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Diego walks the eighteen blocks between the funeral home back to Al's in the pouring rain. It’s hot, in his new suit, with Al’s urn tucked under his arm. Hot and wet and humid, the air so thick it could choke you. Al didn’t have no family - no brothers or sisters, no wife or kids.
Just Diego.
Most of his things had already migrated from his apartment in the basement to Al's apartment. Moving in the rest of the way had been a simple enough process of loading the few things he owned into the service elevator and hitting the third-floor button. He puts the urn on the barren bookshelf, scraping a path through the dust collecting there, and takes it right back off again. He hadn’t realized until Al got sick - just how small his own world was. Because if all Al had was Diego ---
All Diego had was Al.
Diego never called him dad, not once in the ten years he’d known him. And so when the estate manager met him at the door and introduced him as Al’s son, he’d froze for a moment, struck with new, paralyzing grief. Al had left it all to him; one crumbling, multi-functional building in the boroughs, the gym in the basement, the laundry on the ground floor, and the eight dated but well-maintained apartments above.
A legacy, well-loved, with really shitty parking.
Al had been his father in the way a boy raised without a father ever finds one. Al had picked him up off the streets at just eighteen when Diego was left homeless after aging out of the foster system. Caught him scrapping with one of the dockworkers in an underground fighting ring, told him he threw hands like a boxer. He’d put Diego up in that boiler room and adopted him formally through the State of New York even though he didn't need to; Diego was a man as far as the state was concerned. He’d respected Diego’s deep need for independence, but he also...
He loved Diego.
He really fucking did. He might’ve been the only one in the world to ever love Diego. Diego never doubted it. That was his dad; that was the dad who picked him. Time and time again. Every day he woke up, and he picked Diego even ten years later, even now . He made Diego a real boy; he made Diego from nothing .
And then he died . He died. He’s dead. Diego was there; he held his hand until that very last breath. The nurses in the corner asked with sad eyes - is there anyone else that might want to be here? A wife maybe, a brother or a sister? But it was just him, just Diego. It had been Diego and Al for so long, ten years, a team of two.
And now it’s just him.
Just Diego.
It wasn’t sudden; Diego could smell it a little more, every day, the worst kind of promise, a slow and terrible storm. It still felt sudden. It still wasn’t real until it absolutely was. The absence leaves him hollow. He’s broken-hearted, cracked right in two with it, violently, terribly, endlessly sick with it.
Diego loved Al so so much.
He cries. For a long time. Perched there, on the end of a faded plaid couch, hugging that cool metal urn until it warms against his chest. Ugly sobs, snotty, heaving, ragged sobs. Diego has nobody, he has no one at all.
Again .
He falls asleep, curled against the cushions, and when he wakes...
He puts the urn back on the shelf and leaves it. He puts his shoes on and his jacket. He puts one foot in front of the other and carries himself downstairs to the gym. He’s not really alright. But he will be.
From the gym, he makes a call. It feels right. It feels like honoring Al’s memory. And the floors aren’t going to mop themselves, after all. Diego’s going to need someone around to help; he won’t have time. He’s got a gym to run and an apartment to maintain and --- well. The laundry-op mostly runs itself.
Little help couldn’t hurt.
He finds the number he needs in the yellow pages.
“Yeah -siblings, a family, that would be okay. I’ve got the room. Anyone aging out. Room and board and a job if they want it. I’ll fax the application over tonight.”
***
They show up at the gym two weeks later - and Diego doesn’t even remember looking that small. “You’re sure you’re eighteen?”
The littler one bares his teeth until his sister jabs him neatly in the ribs. “Um. I’m eighteen. He’s sixteen, sir. The lady---” She flushes, suddenly a furious red and Diego...Diego misses Al so badly. "She said it shouldn't be a problem." The lady never said that; they only mentioned the girl. Diego doesn’t know what to do; Al would know what to do. “I’m trying to adopt him, sir. Since I’ve aged out, the lady said...it would be easier to have a physical address. And a job.”
The physical address, he can do. A job, easy. “I can help you file the paperwork.”
“I’m not calling you dad. We’re not calling you dad. You’re like five years older than Vanya,” the boy mutters, and Vanya elbows him again. She has a neat form. Diego wonders if she’d like to learn about boxing. He’s not sure what else he knows enough about to teach.
“You can call me Diego,” he assures them, absurdly horrified by the idea of ever having children.
“Vanya,” the girl says with a firm nod. “And this is Five.”
“ Five .” Diego’s not sure he can call a kid five. Five. Okay. “Why Five?”
“Because this is my fifth foster home.” He looks at Diego with narrowed eyes, and he’s so young, and five....five is an okay number.
Five isn’t even that bad. Diego...Diego’s going to make sure it’s never six. “Alright. Alright. Let me show you your place.”
“We can share a room, Mr...Diego.” Vanya blinks her big eyes at him. “We don’t mind.”
“That’s good because your place only has one room. Got a couch, though, and a bed. We can figure it out.” There’s an empty apartment upstairs, on Diego’s floor, unfinished and filthy. Maybe one day.
Five’s eyes narrow even more. “We get our own place?”
“Look, Kid,” Diego starts, and he can see the spicy little way Five’s face squidges at the word kid . “You said it yourself. I’m not here to be your dad. I’m just here to help a couple of kids, the same way someone helped me once. All I ask is you don’t get me in trouble. Keep your nose clean, do your job, and I’ll mind my business.”
“Five has school,” Vanya says at once, raising her chin. “I just graduated, but he’s still in school. He’s old enough to drop out and work full time, but I---” She shakes her head. “I’ll work extra. I’ll do his work.”
