Work Text:
“And what about that one?” Claire grinned with curiosity, gently poking the scar on Diego’s eyebrow. “A bad guy.” Diego quickly lied, definitely not going to admit he accidentally gave it to himself. This trip was the first time he’d ever met Claire, he wanted to become the cool uncle. That little tidbit would tarnish that reputation irreparably. “What bad guy?” Claire’s eyes grew wide with intense fascination. Diego’s eyes grew wide too, except his were because he was a terrible liar. Shit. “There was a really mean bad guy, and he kidnapped a very powerful family...” Diego decided to just tell her a story of one of their missions, Claire would never know the difference. “Uncle Luther grabbed two of his gang and threw them through the air.” Diego tried not to scowl at the mere thought of Luther, not wanting to confuse his niece. It was admittedly kind of cool when he threw people like rag dolls, but Diego would never tell a soul about that thought.
Claire looked deeply enthralled already. “Your mommy rumored one of the other gang members into telling us where the bad man had put the family.” Diego chose not to mention the part about dad training Allison to rumor bad guys into harming themselves, or each other. It was still quite difficult to chat with Claire, Diego had no idea what kind of words she was capable of understanding. She was so goddamn small. “Uncle Klaus...” Diego paused to think, actually having no idea what the hell Klaus was doing. “Was being Uncle Klaus.” Diego muttered, irritated by him retrospectively. “Uncle Ben-“ Diego held back a chuckle about the old guy from Spider-Man “-dealt with all the scary men guarding the room.” It probably wasn’t necessary to explain exactly how Ben did that, given Claire’s age.
The level of interest Claire had in this story was enough to make Diego grin too. “Then when Uncle Luther barged the huge door down, I threw a knife at the bad man so we could save the family.” It was also wise to not explain exactly where he was stabbed, and how many times. “But how did you get the scar?” Claire pouted, clearly disappointed by the anticlimax. Shit, the scar! Diego opened and closed his mouth, trying to come up with a falsehood. Goddamn it, the whole point of him telling this story was so he could lie! How could he forget the key part?! “Mommy never saided this part.” Shit, did Allison tell her about their missions?!
Smugly clearing her throat from the doorway, Allison couldn’t hold back a giggle at how caught off guard Diego looked. It was frankly adorable that he’d try to save face to a three year old. “Having fun?” Allison playfully quirked an eyebrow, looking to the tiara on Diego’s head. He appeared confused for a moment before suddenly remembering and frantically tearing it off. Diego cleared his throat bashfully, his cheeks growing slightly flushed. “Claire, it’s bath time.” Allison sweetly informed her daughter, gesturing for her to climb up from the floor. She prayed to every god that Claire was going to comply, since Allison had promised to get through Diego’s visit with no more rumors on her daughter. Claire threw her head back with dismay, shuffling closer to Diego to stubbornly cling to his arm like some kind of monkey. Diego looked like one of Medusa’s victims, awkwardly freezing in place. “I put in your favorite bubble bath...” Allison temptingly announced, trying to bribe Claire into listening. Her daughter shook her head, seeming more impressed by Diego than bubbles. Damn it. She always loves bubbles.
“Man, I’m almost jealous.” Diego teased, glancing down to his little niece in an attempt to persuade her. Claire frowned in contemplation, looking from Diego, to Allison, and back again. “I can make the water pink?” his sister bizarrely suggested, something Diego assumed was apparently perfectly normal for women to do. Claire slightly loosened her grip on Diego’s arm, sucking on her thumb as she tried to decide. Peering over to his sister, Diego could see it was blatantly killing her to not just rumor her daughter into doing what she said. That must be pretty embarrassing... Allison caught his eye and glowered at him in a way that suggested she would have given him the finger, had her small child not been right there. Diego returned the favor.
His sister was quite clearly struggling with being unable to mind control her child. Maybe that ought to make her consider how dependent she is on her power. “I’ll buy you the new doll who looks like us if you get in the tub? The one with the cute curls and pretty brown skin...” Allison practically begged Claire. Diego was finding this whole show kind of entertaining. His niece immediately shot up, before the sentence could even be completed, excitedly toddling over to grab Allison’s hand. Diego flattened his hair down as they walked away, still mortified he’d had a goddamn tiara in it. Claire didn’t even have to rumor him into doing that like Allison would have, his niece was just too cute to decline.
