Under the water, the cracking of the glass doesn't make a sound. Even telling the tiny fracture's there is nearly impossible, the fine white lines radiating out into nothing, so thin they're nearly the same colour as the water.
He can hold his breath forever but he needs to breathe. Trajectory, but he doesn't know where the thought has come from. He seizes hold before it can be torn away from him. Trajectory. He concentrates. Not on Dad in the corner of the room, his siblings behind him peering round Dad's legs curious and not horrified. He concentrates. Forces every fibre of his body begging for air to turn and focus on the water still pouring into the tank. Focuses it all onto the centre of the tiny hairline crack.
Success is a screaming sound in his ears, his head breaking the surface and his lungs celebrating even as the torrent sweeps him away with it.
Diego wakes up. He can't breathe. Well- he can, he just can't. The nightmare weighs heavy on his chest and his elbows slide out from underneath him and he flops to lie flat on his back again, flopping about like a dead fish. Or a dying fish. He doesn't know which one is worse. The gasping sounds make him think of Dora and he feels under his pillow for a knife, clutches the handle in the only way he knows how to pray. Maybe she's still alive, here, in this timeline they haven't screwed up. Maybe everything worked out. Then again, if she's alive- Where's Ben? Where's Mom?
Knife trembling in his grip, he rolls over onto his aide and pulls his knees to his chest. No one's around now. He can break.
Music begins to play in another room.
We were trying, but we're trying no more. It's cold on the floor, cold on the floor, This house has never been the same as before, it's never felt warm, never felt warm.
Diego curls up tighter, never mind Luther, never mind the idiot, think of- think of something else. He takes every inch of his mind and directs it onto one single memory, the happiest he has for the past he doesn't know how long anymore, lasers everything he has onto a bright spark and fills his mind with nothing but how damn badass it was, until inch by inch it encompasses him.
"This..." Dad's voice echoes coldly, "Is the Sparrow Academy."
A man stands in front of him and Diego, the fool, the idiot, the fucking idiot, steps closer and closer. A man stands in front of him who isn't Ben, because Ben never git the chance to become a man, but a man with his face and his eyes and his mouth and his blunt, assessing look. There are others, others who Diego hates because they got the chance to see Ben grow up and mature- maybe even in a world where dad got it right, this time. Who grew up and got to see Ben smile.
His siblings- his true siblings, start to mill behind him, muttering with various uses of the word 'fuck'. Words stumble in Diego's mouth and he can't say anything.
"Oh for fuck's sake!" The glass fractures and he turns, sees Allison looking mightily pissed off. Every member of the Sparrow Academy takes a step back. "Five!" she orders, holding out her hand again. (It's the one with the umbrella tattoo, glinting onyx in the dim light, Reginald Hargreeves' gift to the world.) Five frowns understandingly, then takes her hand. Reginald studies them, light glinting off his monocle, the curve of the moon looming down over them.
Well fuck you, Dad, we're not the tide anymore, Diego remembers thinking.
"I heard a rumour," says Allison. "That we fixed the timeline."
The world exploded.
And here they are.
Music interrupts his thoughts, digging and rifling through his mind to force him back to the present.
Maybe we'd marry and we'd work it out fine, In some other time, in some other time. And we are happy when I'm walking that line, It's all in my mind, all in my mind.
He bangs on the wall, then throws a knife at the door for good measure, "Shut the fuck up, Luther!" Snap. Nothing. He rolls onto his back and tries not to think of anything at all.
A door creaks, followed by footsteps, then his own door opens an inch, "Diego?"
"What?!"
"Are you awake?"
"...You were playing music at five in the morning, Luther!"
"It's only two o'clock. Actually. I'm sorry I woke you up."
That... doesn't help. Really, it doesn't.
He swears softly and slings an arm over his eyes, "Don't worry 'bout it. I was already awake."
"I heard you- uh, you um... Just... Dreams, right?" He's speaking in the same tone as he did when consoling him over women and it jars him, knocks the wind out of his sails and leaves him struggling to right himself. How can they be back at the Academy again, how can he be here in his childhood bedroom again, when they went back in time of all things?
"Fuck." These past few months have been really, really... really. He peeks out from underneath his arm as the floorboard creaks, watching as Luther shift s awkwardly in the doorway- he's even bigger than the doorway, height and width wise, he was always big but now he's huge and... he's acting like an awkward puppy.
"You don't have to leave," Diego sighs as he gives in. "Get in here."
They used to have sleepovers, as kids,, in each other's rooms; when they were younger and no less screwed up. Dad never found out (he thinks) but they stopped doing it anyway. Luther pads over- there's no way someone his size can be stealthy and he doesn't even try- and tries to make himself comfortable on the floor next to the bed. Because, he realises with a pang, he probably doesn't fit in any bed in the whole house. He's found another overcoat from somewhere and makes a nest out of it without taking it off. Diego hunches tighter under the covers which smell of Mom's fabric softener and says nothing. Asks instead: "Five and Allison still out for the count?"
