27 March 2019

When Theodore awoke the next morning, it was to the sound of his phone alarm going off and telling him to get ready for school. Which was odd solely because of the fact that he'd slept straight through his obnoxiously loud alarm clock, the several bangs on the bedroom wall that told him to turn it off and Milton's bed-jumping attempts to rouse him. Eventually peeling his eyes open, it still took Theodore a full two minutes to realise that he wasn't in his bedroom, but instead in his vera's old childhood bedroom at the Umbrella Academy.

What…? Oh. Theodore's brows furrowed in confusion as he stared at the opposing brick wall, before it clicked about what had happened last night. He'd come to the academy in search of his vera who he hadn't been able to get a hold of after choir practise and Milton's endless stream of LANE Keeper watch. When it finally did dawn on him, he awkwardly rolled from the bed, letting the sheets fall to his waist and tangle around his legs.

After fumbling to his feet and shuffling over to the nearest bathroom, Theodore (dressed in his rumpled school uniform) was met with the sight of his red puffy-eyed sockets, the band-aid slapped to his forehead beneath rumpled curls and the slightly dislodged visage of his glass eye, that stared back at him in the bathroom mirror. Embarrassment coloured his cheeks as he quickly fixed his glass eye and then moved to splash water on his face in the hopes that it wold help clear it up. It wasn't much, but at least he felt a little better.

He spared a moment to shove his feet back into his shoes (Ven Allison or Don Diego must've pulled them off last night when they tucked him into bed), before he moved to try and navigate the twisting halls of the manor in his attempt to get to school before Mr Bergman or Dr Big bit his head off for being late. It took a few minutes to find the front door, (of which he had to stop and ask A'Don Pogo—who had been slowly dancing through the hallways with broom in hand as he cleaned up the aftermath of last night's fiasco—for directions) and then he was darting out the door. Calling a quiet goodbye to the house (he wasn't entirely sure if anyone had actually heard him), he shouldered his school bag and made for the subway.

One short subway ride later and Theodore found himself hurrying over the front steps of Meritech Industries. After checking in with his teacher for roll call (he'd just barely made it) and dumping his bag in the conference room they'd claimed as their 'classroom', he made his way to the reception where a playful scolding was swiftly delivered to him, courtesy of Cindy (he was just lucky that Dr Big was preoccupied with a client to deal with him). Looking him over, she suggested to the pink-cheeked tween that maybe he should tidy himself up in the bathroom before handing him several folders that needed to be filed.

Slapping the handful of manilla files onto the edge of the bathroom sink, Theodore set about splashing water on his freckled face once more; this time he spent more than a few seconds in front or the mirror as he used his fingers to comb back unruly curls into some sort of tidy/respectable hairstyle. It wasn't much, but it would do. He then moved onto readjusting his wrinkled shirt with a few quick tugs on the hem and redid his tie (although not too tight).

After that was done, the Garde boy moved up the floors to the cafeteria where he proceeded to purchase a roast beef sandwich for his makeshift breakfast (and he still had some of the sweets leftover from his raid on the convenience store, though they were a little fuzzy from living in his pockets for so long), which he happily devoured on the way back down to Dr Big's floor so he could catch up on the things he'd missed in that short time he'd been late. That was the idea, until a sight made him stop cold in his tracks. Two very familiar businessmen in cartoonic carnival masks.

Swallowing thickly, Theodore clung to the opposing wall as he watched Hazel and Cha-Cha talk animatedly with the trussed up mannequin in the corner. If he didn't know any better, he'd have thought that they were either smartest dressed patients of someone from corporate, because either way the pair of them stuck out like sore thumbs. But he did know better and even though his interaction with the manically grinning blue bear & the cute pink puppy was still a little fuzzy, he knew that if the two recognised him, he'd be in for a world of hurt.

Quickly & quietly skirting around the two, Theodore made sure to hug the opposing wall and keep his head down as he passed. It wasn't until he rounded the corner that Theodore felt like he could breathe again and as he dropped his sandwich wrapper into the nearest receptacle, he hoped that keeping his head down would mean that they would leave him alone. Mercifully, he made it back to the filing cabinets without much fuss and as he nodded a greeting to his peers as he passed by, Theodore busied himself with the day's tasks, if only so he could take his mind off of what he had just seen. Part of him wanted to alert Don Diego on what he had just seen, but another part reminded him that he & Ven Allison were going to try & track down Vera today and he didn't to distract them from that. Besides, its not like two inebriated adults (they had clearly been stoned) who were talking to a mannequin, were going to cause that much trouble, right?

