Silently Spaceboy moved from crater to crater. He paused at a rather large one and sat down. The space station had him feeling rather claustrophobic and he needed to get out. Also he needed to be alone. Ben wasn't exactly company, but he needed silence. The moon offered that in abundance.
It had been exactly two months since he'd left Earth for the moon. Again. Thoughtfully he stared down at the swirling green, blue, and white of the Earth. Perhaps he'd be back someday. Then he'd probably just go back to the moon after a few months. Again. Spaceboy felt like this ritual said something about him.
He had the reputation of being the 'star' child. That was the reputation he had worked so hard to build anyway. Everyone knew that he was the obedient one, but he was always running away. Time and time again he'd managed to run away in a way that Kraken and .05 had never even dreamed of. He'd actually managed to put the vacuum of space between him and the Umbrella Academy. That was something that was quite commendable.
Yet, unlike Kraken and .05, he'd never actually wanted to run away from the Academy. No, he'd wanted to stay. He'd been proud of who he was and what he was doing. He wanted to make the team functional like the ones he'd read about. He'd wanted it to be like a goddamn comic book. That had been his dream since he was a child.
Everything had been so simple then. He'd been just a kid with a dream that seemed so simple and straightforward. When Hargreeves called them out it was like he could fulfill that dream. Then, at the end of being a superhero they were given ice cream. After that they were taken home to await the next mission. That was all they had had to do. Everything had seemed so simple then.
Perhaps it was so simple because Spaceboy had had ideals, and a dream to work towards. He wanted to help people and to become something worthwhile. In short Space had wanted to be a hero. He wanted to be that caped crusader that swooped out of nowhere to save the world. Yet, he had never wanted to be the lone superhero. Space had never wanted to go it alone. Another thing he had been afraid of was being alone. So he had looked towards his 'brothers and sisters' to fill that gap and join him on his quest.
There had been a plan in the beginning. He and his team would work together like clockwork, taking down villains and allowing nothing to stand in their way. Citizens would feel safe as they went about their lives. The world would sleep soundly at night because of them, because of the Umbrella Academy. It had been his dream and something that he had worked tirelessly towards each day.
The whole thing had disintegrated when he entered his twenties. It was then that he realized just how much he hated Kraken and how much Kraken hated him back. Horror had always taken his orders but he'd never really been into being a hero. He'd just wanted to make Space and Hargreeves happy. As for Séance, Séance couldn't care less if the building burned down full of garbage or people.
Not even Rumor, his dream girl, had shared his ideals or his plan. Again it was in his twenties that he fully realized that Rumor had just plain out wanted a normal life. That had been a startling realization. It had come with a pain that hadn't come with the others, since he'd always thought that things could be different with her. Space figured that with a power like hers she'd never want to stop using it.
That had been what he'd thought before he'd figured out that she was just playing a part. What she really wanted to do was go out there and do what everyone else did. She wanted to go to school, get a job, get married, have kids. Rumor didn't want to save the world. She wanted to be part of the world.
That was when he had started to figure out what his family really was. They weren't heroes. They were just people who dressed up in costumes and happened to do heroic things. The Hargreeves were a sad parody of what superheroes should be. They couldn't even get along, let alone keep the world in order. Looking back on it now it all seemed so futile.
For years Space had hung on to the hopes that his father had dished out to them. He'd convinced Space that just around the corner everything would be fine. This thought sustained him through countless family disasters. Every single time a member realized that they couldn't live with the others a crack had appeared in his dream, in his disaster had brought the Academy one step closer to chaos. Each disaster was a little bit of chaos in a dream of order. While he wouldn't let it show all of the chaos had piled up on his back like so many bricks. Still, he'd thought that he could shoulder it all. Then the unthinkable happened.
Horror had died. He hadn't run away like .05 died. He had died. No one in the family knew exactly what happened. Hargreeves had denied all involvement and forbade Spaceboy to speak of it again. Yet, Space shared the secret belief that they really were both to blame. The rest of the family believed this as well. He could see it in their accusatory looks and suspicious glances.
Everything was so confusing and complicated after that. The team really couldn't function together with all the mounted hate and suspicion. Kraken left one day and didn't come back. He could see that Séance and Rumor wanted to do the same thing. Finally, by a unanimous vote, the Umbrella Academy had disbanded. Everyone had gone their own way and tried to live a normal life as best as they could.
Some people didn't assimilate as well. Take Séance for example. He couldn't find his way in society so he had checked in to a mental institute. Kraken had never stopped being a superhero, but unlike Space it appeared that he had always wanted to go it alone. Rumor managed better then either of them. In any case, all of them had had some hope of blending in and either couldn't acknowledge it or wouldn't acknowledge it. Space had never had any hope.
He stuck out far too much to be another face in the crowd. He'd known this from the minute he'd voted to let the Academy disband. Space knew that with the Academy he was special, but outside he was a freak. He'd known from the start that he would never be able to fit in. For him, life outside the Academy was not an option. It hadn't been since his accident as a child.
Once again he'd had a plan though. He had gone to where he hoped things would be simpler and where no one would be around to stare at his freakish body. The moon. When he was a child he had often gazed up at it longingly. The idea of going somewhere where few had trod had excited his childish mind.