“ Vanya .” Five looks furious. “I can---”
“Part of the deal is you graduate. With good grades,” Diego cuts in because he’s not about to let the little shit drop out, God . “You can run the laundry-op downstairs after school and on the weekend. You can do homework in the downtime.” Which is all the time, really.
“And me?” Vanya braces herself.
“Nothing fancy. Just mopping floors.”
It’s a pretense, Diego realizes, about ten years too late. It was pretense then, and it’s pretense now. Just a little something to soothe the ache in the heart of a kid who won’t take handouts.
Goddammit, Al.
***
They’re good kids. They’re really good kids. Vanya’s quiet as shit, with a habit of startling the hell out of Diego with such silence. Five is...
Five is rude as hell, but he’d taken one look at Al’s books and kicked Diego out of the office. “Is this math? Are these---is this supposed to be math ?”
“He’s a genius with numbers, sir.” Vanya frowns, looking down into the mop bucket. “I’m trying to get him into the Academy. He qualified for a scholarship, but I didn’t have an address and--- I just---”
“I’ll help you with the paperwork.” God - he remembers being that young and just...the paperwork to be an adult was overwhelming. That and all the goddamn lines you stand in. Adulthood was just one extensive fucking line. “You got birth certificates? Social security cards? That shit?” Vanya nods. “Good. Good. Get me the forms for the Academy. Get me a list of whatever you need. Books and shit. He’ll need a uniform.”
“Sir--- Mister---” She sighs, with the whole of her very small body. “Diego, you don’t have to do all this. I mean. Having a place is enough. A job. I can do the rest by myself; I don’t mind.”
“He’s not your real brother, is he?” She blanches so hard, Diego knows he’s hit a fucking nerve. “You find him on the street? Fought tooth and nail to keep him close. Maybe even lied. Forged a few things. You guys have been together a long time, huh.” Diego thumbs at his temple, a headache coming on. “They’re not gonna just let you adopt him, Vanya. Let me help.”
“Okay,” she says in her small little voice. Her lashes look wet, and he tries not to notice. “Okay.”
“It will be. It’ll all be okay. If you let me help.” Diego pats her awkwardly on the shoulder and is rewarded with the slightest, most hopeful smile he’s ever seen.
He looked like that once; he just knows it.
Al, Diego thinks. I miss you, man.
In the following years, Diego hires a nine-teen-year-old spaghetti-armed boy to manage building maintenance. Simple things like changing dryer belts or fixing doors. Luther’s an eager kid, orphaned late in life, with some significant daddy issues. He also doesn’t know shit about building maintenance, but Diego hadn’t been able to tell him no. He’d come by the building looking for an apartment, freshly-shot gun married with a baby on the way. It’s clear they’re living in their car, and Allison's only months from popping, and Diego hates it. He just hates it.
So he offers them the apartment and a job and somehow becomes a frightfully young grandpa in the bargain. It’s nice to have something to teach. Nicer yet someone who wants to learn. With a steady income and access to the gym, Luther shoots up eight inches and packs om seventy pounds of muscle. Diego gets him in the boxing tournaments and wonders if Al felt this good every time he watched Diego get into the ring, heart in his chest as he whoops and hollers with the rest of them.
After Luther, it’s Klaus and Ben, a pair of gangly pale face ghosts, turned freshly eighteen and dragged under Diego’s umbrella by Five, no less.
It’s evident they’re not siblings; just another wayward pair of souls flocked together.
Diego gets that.
“They were sleeping under a bridge,” Five opens in his sharp, aggressive way. Five starts every conversation like an argument he’s had halfway without Diego at all, even now, three years later. It’s just his way. “I told them they could stay here.”
“Did you?” Diego asks, bouncing Claire on his hip. She normally goes to daycare, but she’s teething and had a fever, and Diego can’t actually tell Allison no. Not when she calls him Grandpa Daygo. He’s not proud of it, okay; he’s a sucker. “You’ll have to clean out the boiler room.” He’d been thinking about calling the Foster Agency soon anyway; no one lived in his old place since they moved Vanya and Five into the refurbished apartment across from his. “And they have to help in the laundry-op.”
Fives eyes narrow. “But that’s a fake job you made up to keep me out of trouble?”
Diego can’t help the grin; Five figured it out a lot faster than he did. It’s true enough; half the time, Five’s in the office balancing the books. The laundry-op really does mostly run itself.
“So enjoy your new employees. Maybe you can finally start up that laundry service you like to talk at me about,” Diego suggests, handing Clair her bottle for the third time. She drops it immediately; it seems they’ve now made a game out of it. Diego's already lost. “We’d probably need a delivery van. And you’d need to run it,” he adds, but Five’s eyes have already lit up.
“Really?”
“Yeah, yeah. Family business, right?” He’s been nagging Diego to let him invest in their business, in a million different ways, most of them absurd. The laundry thing seems harmless, and Diego doesn’t mind sharing a slice of his pie. Any life he’s made, he’s made around these goddamn kids, and he likes it. He likes his life. He’s been meaning to buy Five and Vanya some kind of vehicle anyway. “I just don’t want to see your grades slipping, alright? I’ll balance the books throughout the week, and you can look at them on the weekends. That should free up more time to throw into this between sch---”
He’s not expecting Five to hug him; he’s not sure Five’s ever hugged him, and it’s been three years. Diego doesn’t even hesitate, shifting baby Clair up higher on his hip so he can get his arm around the kid. He ruffles Five’s hair and squeezes him tight as long as he’ll allow. Five’s flushed, and Vanya’s grinning where she’s sweeping outside the office when they break apart.
Klaus and Ben, last names unknown, sit with their heads unknown, nervous probably.
That’s okay, Diego thinks, sending Five out of the office to collect them. They’ll be okay with time.
All in all, he thinks he’s done alright.
He thinks Al would be proud.