It was closer to mid-morning when Theodore got the answer he was looking for; when things started to go awry once more. The students had migrated from their individual tasks to the conference room for some more work on their self-reflection workbooks when the smell of smoke began to permeate throughout the room. "…Do you smell that?" Lillian piped up, brows furrowed as the scent hit them all at once.

"Ah! Chris!" Sheryl gasped, one hand slapped over her nose & mouth.

"It wasn't me!" Christopher retorted, aghast that she would even think that.

"Whoever smelt it, dealt it!"

"It's not me—!"

"Smells more like smoke…" Theodore mused, brows furrowed in puzzlement as he turned to try and find the source of the smell. At first, he thought that he'd accidentally activated his lumen, but the smell seemed to be coming from outside.

"But whe—?" Lillian replied, only to find herself suddenly cut off.

KA~BOOM!

The sudden explosion of fire shook the building to its core, rattling glass walls until they shattered, throwing people from their feet and windows that exploded with the force of it, raining down upon everyone in the area. Terrified screams, hacking coughs and wailing echoed about Theodore as his vision whited out. He couldn't breathe, there was a pain in his arm and an unbearable heat surrounded him. He wasn't quite sure when the world swam back into focus, only that when it did it was coloured by a blanket of black smoke and the blue of his blood trickling down his cheeks.

As he lay gasping on the ground, Theodore barely registered the hand that hauled him back to his feet and even as he tried to clear the ash from his eyes or cough out the smoke stuck in his lungs, the Garde boy soon realised that there was something seriously wrong. His arm throbbed with pain and when he made the mistaking of figuring out why, he saw that it had become mangled with glass shards & other debris.

The inferno roared around them as adrenaline and/or shock rushed through him in an attempt to numb the pain he felt and as the person—a heavily bleeding Mr Bergman—hauled him to his feet and out of the burning building, Theodore caught glimpses of his classmates in much similar or even worse states. Lillian looked like dalmatian with all the splotches of soot covering her as she was shooed from the building by a doctor, Christopher (who must've jumped/landed on one of their peers) looked like a stegosaurus with all of the glass shards stuck into his spine and Sheryl remained prone on the floor, only her feet peeking out from beneath the desk they had been sat at.

BRRRRRRRRIIIIIIIIING! BRRRRRRRRIIIIIIIIING! BRRRRRRRRIIIIIIIIING!

The ringing of the fire alarm sounded late; although that could have also been the ringing in his ears, Theodore wasn't totally sure. Blindly stumbling after his teacher, Theodore eventually merged with the other survivors on their floor as the rushed towards the closest emergency exit. The next few minutes were a blur to the boy who coughed, hacked & retched his way down the stairs and out of the flaming building. Once back out in the sweet, sweet relief of unpolluted air, they were greeted to the sound of the wailing of emergency services as they rushed to the scene. But not once did Mr Bergman's hand removed itself from Theodore's forearm.

WEEEEE—WOOOO~! WEEEEE—WOOOO~! WEEEEE—WOOOO~!

"LANE Keepers Hotline, how may we help you?"

"Uh, we're at North General Hospital and there's this kid who just came in with the rest of Meritech Industries patients…He's got BLUE blood and—and one of those birthmarks!"

"Okay. Where are they right now?"

"He's in surgery. Our medical oaths mean that we have to serve EVERY patient, but—but what are we supposed to do when he comes out?"

"Don't worry, remain calm, a unit has been sent to your location. They'll be there shortly. In the meantime, keep him isolated from the rest of the patients so that he can't hurt anyone else"

"Thank—thank you"

"This is Diego Hargreeves, you know what to do"

BEEP~

"Hey Diego, it's Eudora. Listen, we've got a situation here. You've probably already heard about it over the radio, but before you go rushing off, you need to get to North General. I've got your nephew here—smoke inhalation & a fractured arm, by the sounds of it—he seems fine, if a little loopy"

"Kid needs a guardian to come discharge him and I can't get a hold of his mother. So, if you could get off of your ass, that'd be great. Oh, and don't wear your stupid knives"

"And one last thing, be aware that there are some LANE Keepers hanging around the place; not sure if they know WHO they're looking for, but be careful. Medical oaths are binding the docs to confidentiality, but that won't hold out for long"

"I'll be outside his door. PS, bring clothes"

Diego had been searching for his missing siblings when he had first gotten the call from Eudora. Elbow-deep in the junk littered about Five's van, Diego and Luther had been trying to track down their wayward brother after Diego had called around to his sister's music school and receiving lacklustre news about his sister's whereabouts. Diego had inwardly promised that after they found Five, then they would move onto Vanya because if there was one person in her past to be worried about, then it was that teenage dalliance turned baby daddy. Y'know, the one that turned out to be the serial killer?