Admittedly it had been that childish innocence had given him the grotesque body that he had now. Even that hadn't managed to tarnish it though. The silence and beauty of space and the moon had always beckoned. If anything was his home more then the Academy had ever been. While he was alone up there, at least he felt like he was doing something worthwhile. At least he was doing something that could be called constructive.
For years he'd been up there. Then he had gotten a transmission and had come down to bury his father. He had felt sad about the affair. Hargreeves had been a mentor, albeit a harsh one, for most of his life. For the past few years he had sent transmissions which had become less and less frequent. Now he was dead.
Sometimes he wished he could be like Kraken and not care what Hargreeves had thought about him. Occasionally he thought that maybe Kraken was right about him. Space had always called his father sir. The title father didn't really fit him, something that Spaceboy had always secretly suspected. After all, Hargreeves was a father who had never given a shit about whether or not his children lived or died. Space had hoped to change that. That was one goal that he didn't really achieve. It had been impossible.
Space needed to do something else with his life. He needed to get away from Hargreeves and the Academy. Like Kraken and .05 he should've just run away and never looked back. He didn't think that any of that would be possible though. Perhaps it was just too late for him. Or perhaps the whole thing had been another one of his mistake.
Everyone else seemed to have gotten on with their lives. He'd known that Rumor had married Patrick before he left all those years ago. That had hurt him. They said it was better to have loved and lost then to have never loved at all. They should try it sometime. Yet, at the same time he felt sorry that she had gotten a divorce and had lost custody of her daughter. He sighed to himself. He never had gotten to meet Claire.
Everything had spiraled after the funeral. First there had been the Terminauts, and then Vanya had gone insane. After that there had been a kind of lull, something close to peace. No one had gone home, but no one was officially staying. It was in that time that he could've gone to Rumor and said something to her. Things might've turned out happy if he had.
Yet, he hadn't. Like most things in life he thought that it would be better if he didn't get involved. So he'd gone off and gotten FAT. In hindsight it hadn't been the best idea. In fact, it had actually been downright stupid. It had distracted him from his failure to act though. That in itself had made him feel good.
At the same time it had made him weak, weaker then he'd ever been in his entire life. Climbing up the stairs after Séance had gotten kidnapped had nearly killed him. Even as he climbed up those stairs he was disgusted with himself. Then they'd all gone off and gotten stuck in Vietnam. The whole situation was so completely ludicrous. With that and all the other things that had happened he needed time to go off and think. So he'd gone off into the jungle. For two years.
He thought that he'd gotten it all figured out during that time. Inaction had gotten him where he was, so action would get him out of it. When he got out of it he'd tell Rumor how he'd felt. She might reject him but at least she'd know. Everything would have a clear course of action after that. Everything would be simple like it had when he was a child. He'd met up with Kraken and Séance, determined on turning back the clock and setting things right.
Then she'd killed him. Rumor had killed J.F.K. He couldn't believe it. He had never thought that she would do such a thing. What's more was that she had killed the president for him. At first he'd been stunned. She felt the same way about him. Something like happiness had flooded him.
Five seconds later he felt much different. Shame and sadness had clutched his heart. He was ashamed for being happy that she felt that way. It wasn't because the feeling was bad. She had done something so entirely wrong and had done it for something that was supposed to be right. The act was twisted, tainted, and wrong. He was ashamed that she had killed J.F.K instead of letting the Temps kill him before he was born. More then anything else he'd been ashamed of her.
How dare she do that! How dare she let someone else die for him of all people! How was his life more valuable then someone else's? Someone had been killed to save him. That wasn't what he had wanted. Rumor should've known that. Rumor also should've known that Space wouldn't be happy about it. She'd seemed so shocked though when he'd voiced his displeasure.
How could she expect him to be happy though? Someone dying for him wasn't what he wanted. It wasn't right and there wasn't any way around it. She had done something wrong for him. She had inadvertently gotten him mixed up in a vile act, so that it was his fault. It was his fault that J.F.K had died. Also, she didn't see anything wrong with what she had done. He couldn't forgive her for that.
In the end all of his feelings and dreams had betrayed him. It had been his dream to be a hero and give his life to protect the people. Spaceboy had been in love with Rumor. To his mind it had seemed perfectly logical that these two things could be combined. Instead the person who he loved had killed the person he tried so hard to protect. It became clear that he wasn't a hero, and he now doubted that he could love Rumor anymore.
Everything fell apart. All of his hard work, all those years, everything. If he had been younger then perhaps he might've been able to rebuild. He might've been able to fool himself into thinking that this problem was fixable, that it was simple. Just like he had when he'd come back for his father's funeral, he might try to slip right back into his role as the ever-persevering team leader.
Yet, he wasn't younger. He was thirty-three, and he was disenchanted. Disenchanted with the world, disenchanted with heroes, and disenchanted with her. All of it didn't mean the same anymore. Nothing was simple anymore, it never had been and never would be. Space knew that this world had taken him in. It had fooled him with its stories and hero worship. His dreams had tricked him into thinking that anything could be overcome. Well, he wouldn't be fooled anymore. Never again.