's frown deepens. "For three hours?"
Is that how long it's been?
"Then we need to get home so Mom can check you out, Two!" Luther straightens up, snapping back into leader-mode like a rubber band. He peers at Diego's head as if he'll be able to see any blood through the rain. "You might have a head injury!"
"I'm fine," Diego snaps.
"I think somebody needs an early night," Klaus sing-songs, his voice lilting.
"But Dad will want a report before bed." Luther pushes his wet hair out of his face, plastering it back against his scalp. "We have a responsibility—"
"Right," Diego mutters. "Let's just g-go home."
Stupid Luther. All he thinks about is Dad and being the stupid leader and following the stupid rules—
"Number Two!"
Speaking of Dad.
Reginald marches over, his umbrella held high to shield him from the rain. He's wearing his usual severe suit, not a single wrinkle out of place and not a single drop of water on his shoulders. He looks as composed as ever. "Where on earth have you been?"
"He blacked out on the shore, sir!" Luther relays immediately, standing at attention. His back is ramrod straight, his chin lifted.
Snitch.
Klaus nudges Diego playfully, his elbow digging into Diego's ribs. "Looks like all those extra workouts paid off, huh, Diego?"
"You managed to free yourself from the bus, Number Two?" Dad's gaze is sharp, cutting through the rain like a scalpel. Diego straightens up, his heart hammering, pleading internally for the words to come out like everyone else's.
"Yes, s-s—" Ugh. It's so unfair. "Yes, sir."
Dad looks them all over. Vanya, as silent as ever, water dripping from the ends of her braids. Ben, once again huddled close to Diego's side, his shoulder pressed against Diego's arm. Allison, trying and failing to fix her hair, her curls collapsing under the weight of the rain. Klaus, pale and sickly-looking despite his jovial tone, dark circles under his eyes. Luther, shivering in his undershirt with mud streaked across his face like war paint.
And Diego himself. Bleeding, shoeless, jacketless. Presumed dead over two hours ago.
"I expect a full report in the morning," Dad finally says, already turning his back on them. His umbrella swivels, shedding water like a duck's feathers. "Children, return to the car while I inform the authorities that Number Two has apparently wasted their time."
Diego isn't sure what he'd expected, really. For Dad to hug him? Even the thought of that seems ridiculous. Like imagining the moon deciding to pack up and move to another galaxy. Dad spends his entire life trying to touch them as little as possible. Diego can vaguely remember holding his father's hand at one point—the feeling of a large, dry palm wrapped around his small fingers—but he's not sure what the context had been. It's probably just some dumb fantasy from when he was little, anyway. Back when he used to daydream that their dad was nice, and would read him bedtime stories, and carry him, and do other stupid family stuff.
Little Diego was an idiot.
They watch Dad leave, his umbrella bobbing through the crowd, and Klaus shakes his head. "That went better than I thought it would."
Diego privately agrees.
"Come on, guys." Allison grabs Diego's arm with one hand and Luther's with the other, her fingers warm even through the wet fabric. "Let's get out of this rain."
Klaus and Ben crowd them back toward the car, and Vanya trails behind, her bare feet splashing through puddles. Diego gladly opens the door and climbs in, and the heat hits him full-force in the face; warm, dry air that smells like old leather and something faintly chemical. It's like stepping into another world.
Just as Vanya said, there's a clean, dry wool blanket waiting on his seat. It's grey and scratchy, and it smells like mothballs, but Diego wraps himself in it anyway, pulling it up to his chin. He closes his eyes and listens as the others get into place, as the doors thunk shut one by one, as the sound of the rain fades to a distant drumming.
It's so quiet now.
"Psst, Diego."
He peels his sleep-heavy eyes open once more. His lids feel like they're made of lead. He tries not to get irritated with his brother. They did think he was dead, after all, so there's probably some leeway there he should be allowing.
"What?"
"Do you still want to hang out with me and Ben tonight?" Klaus's face appears over the seat back, his green eyes bright in the dim light. "He wants to know."
Ben's head pops up beside Klaus's, his mouth open in horror. "Klaus!" he hisses. "You weren't supposed to tell him I asked!"
"It's okay, Ben." Diego rolls his eyes, but there's no heat in it. "I w-w—" Focus. "I'll come."
"A secret sleepover?" Allison twists around in her seat, her eyebrows raised. She, Luther, and Vanya had been clearly eavesdropping; Diego can see it in the way Luther's shoulders are turned, the way Vanya's head is cocked. "How come we weren't invited?"
"Even numbers only," Klaus says unrepentantly, crossing his arms over his chest. "No exceptions."
"How is that fair?" Allison's voice rises in mock outrage. "Luther and I want to go too! Right, Luther?"
"Um." Luther's head swivels toward Allison, then back toward Klaus, then toward Allison again. He looks like a deer caught in headlights. "Yeah, I guess."
"Drama queen," Klaus mutters under his breath. Then, louder: "Fine, fine. You can come. RSVP, Ben's room, tonight. Mom's making cocoa!"
Allison grins triumphantly, because she always gets her own way in the end (always, always, always) and settles back into her seat. "We'll be there."
"I guess," Luther says. But he smiles a little and Diego knows he won't snitch on them to Dad. Luther can be okay, he supposes. Sometimes.
"Can I sleep n-nnnow?" Diego grumbles, his eyelids already drooping, the blanket soft and warm against his chin.
Klaus waves a hand dismissively. "Ja, ja. You big baby."
"Shut up, Klaus," Luther says. But there's no bite in it. He and Allison start a quiet conversation about some magazine they're doing interviews for next week, their voices low and easy.
Klaus is humming to himself as he draws on the fogged-up window, his finger leaving trails in the condensation.
Vanya sits quietly, lost in thought, her braids dripping onto her lap.
Ben is—
"Diego."
Actually, Ben's brown eyes are peering at him over the seat back. His voice is barely above a mumble, barely audible over the hum of the engine and the distant drum of rain. As they can all agree, it's impossible to be annoyed with Ben, so Diego sighs and sits up straight, the blanket pooling around his waist.
"Yeah?"
"Sorry for bothering you." Ben's cheeks flush pink, and he ducks his head shyly. "I just wanted to say that I'm really, really happy you're alright."
Diego's stomach twists with mushy feelings. "M-m-mme too, Ben. Thanks."
The doors at the front of the car open, and everyone quickly straightens up in their seats, their backs going rigid, hands folding in laps, faces smoothing into careful neutrality. Dad and the driver get in, bringing a gust of cold, wet air with them.
The atmosphere tenses as Dad turns to regard them all over his monocle. Luther, who's sitting next to him, looks unusually ridiculous in his wet undershirt with a towel draped around his shoulders like a cape. Still, they probably all look stupid, so it evens out.
"Well?" Dad asks eventually, his voice cutting through the silence like a blade. "What are you waiting for? I still have yet to hear how today's mission went!"
Diego pulls the scratchy wool blanket up higher around himself—up to his nose, almost—and closes his eyes.
It's been a long day.