At first, Number Two had been eager to receive a phone call from Eudora; thinking it a call to come and help with the mysterious criminal who'd already hit up Griddy's Doughnuts (which was already cleaned up & back on its feet) and Gimble Brothers Thrift Store (which was still taped off by yellow strings). That was until he actually heard what she had to say. When he did, he had no qualms about racing from the van and left his brother behind without an answer & to flounder amongst Five's trash.

It wasn't the first time that Diego had arrived at an active crime scene unannounced, nor was it the first time that he had had to bail a relative out of the hospital (Klaus being his most prevalent patron) or even that Eudora had called him in to (privately) collaborate on a particularly nasty/difficult case. It was, however, the first time (to his knowledge) that a family member had been directly involved with such a case; at least since his days as one of the six students in the Umbrella Academy.

Upon arriving at North General Hospital, Diego easily pushed his way through the throng of media, panicked parents and wayward LANE Keepers as he made his over to where his ex-girlfriend & colleague who stood in a particular doorway (the one in which a particular nurse who seemed especially frightened to go near), where she seemed to be playing guard dog. Diego blamed the large black overcoat that he wore over his usual ensemble that was making him sweat like a pig instead of the several LANE Keepers posted about the hospital. They haunted the clinical halls like armed poltergeists and stared at anyone who passed them by like faceless gargoyles.

Bypassing a particular gaggle of Keepers by the water cooler, he beelined it for the room where his nephew supposedly hid. "Dora" Diego quietly greeted, announcing himself as he pulled up alongside her, swallowing thickly.

"Diego" Eudora nodded as she spared a suspicious glance towards the faceless men across the way. "Aren't you hot in that thing?" Her brows furrowed as she nodded towards the overcoat he was wearing.

"No" He stubbornly denied, although he could feel the beads of sweat dripping down the back of his neck. Again, he would blame it on the eyes burning into his back.

"Really?" Eudora smirked, a brow quirked in disbelief.

"What happened?" Diego replied instead, not deigning to answer her smirk properly. Peering over her shoulder and through the door, his eyes alighted on the sight of his bandaged nephew in the hospital bed, beyond.

Theodore sat back against the pillows of the bed with his legs crossed loosely beneath the blankets. His sooty school uniform had been stuffed into a plastic hospital bag at his feet (which was why Diego had brought an amalgamation of clothes from their childhood wardrobes: one of his sweaters, an old Powerpuff Girls t-shirt from Allison and a pair of Klaus' old overalls), leaving the tween boy in an overgrown hospital gown. What dust/soot had once painted the boy's figure, had been wiped away to leave the boy looking a little rosy-cheeked beneath those freckles of his. An oxygen mask lay idly near by, clearly having been used by the boy earlier (as told by the ashen smudges around the mouthpiece).

Diego's concerned eyes trailed over the brightly coloured fibreglass cast that was tightly wrapped around his right arm in bright pink. There were also the various brightly coloured bandaids that had been slapped over butterfly stitches and the barely-there scratches which had been deemed insignificant by the medical personnel. Aside from that however, Theodore appeared relatively okay, although that might've been the influence of the drugs as he laughed giddily at his own fingers. He suspected that the boy's Legacies were the only reason that he wasn't injured any further (particularly in comparison to his classmates whom he'd passed on the way in. One of the parents had been wailing in the corner after they had been told that their kid wasn't likely to survive their injuries or at least, not the same as they had been when the day first began).

Although Diego had not forgotten about the fiasco from the night before (of which had been the reason he had gone to search for Vanya/Five earlier that day), he couldn't help but worry about his nephew sitting before him. Nor could he fight the ghostly image of his siblings garbed in mission gear that imposed themselves over the boy.

"You know I can't tell you that" Eudora replied, pulling Diego from his stupor. "But like I said, he needs a guardian here to discharged him"

"Why not call his mother?" Diego replied, although he, himself had not been able to get a hold of his youngest sister.

"We did—or we tried—but we weren't able to get a hold of her" She replied, crossing her arms. "Family troubles?"

"I—I wouldn't know…" He trailed off, turning back to watch his nephew and in turn, ignore the inquisitive look from the woman beside him.

"Look" Eudora shifted as she shoved a selection of papers in his face, "I need to get back to work. Just sign these papers and get out. You'll have to sneak out the back to avoid this lost, though"

"…Did you steal the discharge papers?" Diego smirked, turning to her with an inquisitive brow.

"…Shut up"

"I knew I was rubbing off on you!"