Chapter Text
[Before The Umbrella Academy, years earlier than their debut, there had always been a clear divide between myself and my siblings.
In the eyes of media attention, I was civilian, but in the endeavour for my father’s approval, I was subhuman.
The rift between us grew as we did, and even now I wonder what they think of me.]
Four could do this. Day 1 on the job and he was ready to smile for the camera.
Luther ordered him to enter the bank as a hostage and relay information, he’d artfully chosen to appear as a 20-something girl— attractive but not too eye-catching, lord forbid he looked ugly— wearing a cropped shirt with boot-cut jeans.
“Get them behind the counter!”
One of the criminals in charge of herding hostages had guided him with a wandering hand, giving Four reason to believe he may have overshot ‘attractive’.
He shuffled behind a larger woman dressed in a pink blazer who was being overly loud, joining the others in protest of being zip-tied and manhandled. Reaching up to a decorative earpiece he lowered his voice among the panic and called out to Luther.
“4 assailants in the foyer, 5 are in the vault. 22 hostages with me, 4 unaccounted. Over.”
“Copy.” Came a voice in his ear, accompanied by distinguishable with panting. Four was pleased with the mental image of a proud Luther scaling the building just so that he could make a dramatic entrance. He briefly entertained the idea of their proud leader falling and ruining his perfect record.
In the commotion, the robbers failed to turn off the TV in the seating area of the foyer which quietly broadcast the subtitles from a news crew outside. The reporter was white and formal, dressed in gloves and a coat, crowded by lookalikes talking to recording devices.
“This is Jim Hellerman, reporting live for Chanel 2 news outside of the Capitol West Bank at main and sixth. A group of heavily armed men stormed the bank not three hours ago and took an unknown number of hostages.”
Out of the corner of Four’s eye, he noticed Allison skip up to one of the criminals who appeared to engage in a short exchange before he raised his gun towards one of his peers. As the rest of The Umbrella Academy made their own entrance, Four snapped the ties and started helping hostages, grabbing a knife off one of Five’s victims.
“Thank you! Thank you so much!” The lady from before wailed, others following suit in gratitude.
As soon as his mission was done and the civilians had cleared out he shifted to his more usual appearance: the second tallest sibling at 5’7” with vivid green eyes hidden by a domino mask and brown hair. This was the image Reginald wanted him to project. Tall, but not taller than One. Pale, but not as pale as One. Attractive, but not as conventionally attractive as One. Androgynous, but not so much that it confuses people.
Four decided to express himself through his eyes, as an asset the media doesn’t get to see because of their masks, and gives himself vivid green eyes, pinprick pupils and thick lashes. The kinds of eyes people remember, because Four’s only job is to blend in, and he hates it.
After Ben has finished in the vault, tracking blood on the marble floor, they assembled in order and marched out the door and posed for the media. They ate them up and shortly they were introduced as America’s first real-life superhero team: The Umbrella Academy.
After all the praise, he held Six’ shaking hand in the car ride back, being careful not to stain his own sleeve with blood, and drew patterns into his palm.
When they got home, Mom gave them all hot chocolate with marshmallows and whipped cream.
The Umbrella Academy marched out of the mansion’s sunroom and into the courtyard, eyes low and the taste of breakfast still on their tongues. Luther kicked his feet out in an exaggerated stride attempting to set an example for his less enthusiastic siblings following behind him. Ben nearly tripped. The chill in the air left One-through-Six jealous of Vanya who was dressed in earmuffs and boots, where the other’s were stuck damp and cold with the rainwater collected by the leaf-plastered ground seeping through their training uniform shoes.
Vanya was behind her Father, holding a clipboard and pen, eyeing her siblings with green envy. Today, like most other days, her job was to keep score while Reginald wrote more in-depth observations.
“Today’s mission…” Luther’s demonstration of sub-par climbing ability at their debut left Reginald angry, although he wouldn’t reprimand his favourite over something fixable.“ Is to scale the side of the courtyard and reach the roof. You may achieve this by any means necessary.”
Reginald had hoped Number One would either learn from his mistakes and be better, or realise his incompetencies and work around them. One was a great soldier— strong and having a blind faith towards authority— however he was never very good at learning. To the young boy, he was either good at something, or he refused to admit it. Reginald hoped this exercise would motivate Luther to value his siblings’ skills and use them to his benefit rather than his detriment.
“You may start when Number Seven blows the whistle.”
It took Five the time Vanya finished blowing the start whistle for him to already be draped on the roof-edge, legs crossed and looking at them condescendingly from his perch. Naturally Five’s power “cheated” in terms of races, although as a result, he lacked the physical strength the others had built from training.
Next was Four who took to a cast-iron pipe reached the height of the building up the tallest window. He quickly and efficiently scaled it using connecting pipes and windows as footholds and managed to rock over the lip of the tiling by mantling the rain pipes and snow guards.
Five greeted him with a high five, Four plopping down next to him and resting an arm across Five’s shoulder like they always did. Out of all the siblings, the Nameless Duo were the closest. Having powers relating to physical manipulation (the alteration of matter through its appearance or location), the two shared lots of tutoring lessons from Pogo and Grace on biology and chemistry. Four learned sociology, psychology and veterinary sciences whereas Five learnt geography, architecture and theoretical physics, anything beyond that the two ended up doing together, they even followed along with each other's personalised curriculums wherever they could. The Boy and The Shifter, joint at the hip.
Despite their academic kinship, they found an addition to their duo in Ben. Ben’s power, containing and releasing a separate entity, didn’t rely on any form of study, but instead a super-human level of restraint. Perhaps that's why Ben got along with the Nameless Duo— the ability to put up with the muttering and the wall-writing and the bickering and the smugness. Ben balanced out their ambition and remind them they were kids: they could dream and entertain non-fiction once in a while. They’d chat about magical worlds without training or fighting where Ben could run a bookshop and Five could be an explorer and Four could be a model or an actor or a dancer.
It's because of this kinship, that when Ben’s head peeks above the tiled roof-edge they both stand to offer a hand each, hauling him up over and the three sitting and chattering while they wait for the others.
Diego was next, having bridged the gaps between the old oriel windows. His abilities in trajectory manipulation and optional breathing meant the only advantage he had was reaching the top without being out of breath.
Next was Luther who scrambled up the same way Diego had, his egoism compelling him to take the more challenging route and refusing to recognise that the method required skill rather than his abundant strength.
Allison reached the top the same time, having followed Four and Ben’s lead by climbing the pipes, taking her time so she didn’t have to worry about any of the boys looking up the impractical uniform’s skirt.
Five teleported Four and Ben down with him stumbling from the strain but happy he could help them, and the others all trickled down with the grace of a dog being hurled downstairs. Luther didn’t even bother with descending the wall, jumping down and proving just how unbreakable his strength-enhanced bones were.
By the time they were lined up for evaluation, Allison was wincing at her scraped-up knees and Luther was resisting the urge to fret. Four scoffed, shifting to heal his scrapes and retract the shifted claws he’d used in his climbing.
Diego was praised for his ingenuity and their Father expressed disapproval and distrust towards Four’s unexplained proficiency. Reginald was paranoid and didn’t like when any of them were good at something without training– it meant they were individual people. Luther was given a cold glance and they were dismissed to their allotted self-study.
They made their way inside and collectively walked to the library. Vanya walked to the foyer to pick up a new music-sheet book from Pogo and she heads up to the soundproof room on the other side of the house.