"Yeah. It's been almost forty eight hours, do you think we should-"
"No way, man. They saved the world, it's bound to exhaust you. Besides we take Five to a hospital, they'll probably lock us up for child endangerment or something."
He snorts a laugh and Diego takes it as perfect timing to chuck a pillow at his brother's face. "I, uh, I've searched the whole house, to. For, um, the book," he explains, shoving the pillow under his head. "Got rid of them all."
"Good idea," Vanya's still amnesiac and it's probably for the best. "Her and Klaus..?"
"Asleep in the kitchen after making pancakes." He smiles at the smile he hears in Luther's voice, and for a second it's everything he's ever wanted, the two of them stargazing and trying to make constellations out of the cracks in the ceiling.
Stupid Luther has to go and open his stupid mouth and ruin it all. Dick. "Do you... get nightmares a lot?"
"No," he replies immediately, a door slamming shut in a breeze "Do you?"
"No." Comes the answer just as quick.
He changes the subject. "What're you going to do, once we're sure we've stopped the apocalypse this time?" Because he's not bullshitting himself; their time back in the not-destroyed Academy is just a stopover period, they're not going to stay here forever and none of them want to. This is just waiting for Five to wake up, for confirmation the apocalypse is headed of for good this tine round, for one-hundred-percent-certainty money back guarantee there's nothing left to fix, then it's back to their own devices.
"I'm not sure," Luther's voice is steady and calm and completely at odds with the way Diego is feeling. "Do you?"
Diego turns, so he can just make out his brother in the dark. "No," he whispers, quivering, "I haven't g-g-got a c-clue."
"Oh." Thank fuck they can't see each other's faces. "Well... that's... okay?"
A hand touches his and he yanks away, feeling burnt. He feels traces of rough skin and hair as he does, wonders if Luther will take it the wrong way. He deflects, turning the trajectory of the conversation to something else. A target of his own choosing. "You must have some idea, right. I mean- you went to the moon, I'm sure people would kill to hear more about that, right? A book- or- "well, alright, book deals are probably not a good idea in their family, but- "a college or some shit. Nasa. Whatever."
The floorboards creak again, "Maybe not?"
"Why not? Space Boy and his moon adventures. People'd go wild, bro."
Luther starts to shuffle around a bit, first one position, then the other and when he speaks his voice is tight enough to snap. "The moon... wasn't all that fun. I mean-" he hurries to add before Diego can interject, "I'm grateful, of course. I just... you know?"
Breathing out slowly past the weight on his chest, he puts his arm back where it was. So they're touching. "Yeah. I know." Curses himself internally, for how blind he was. Of course four years in total isolation on the moon wasn't fund, of fucking course. Good fucking work, buddy. "Well, if it makes you feel any better, I'm really proud of you, bro. You sorted your life out- I couldn't do that." You win. It really should make Luther feel a hell of a lot better. He would, if the positions were reversed. (Which says a lot, he knows.)
"The hell I did, Diego. Have you forgot everything I did-"
"Doesn't matter. And that wasn't just you. But when we were in the Sixties, you got yourself a job and a place and a life, even when you'd never had experience of any of that before. All I was good for was getting thrown in a nuthouse. And even before then- you saw me place, I was practically living in a cupboard." It hurts, it hurts like holding his breath too long those first few times, like being thanked for saving a drowning child by people who don't know he has superpowers, it hurts and it hurts and it's the truth.
"I didn't!" his voice is too loud and startles them both. He drops the volume to a chastised whisper. "I got a job with fucking Jack Ruby, I don't think that counts as being well-adjusted. And... you were doing good things and fighting crime and stuff. I don't know if I'd have been able to cope with a shitty job and a shitty home the way you did, without thinking of coming back. You always do the right thing."
"Not always," he whispers. His face is wet. He scrubs his free hand over his eyes. Forces the trajectory to bend. "But neither of us are going back to how it was though, alright? Team Zero sticks together now."
"Team Zero," Luther agrees, the smile back in his voice. "And- hey, I've had an idea. Allison will want to see Claire, right? And Klaus will miss Ben and Five's had a really shitty few weeks and Vanya won't remember where her old apartment is and Dad's got enough money to last all of us forever. How about a road trip?"
"A road trip?"
"We don't need to worry about being well-adjusted, normal people if we're on a road trip. And I've kind of always wanted a minivan."
Diego laughs. He really, really laughs. When he's finally finished, Luther's switched a light on and is looking at him fondly. He shakes his head and laughs some more. "Alright, man. But I'm driving."