—
Sneakily skulking down the hallway with the fancy marble floor, Diego lingered outside his niece’s bedroom door. This floor can’t be child safe, right? Diego shook his head to himself, trying to pay attention to his snooping rather than health and safety concerns. He was extremely interested to know if Allison was actually capable of going without rumoring her child for an entire day. He strongly felt she wasn’t, given how antsy she’d been acting all afternoon. It would be surprising if she could deal with bedtime without using her power. “-and then they saved the day, and the president of Britain threw them a huge party.” Allison soothingly concluded her bedtime story. Diego tried not to chuckle at the memory of that mission. It had been particularly chaotic. They’d heard that the guards in the big fluffy hats weren’t allowed to move or even have facial expressions, so Five suddenly materialised in front of one. His little trick wasn’t well received, but it could’ve gone down a lot worse. Dad wasn’t pleased with their mischief, to put it lightly.
”Can uncle Diego tell me a story?” Claire sulkily whined, sticking her bottom lip out so far she could’ve tripped over it. Allison sighed gently, dreading this routine without her power. Though it was unbelievably adorable how Claire couldn’t pronounce Diego’s name. It came out as Degego. “I think your uncle’s very sleepy. Just like you.” Allison tucked Claire into her luxurious bed, hoping doing so would make her more inclined to actually choose to sleep. It was frankly impressive how Claire had the strength to not give in to her inherent exhaustion. It had been a long and exciting day for her, surely she must be tired? Claire petulantly pulled back her comforter, purely to make her point.
Allison clenched her jaw and tucked her daughter in again, wondering if she was going to have to have this battle of the comforter all night. “I’m not tired!” Claire clearly lied, since her little eyes had more bags than Prada. Her daughter scowled and shoved the cover off her again. Allison laid the comforter back over Claire, rapidly losing patience and willpower. Her daughter ripped the comforter away huffily. “I’m not tired!” Claire repeated, though this time with fierce fury.
Would it be so bad if Allison rumored her? Diego wouldn’t even know... he couldn’t judge her for it if he was none the wiser. It was for Claire’s own good, she needed to rest. In the long run it would just make Claire feel terrible if she didn’t get a full night’s sleep. Allison was just looking out for Claire, protecting her from herself. Claire was just a tiny child, she wasn’t in the position to make decisions about her bedtime. Every parent decides their child’s bedtime.
”I heard a rumor...” Allison calmly tucked Claire back into bed as her eyes were glazed with a glowing white “...that you’re very tired, and you need to go to sleep and have sweet dreams.” Claire blinked groggily, shuffling down into her bed and happily plonking her head onto her ginormous, goose feather pillow. Allison exhaled with intense relief, smiling at how cute as a button her daughter looked. “Nighty night, mommy.” Claire sleepily mumbled, seemingly already entering her mellow slumber. “Nighty night. I love you.” Allison softly kissed her daughter’s forehead, feeling like the luckiest person on Earth. Diego didn't know what he was talking about. Rumoring Claire wasn’t immoral... right?
—
Nearing the airport for his flight back home, Diego couldn’t stop snidely glaring at Allison from the corner of his eye. Maybe he was being a little nosey... but he caught Allison secretly rumouring Claire several times during his trip, and he was only there two nights. Was she really that addicted to the psychological power that her literal power gave her? Allison probably wouldn’t be functional without it, which was deeply depressing. She’d probably continued to subtly rumor Diego too, he just didn’t know it. “It was nice to finally meet Claire.” Diego drawled, whilst Allison parked her ridiculously flashy car. It had been nice to meet his niece after all these years. Diego hoped he could do this again, or something similar. Now he knew how endearing his niece was, it would be difficult to just carry on as though she didn’t exist.
“I think she might like you more than me.” Allison jokingly replied, finding Claire’s adoration for Diego utterly charming. Even if her brother was kind of a dick. “Well yeah, obviously.” Diego cockily shrugged, opening his door with a sly smirk. Allison rolled her eyes, even though she’d expected such a petty response. Diego paused just before he slid from the car, looking over his shoulder to Allison. “Britain has a prime minister, by the way. Not a president.” he smugly stated before promptly exiting the vehicle. Allison’s mouth fell agape, scandalised by him not only spying but also having the audacity to call her out on it in such a snarky manner. “Don’t think I’m forgetting about the tiara!” He was definitely a dick, no kind of involved. “Like anyone would believe you.” Diego scoffed, closing the door with a proud-of-himself grin. Allison was without a doubt telling Claire the true, humiliating story behind that damn scar.