Klaus had always known there was something off.
He used to chalk it up to the rather...odd circumstances of his upbringing. After all, how is he supposed to feel anything even vaguely resembling comfortable and happy when his daily life consists of training for "the end of the world" or whatever alongside his superpowered siblings and under the watchful eye of their tyrannical "father" (Klaus always imagines quotes around the word). He has suffered through things most teenagers only read about in comic books. But this particular unease isn't a result of the frankly horrifying situations their "father" loves to put them in (though Klaus does have a lot of other feelings caused by this, enough twisted emotions and fucked-up-ness to help pay a therapist's mortgage off for years). This discomfort stems from something he couldn't quite put his finger on, until he realized that it has something to do with, well, himself. Himself. Klaus is a he.
But to everyone else, he isn't.
To everyone else, Klaus is a girl, and thus it's she, she, she all day long, and Klaus hates that shit. It took him forever to figure out it was the pronoun that bothered him. When one of his siblings would say something like "Mom, Nikola set fire to her bed again!", Klaus used to think this pissed him off because he was being tattled on, but really it was the "Nikola" and the "her" that bothered him (well, that and also that he was being tattled on). He hates that name. It feels like a too-tight sweater, like a room closing in. Sometimes he'll stare in the mirror and say "Nikola," as if trying to convince himself to accept it, but he never gets it to stick.
It was when his body began to change that he was hit with the whole dumptruck of Oh-Shit-I-Hate-This. Watching his body veer off in the wrong direction like a train on a misguided track was tearing him apart. It was so fucking unfair that Luther and Diego got to look like that, that they got to grow up in the way Klaus knew he should be growing up too. Klaus is a boy, or rather, in the general area of a boy, he knows this for certain. But no one else knows and he has no fucking idea what to do about it.
So one day when Klaus is thirteen he sneaks off to do something he would never have thought would be worth sneaking off to do: go to the library. Nervously, he perches in front of one of the free computers and types "I'm a boy" into the search bar. The results are unhelpful. After a few more minutes of searching and scrambling for the right words to use ( "I don't feel right in my body? Help?"), he comes across the word. Transgender. "Of, relating to, or being a person whose gender identity differs from the sex the person had or was identified as having at birth," according to Webster's.
Klaus thinks, Yes.
He's got to get back to the house. They're probably looking for him right now; Reginald probably thinks Klaus is out getting drunk again, and if he does Klaus will let him think that, because this thing, this transgender thing...he doesn't know how his family will react. It's a secret, for now.
Turns out Reginald didn't think Klaus had snuck out to get drunk: he didn't think about Klaus at all, which should have been hardly surprising at this point, and Klaus tells himself it doesn't hurt as he sits at dinner with the radio's tinny voice droning through the silence and no one asking him where he was. No one cares, it seems.
It doesn't matter. Klaus doesn't mind.
Really. He doesn't.
Now that Klaus has something to go on, he's been slinking off to the library any chance he gets. The librarian watches him with suspicion sometimes; he's a weird, nervous-looking kid in a strange school uniform who startles whenever someone passes behind him while he's on the computer, but he never does anything wrong so she doesn't have a real reason to get on his case.
He scrolls through forums filled with people like him, and, damn, it almost makes him tear up right there in the little alcove between the biography section and the fiction section. For the first fucking time in like, ever, he feels like someone understands.
It has come to his attention that he needs a new name. Not that he'll tell anyone about it, not yet, but something he can call himself in his head besides the too-tight, ill-fitting Nikola. Klaus is the masculine form of Nikola, so it feels like a release but also a nod to who he was. To Nikola, who feels like a different person now as Klaus leaves her further behind by the day. He doesn't hate her. He just hated having to act like her. Nikola is gone now.
"Klaus..." He whispers it to himself sometimes, when no one is near. It feels like slipping under cool sheets after a long day, like a safe resting place. It feels like him.
No one notices anything different, or so he thinks, until one day Vanya comes into his room. This is nearly unheard of, mostly because it's common knowledge that going into Klaus's room is something you do at your own risk, as who knows what explosive or inflammatory substance may be spilled, leaking, or about to catch fire in there.
"Nikola," she says, leaning against the doorframe. "Can I come in?"
Klaus waves his hand in a "come in" gesture from where he lies on his bed, staring at the ceiling, wishing shape-shifting was one of his powers.
Vanya steps inside and glances around for somewhere safe to sit before deciding that standing is the best option.
"You haven't been yourself lately," she says. A statement, not a question.
Klaus looks over at her and then looks away. "What do you mean?"
"You're quiet. You disappear sometimes. Even when you're here it's like you're not really here. What's wrong?"
Klaus can feel his heart starting to speed up. Tell her, says a voice inside his head. He pushes it down. "Same thing that's wrong with all of us, I suppose," he says instead, casting a meaningful glance over at Vanya. She knows what he means. All of their lives are shit.
