Title: When You Reach Me
Subtitle: There's a Fine Line Between Hate & Love, Diego Darlin'
Description: Every time he takes a step forward, she takes two back. Maybe it's because she thinks he's approaching with a knife in his hands. (Maybe he is, maybe he is). Vanya/Diego Slow Burn
Summary: Her back finally hits the wall. "Well, I'd say that you've finally reached me."/ He smiles. "I sure did."
Rating: T for Toxic relationships
Main Characters/Pairings: Vanya H. + Diego H.
Genre: Romance, Friendship, Family, Hurt/Comfort, Angst, Sarcasm (hello Number Five), Humor (because it wouldn't be me if there wasn't humor in a story)
Disclaimer: If I owned the Umbrella Academy, I would be signing umbrellas, not writing fanfics (damn it's so unfair)
A/N: Here's my first fanfic for this category. I've read the comics, but I figured writing about the characters from the show would be better than writing about 2D characters. (Tell me if I get anything wrong, though.) Anyway, I have to curse the Netflix producers for not including Diego/Vanya in the show. (They're my favorite ship in the comics, assholes.)
Well, Vanya may be a little OOC in this story, since I really can't stand writing about Vanya who can't even stand up a little bit for herself. You shall have to deal with it.
Also, I'm pretty sure the kids were named by the time they were twelve or so, but I just called them by their names from the start because all the 'Number's gets so confusing.
When You Reach Me, inspired by misericorde (by thefudge) on Ao3. Check it out if you think Diego/Vanya is a new reason for you to live, it's totally amazing.
Thank you TearsOfPaper, for being my amazing beta.
1
They don't talk.
Not even the occasional good mornings and good nights.
They don't even ask each other to pass the marmalade or to move out of their way in narrow hallways.
They never exchange brief, indistinct nods when they happen to meet eyes.
She thinks that it's probably because he hates her.
That's probably true.
(Though she has no idea why.)
Since they don't talk, they drift apart—even though there was little to fall apart lose in the first place—and soon they start avoiding each other, then they just ignore the other's presence completely.
They are ten years old.
2
Vanya maintains good relationships with the high numbers.
Ben is always a delight to be with. He's so kind and peaceful. When he isn't around Klaus, Ben always finds a way to keep her company. Their favorite activity together is chatting. When together, she actually finds talking likable and will spend hours talking, or she'll occasionally play the violin with him lying on her bed, eyes closed so serenely.
(She finds herself smiling a lot when she's with him.)
~.~.~
While Ben is as close as a blood brother, Five is her best friend. They don't talk much, since Five's always talking about time travel and calculations, and Vanya's ever the musician. He's sense and she's sensibility, but they find harmony in each other. When they're together, it's like there's only the two of them in this world, and no one else.
(She often finds herself humming a music piece under her breath with Five reading a book, his head laid down on her lap. Or sometimes with her head on his shoulders.)
~.~.~
Vanya's relationship with the middle number may be the most complex, or the simplest, depending on interpretation, situation, and many other variables.
Klaus has times when he needs her, and she has times when she needs him, even though neither knows why. At these times, he would cheer her up with his bad jokes, and she would offer him ease and quiet in her unnoticed room. However, they don't often interact more than a little nod or smile from time to time.
("If you die before someone else, does it mean that you've beaten them to death?"
"…"
"You can laugh, it's a joke."
She'd roll her eyes, then and smile.
And she'd feel better.)
~.~.~
Vanya won't lie; she really doesn't get along with the top three.
Allison always sees her as 'the other female sibling,' nothing more, nothing less. She is a bit protective of her because of the realization that she, Vanya was the only other girl in the house except with the exception of Grace, but even that affection is rather minimally executed. Though Allison is never a jerk to her, and Vanya knows from Pogo and Grace's comments that she Allison loves her, (Pogo and Grace tell her so; she doesn't see it, however) she always feels like an intruder in Allison's presence, especially if Luther is there with her.
(She rather tries to avoid Allison; situations get so uncomfortable when she doesn't.)
~.~.~
And Luther. If anyone else hears her complaining about him (with the possible exceptions of Six, Five, and Four,) they would shake their head and call her self-centered. Luther always looks out for her—or pretends to. (It's the whole Number One Leader of the Team thing.) She never feels any affection beyond his actions—it's rather disgusting when he only pretends to care when people are around.
(He doesn't even look at her when they're alone. He doesn't even acknowledge her. Sometimes, she's sure that he really doesn't know she's even there.)
~.~.~
Number Two is a different matter.
While Luther and Allison treat her as an annoyance or an invisible being, Diego hates her.
She doesn't know why.
(Perhaps it's because he's merely Number Two and he's just pouring out all his bitterness and rage at her, the lowest ranking number.)
She catches him glaring at her once in a while, and sometimes, she is sure that he occasionally flicks his knife on purpose when she's passing by.
She won't lie; he scares her.
Of course, there are no further interactions between the two, except for beyond the one-sided glares and the silent threats. (Threats for what? She doesn't know).
She's rather glad when they just start ignoring each other and his glares and twirling knives stop.
(Of course, she doesn't tell the others about it to ask for help. What is she? A damsel in distress?
Peesh, she's only ordinary.
Not a weakling.)
3
One day, he appears behind her.
She's so startled she drops her violin.
(He softens the blow by jutting out his foot.)
For a moment, neither speaks, for as he is picking up the violin and putting it on the bed, while she is catching her breath.
"…Number Two?" Vanya asks tentatively, still a bit dizzy for her taste.
Instead of talking, he throws a note to at her face, which naturally she (of course) isn't fast enough to catch. The crumpled piece of yellow paper hits the space between her eyes and falls onto the floor.
