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If having to be teenagers again wasn’t bad enough, Five’s genius plan also meant that they had to live under Reginald’s roof again; the creepy old bastard watching and trying to control their every move. And while the new Umbrella Academy was able to convince Reginald to allow Vanya to be an official member of the team, it also lead to debatably the worst alteration between their original timeline and this one, which was that the UA was essentially sold out to make money.
Most of them had been sent into either singing, dancing, or acting.
Luther, Allison, and Five were sent into acting.
Diego and Klaus were sent into dancing.
And Ben and Vanya were sent into singing.
They all had training in all three areas, but they were assigned areas of focus. And, after all seven of them had made their debuts, Reginald quickly changed his tune, and only had the three that had been received well in their given fields and the other four were to resume solely UA training. Meaning that while Allison, Klaus, and Vanya were still required to spend at least two days a week, on top of their school work and Umbrella Academy training, to working on their exploitative skills.
To top it all off, as if any of this shit could be made even worse, the entire world had decided, likely with some help from Reginald, that just because they were two girls from the same ‘family’ (And how child protective services continued to ignore the obvious shame of a family that the Umbrella Academy was presented as was beyond Vanya.) just had to hate each other and created a ‘feud’ between the two. Allison was easily the public’s favorite, she was painted to be that way from the very beginning; whereas Vanya was largely ostracized as a ‘mean girl’ who was just jealous of Allison’s success.
The constant beratement and hatred that was being thrown at Vanya from doing something she hadn’t wanted to do in the first place, because of fabricated stories from the public that knew absolutely nothing about her, combined with the added constant pressure and criticisms that now dragged around her while in the Umbrella Academy from Reginald, as well as the matter of feeling like she wasn’t allowed to feel anything that wasn’t a controlled positive emotion without at least two of her team members assuming something was wrong with her or that she didn’t have control of her powers. (And one would think that when you’re dating six people at least one of them would actually listen to you.)
It was a lot.
And it had all been weighing heavily on Vanya for nearly three whole months. And she was about to snap. She could feel it. And it was gonna be real bad.
(And it certainly didn’t help that every single little insecurity Vanya had (and hadn’t) ever had in either of her lives, was not only being pointed out for the whole world to see, but was always framed as something that was her fault. While anything that could even feasibly be thought of as something ‘wrong’ with Allison, was just treated as a little quirk of hers or some shit. It wasn’t fair. It’s not like Vanya had even done anything to deserve it; she was just there.)
But regardless, while anyone Vanya had even attempted to voice her concerns or frustrations just ignored her or brushed off and minimized her feelings as ‘girl problems’ and continued pushing for her to do something she didn’t want to; Vanya did find a way to channel her feelings into a healthy (-ish) medium. And having to largely write her own music, which had likely been a way to just make her look even worse to the public (She wouldn’t put it past Reginald as one of his own ideas.), but being equipped to write them herself was finally, finally going to pay off.
For the first two months, Vanya had been trying, so fucking hard, to do everything she could, to have the ‘good girl’ image that seemed to be an innate thing for Allison. She wore bright colors, and frills, and sparkles, burned her hair curling and straightening it again, let well over ten different people coat her face in makeup at least 3 times a day, whenever she stepped outside of the Umbrella Academy (having to look absolutely perfect or else she’d be reamed for it by the tabloids), and only sang songs about falling in love and being happy and having the most perfect life ever. And nothing worked. Nothing.
And now, after three months of trying to be perfect and just deal with all the shit that had been shoved onto her, for absolutely no goddamn reason beyond the fact that her name was Vanya ‘Number Seven’ Hargreeves.
She didn’t deserve this shit.
And it was about goddamn time that she changed that.
For nearly a whole week, between the once a week session she got to spend in a recording studio, mostly alone (She was, of course, monitored whilst there, but it was through Grace being sent to it outside of the room, just to make sure she was a. actually doing what she was meant to be doing and b. didn’t try to escape while out. Not that the thought hadn’t crossed her mind, numerous times.), Vanya wrote what she felt and thought, her authentic self, into a journal.
After writing down what she hoped was enough of her true self down, Vanya used the guitar she’d gotten a little over a month ago (A whole 2 years earlier than when she’d gotten her’s in the last timeline.) and started working on a few lines of chords and lyrics, trying to be quiet enough as to not draw too much attention to herself. If the others knew she was working, they’d leave her alone; but if they heard what the lyrics were about, they’d more than likely tell her to stop or she’d ‘blow their cover’ and ‘ruin everything’ because it always fell on her.
Finally, it was Friday afternoon, which was when she got to go downtown with Grace and go to the recording studio; which of course was owned by Reginald if the giant Umbrella Academy logo painted onto the sign, as well as the side, was anything to go by. “Now Vanya dear, I’ll be just out here if you need me,” Grace said, just as she had the other eleven, now twelve, times they’d gone to the studio, robotically sitting in not of the chairs by the door as she finished with a pleasant smile, “now go have fun.”
And, just as she’d been doing for the past two months, when Vanya had started to be pushed towards lashing out, in a similar falsified cheery manner, told Grace, “Okay! Thanks mom!”, walking into the recording booth with her journal of ideas and lyrics and, most importantly, songs.
The ensuing four and a half hours were the most freeing four and a half hours of Vanya’s life since they’d returned to their teenage bodies. It was one of the most productive few hours that Vanya had ever been in any of her lives. The combination of pouring (and nearly screaming) her heart out, jamming out on her guitar, pounding some resounding beats on the drums, and finding anything else she needed for the backing tracks was superbly cathartic; Vanya felt nearly twenty pounds lighter as she left that day, a burned demo of her songs, all eleven of them in different states of completion and perfection.
While she didn’t have as much time to play her violin now, her new style of music served just as much of an important role and solstice in her life once more. And now, she was going to be able to share it with everyone.
The whole world would know exactly how special she was; the way she wanted to be.