"You can talk to me," Vanya says, and the look on her face is enough to make Klaus's chest constrict even more; it's a caring look, a worried look, and most of all it's a look directed at him. It's so rare that people look at him like that. Like they care.
And just like that, he can't hold it in any more.
"Shut the door," he manages to choke out before he starts crying. Vanya looks startled, but she turns and closes the door before hesitantly sitting on the edge of Klaus's bed. She reaches out a hand, seemingly to place on his shoulder, but stops at the last moment, unsure.
"Nikola..." she says.
Klaus takes a deep, gasping breath and scrubs his hands over his eyes. "Sorry..."
"It's okay," Vanya says quickly.
Klaus isn't entirely sure why he is going to tell her, but perhaps it's that maybe out of all of his siblings, Vanya might understand. Because she's different too. Being the only sibling without powers, she's been ostracized all her life. Maybe, Klaus thinks, she knows a little about this itching, suffocating feeling of wanting to be anywhere but in your own skin. Maybe she knows what it's like to feel as though everyone who meets your eyes is looking straight though you.
"You can't tell anyone," he says firmly, making himself look Vanya in the eye.
"I promise," Vanya says, and somehow, he believes her.
"I'm..." Klaus reaches out for the right words to say and comes back with only the bluntest of terms. "I'm a boy."
Vanya says nothing, and Klaus knows he'll have to explain further, though the words are hard to come by.
"I'm a boy," he repeats. "Inside. I'm not...supposed to look like..." He waves a hand over his body. "This." He can't meet Vanya's gaze anymore.
"So..." she starts. "You mean...you want to be a boy? You wish you were a boy?"
"No, no." Klaus shakes his head vigorously. "I am a boy.
"Oh..." Vanya says, and Klaus can tell she doesn't get it, and he's wondering why the hell he thought telling her was a good idea. Fuck. Fuck.
"How do you know?" she asks.
"I just...I know," Klaus says, and it sounds weak even to his ears but it's the best he has, because he knows, he knows this like he's never known anything before in his life. He says it again, stronger this time: "I know."
"Okay," Vanya says.
"...Okay?" Klaus echoes.
Vanya nods. "If you say you're a boy, you're a boy."
"You don't think I'm...I don't know...crazy?"
"Hmm. If I do think you're crazy, it's not because of this."
A shy smile creeps over Vanya's face, and then Klaus can feel his own expression mirroring her's and suddenly everything is okay. Well, not everything, he knows this, but he can't be bothered about the remainder of his shitshow of a life when there's this buoyant, light feeling all over him, almost like he's-
"You're levitating," Vanya says, chuckling a little.
Klaus looks down and sees that he is indeed floating a few inches off of the bed. "Oh!" he laughs giddily, knowing it's not really that funny but he's just so damn happy. Happy to have someone to share this heavy secret with. Happy that at least one person can see him as he really is now.
"So," Vanya says as Klaus manages to slowly lower himself back onto the bed. "What now? Like...what will you do different? Are you going to tell the others?"
Klaus thinks for a moment. "Am I going to tell the others? Uh...fuck no. Not yet anyway. They think I'm weird enough already."
"It's not weird to be who you are." Vanya says pointedly.
Klaus beams. "Thanks. I'm still not gonna tell them yet though. And because of that, please still call me she and Nikola in front of them." The thought makes his stomach feel sour, but this is what he'll have to do for now. Until he's ready.
"Do you have a new name now, then?"
"Yes," Klaus says, suddenly feeling shy again. "Klaus."
"Klaus," Vanya repeats, careful, as if she's making absolutely sure to get it right. "Klaus. It's an awesome name. I'll only call you Klaus when no one else is around for now though, right?"
Klaus nods. Then something occurs to him. "Sorry if it's hard to remember two different names."
"Don't worry about it, Klaus. It's not hard, and of course I'll do it if it makes you more comfortable."
Klaus meets Vanya's eyes. "I just wanna say...thank you. Thank you so much. For," Klaus waves his arms around a little. "For being nice about this."
Vanya reaches out and places her hand on Klaus's arm. This is the first time Klaus has had physical contact with any of his siblings in a while and it feels nice. Really nice. "You don't have to thank me," Vanya says. "You're my si-my brother," she quickly corrects herself. "You're my brother, and I love you and will be here for you through this."
Klaus lurches forward and hugs her. Vanya hugs him back and it's the best feeling Klaus has experienced in years. To hug his sister as her brother. As himself. Of course, he's always been himself, but now that someone else knows too...well, it feels amazing.
"Klaus," Vanya says, the sound of the name sending a bolt of excitement and joy through Klaus's body. "Levitating again!"
And so he is. But instead of bringing himself back down again, this time Klaus gently lets go of Vanya and allows himself to float up to the ceiling, feeling like the weight of the world has slipped from his shoulders.