He's gone by the time she picks it up.
Dazed and slightly miffed, she slowly smooths out the paper with trembling hands, to see seven large words scribbled on it.
My ears are dead. Stop playing.
Idiot.
5
When they were five, Pogo somehow convinced Reginald Hargreeves to let the seven children have a little party on their birthdays—or rather, birthday.
Since the seven of them were born at on the same day, they had agreed (at least, the higher numbers did) to have turns celebrating their birthdays.
Luther threw his party when they were five. Diego six, and so on.
Year after year, Vanya saw six presents pile up the table—the siblings somehow always found a way to sneak presents in for these special days—with the icing of Grace's handmade cake flickering orange of the candlelight.
(Attendance was mandatory. Presents were not.)
On Vanya's eleventh birthday, Diego doesn't show up.
(One pretended to be mad. Three offered to rumor him to come. Four made a rude joke about him. Five and Six kept quiet; they had quite a good inkling about the two's relationship.)
But Diego does leave his present by her door afterward.
(She got a piece of fresh sheet music from Ben, a violin manual from Five, a Number Four action figure from Klaus, a pink ribbon from Allison, and a small yellow notebook from Luther.)
Vanya finds herself staring at a mask in her doorway the next day. It doesn't take her long to find out what the hell the present's supposed to mean.
(Surely a spare mask, patched twice, with ragged rims, and screaming at her that she doesn't belong here.)
6
Sometime after her eleventh birthday, Sir Hargreeves does a little experiment with Oh-So-Useless-Number-Seven.
He sends her to school.
Like real school—for normal kids.
(Those are the exactly the words he used to explain it to her.)
(Little did he know that it was those small things that hurt her.)
On the first day of school, she comes home early while (the other six are still finishing their lunch) screaming unintelligible things at the top of her lungs and shedding tears from her already red, puffy eyes. But deep in their hearts, they know that she's screaming 'I hate you!' over and over and over again.
Pogo immediately takes off after her and her broken heart, Five and Ben also rises out of their seats. Allison frowns worriedly, and Luther turns to look at his father, asking him without words about what he should do.
Sir Reginald Hargreeves gives a look at the two to sit down, but without further actions to comfort the situation, he resumes dining once again.
Pogo finds Vanya crying on the floor of her bedroom, a broken violin in her hands, breathing heavily.
(Pogo He later finds out that the first thing she heard at school was, "Cool, you're the one in the Umbrella Academy, right? The normal one. Can you sometimes bring your siblings to school? They're fantastic!"
And he also discovers that the thing addition that echoed she heard in her head in addition was;
"Unlike you."
"Unlike you."
"Unlike you.")
After Pogo had soothed her and coaxed some soup in her, she stares at the door bluntly, her wounded heart still throbbing painfully inside her.
She's alone, and her head hurts. She slowly rises out of her bed and staggers toward the door; she needs a hot shower badly.
Vanya opens the door to find Diego standing right in front of it. Her head goes blank as she stares at him. What is he doing here?
The deep blush on his cheeks confuses her even more.
Then, he's gone—as fast as lightning—and she's standing dumbly in the doorway, forgetting why she was leaving her room in the first place.
7
Diego loses his mask on a mission.
When he was in some sort of a physical fight with a grown man, somehow the mask had fallen off, leaving his face completely exposed.
He had punched himself in the face so that he would be unrecognizable, even without the mask.
(It's impossibly savage for an eleven-year-old, but let's face it, he's a member of the Umbrella Academy.)
He comes home feeling like crap and collapses on his bed, imagining all the foul words that will come out of Reginald Freaking Hargreeves' mouth once that man sees his mask is gone.
His nose throbs painfully—yeah, he hit it that well, possibly breaking it—and the fact that Grace is curing Luther first, merely for a little scratch on his darling chin, doubles the ache.
He's surprised to see Vanya standing in his doorway.
"Wh-Wh-What are yo-you do-doing h-here?" he shouts, frustrated at his stuttering, and annoyed that she had seen him laid across the bed, vulnerable and bitter.
She doesn't even blink.
(He's taken aback. He half expected her to burst into tears and run away.
Yeah, it's been a long time since he interacted with her.)
He's getting mad now, though he knows that the anger isn't just.
"Yo-you can't be-be-be he-here," he spits, the pain in his nose melting into his fury.
"Well, it's not like I'm the only one who's sneaked up on the other," she says, her voice lacking any emotions. Before he can respond, she walks up swiftly to his desk and tosses a piece of cloth on top of it.
"Thanks for letting me borrow it for a few months," she says, a hint of sullenness seeping in her voice.
Then she's gone, leaving Diego with a mouthful of words to spit back at her. Face red and sputtering nonsense, he looks at the material tossed on his desk.
The mask.
(Patched neatly at the torn rims—as good as new.)
A few hours later—after his wounds had finally been mended and all—Sir Reginald Hargreeves inquires if the reckless Number Two had finally come to his sense and decided to use his garments a bit more carefully.
(Diego curses Vanya for overdoing the patchwork.)
However, he has no idea why he panicked—a few days later—when the mask went missing—Luther had used it without asking, ever the gentleman—beyond what was normal for him.
(He blames it on the concussion he gave himself.
But deep down, he knows that's not why.)
A/N: So there you go, the first chapter. I'll make sure to jam in more romance as V & D gets older. Peace, people.
Feedbacks are welcome. Plain hate is not.
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Next Chapter Preview: They are twelve. He doesn't know why, but he agrees to teach her how to dance. He also doesn't know why, but he stands up for her when Sir Reginald Hargreeves plagues her with his poisonous words. He doesn't know why, because he's pretty sure he hates her, really.
(He's wrong, and he knows it.)