Chapter Text
Prologue
Hazel’s back was hurting. He and Cha-Cha had been on the hunt for a particularly difficult mark for several days now - longer than usual, but the mark in question was a tricky one to nail down - and, as usual, he had been stuck with the laborious and unrewarding task of carrying the briefcase. His physiotherapy bills were going to cause him a great deal of misery later. The Commission was not generous with worker benefits, especially not for field agents like him. Despite being one of the best field agents, he was still regarded as the lowly brawn of the company, and therefore expendable.
However, Number Five was becoming a bigger concern.
Hazel rolled his neck and stretched his arms out as he slouched down on the bed in the crappy motel that he and Cha-Cha had gotten. The quality of their living arrangements had decreased the longer they took to kill Number Five, but the snobby high-ups of the Commission never had to deal with killing the famed assassin themselves, so they didn’t know jack shit. Hazel grunted as he popped a knuckle and flexed his hands after placing the heavy briefcase down on the floor with little grace and less patience. Cha-Cha had been similarly irritable, which was why she had left shortly after they returned to the motel. She said she had gone to get a coffee, but Hazel wouldn’t be surprised if she was out killing puppies instead to burn off some steam. Honestly, he thought he was a pretty decent person compared to Cha-Cha. Unlike him, she took a disconcerting amount of joy and satisfaction in her work. And in their line of business… well, joy and satisfaction weren’t things one expected to achieve.
He flopped back onto the bed (which smelled vaguely of urine) and gave a great heaving sigh. He disliked his job. And the current task to kill Five was even more arduous. He wasn’t even buying into the whole ‘apocalypse’ thing. Sure, there were terrible events that the Commission had personally ensured went off without a hitch, but the apocalypse? That was on a new level. He didn’t think any sane person could say they genuinely preferred to “preserve the timeline” rather than save the lives of billions. But there was nothing he could do about it. He was just the middle man. Chopped liver.
Hazel glanced at the briefcase on the floor beside his bed. He thought about taking it, and leaving Cha-Cha behind. Maybe he could start a new life. He knew it was just an idle fantasy, but sometimes he couldn’t help dreaming about what could be. He could go to some tropical island, or a little country town. Find a girl, maybe. There would probably be a lot of doughnuts. And baking. He’d always liked baking. He would live in a cottage surrounded by trees and animals that he wouldn’t harm. There would always be pretty little birds chirping outside his window and waking him up early, but he wouldn’t mind because he would have time to sleep later. He would go outside and look at the birds, without killing them. He would never kill again.
Idle fantasies, indeed.
He didn’t actually want Five dead. It wasn’t personal. When there wasn’t an impending threat of apocalypse, Five could probably be a decent person. Hazel winced and rubbed his neck where he had gotten injured yesterday because of the tiny fifty-eight-year-old boy. Maybe not. It would be nice to have a world with no apocalypse, though.
Hazel sat up and fumbled for the briefcase. He ran his hands over the dials with numbers written on them and chewed his bottom lip. He wanted a holiday. Maybe no apocalypse wouldn’t be so bad after all. Sure, if anyone ever found out he’d be done for before he could blink, but he could… well, he could try. Couldn’t he?
Hazel squinted at the dials as he flicked them up and down to change the numbers. His eyesight was getting worse. Maybe he was getting old. Who was he kidding? He was already old. He wished he could retire and just live a peaceful, boring life.
The briefcase clicked as he slid the final number into place.
Hazel thought about Cha-Cha. He didn’t think Cha-Cha really liked him, to be honest. They had a gruff kind of respect for each other, born of working together for what felt like decades. When push came to shove, he thought Cha-Cha would probably kill him if she was ordered too. He wondered if it would ever come to shove. He wondered if he would do the same to her. He wondered if, by attempting to save the lives of all these billions of people who he didn’t know, he was damning himself.
He clicked a button, and for a split second his entire body was engulfed by a bright blue light and a zapping sound not unlike electricity. Then the light was gone, and he with it. Everything in the room stood still.
The Umbrella Academy, Timeline 1
Vanya Hargreeves was having a good day. Well, she supposed it was a decent day. She hadn’t really been paying much attention to it. Dad had upped her pill dose recently, and she was still having a hard time adjusting to it. She wasn’t sure whether thirteen-year-olds should have such a high pill intake, but the four pills she was currently taking seemed a little strange. However, she had been taking pills for her anxiety since… well, as long as she could remember, and they seemed to help her.
Vanya supposed she had been getting a little more emotional lately. The pills dampened it. They allowed her to droop into a not-exactly-pleasant state of mugginess and semi-consciousness. She had - according to Five - been slurring a little and swaying around sometimes. He had sounded vaguely concerned at the time, but she had been a little too sleepy to focus on him enough to listen properly.
Besides, she didn’t think Dad would give her pills if she didn’t need them. She was taking them for a good reason, right? Dad knew what he was doing, she was sure of it.
Anyway, she was having a good day. Despite the pills that she had had to consume a few minutes ago, nothing bad had happened yet. In the Hargreeves family, even a peaceful breakfast couldn’t be taken for granted. She plopped down into her seat clumsily, and Dad frowned at her. Vanya blinked a few times. When had she gotten to her seat? She didn’t remember getting dressed, let along going down the stairs. Oh, well. Five had said that she was getting muddled. It was probably just happening again. Nothing to get in a fuss over, like her mother would say whenever she claimed to have a headache.
Vanya stared at her food. She wasn’t sure what it was supposed to be. She hoped it wasn’t porridge, although she couldn’t be sure. It looked a little too blurry to tell. She prodded it gingerly with a fork. She hated porridge.
She was wakened out of her reverie by the sound of a thunk from the table, as Five slammed a knife into it with little fanfare. Her eyebrows creased, and she looked at him with mild concern. There were words coming out of his mouth, but she couldn’t quite tell what they were. She supposed they were angry. It wasn’t like Five to interrupt mealtimes with shows of violence. Something had to be upsetting him. She wondered how she had missed it. Maybe it was the pills again.
She dimly registered Dad saying something back to Five. Something about time travel. And acorns? She didn’t know what acorns had to do with time travel. Maybe time travellers could only eat acorns. They probably had a very specific diet. She nodded sagely to herself. That made sense.
Vanya felt a sudden pang in her head. She rubbed at it with her fingers and looked back down at her food. It was still sitting there. The edges of her fork were coated in a gelatinous mixture, but the rest of the fork was clean. She realised she hadn’t touched it.
Five shouted something and stood up. Vanya felt a spike of fear running through her. She didn’t usually feel afraid. As the only normal member of the Umbrella Academy, there was nothing to be afraid of. She wasn’t allowed to go on missions, and she was never in danger. She hardly ever felt adrenaline. Five looked furious, she thought. Something was tugging inside her. An instinct, maybe. Luther was always telling Allison about his ‘instincts’ after they’d gotten back from a mission, and how he had saved some damsel in distress. She was always giggling at him.
The thing in her gut felt like what Vanya imagined an instinct was. A tiny voice inside of her, whispering: Something bad’s going to happen. She didn’t know how, and she didn’t know why. She just knew it was going to happen now.
Five stormed out of the room. Vanya felt a sudden, inexplicable urge to follow him. She restrained herself, thinking about the trouble she would get into with Dad if she did. Surely Five would come back on his own. He was reliable and practical, so he would always be able to get back. Her leaving the table as well wouldn’t help anything. She would just be useless and ordinary. The sudden surge of emotion sank back down and quietened. She was sure Five would come back on his own. There was nothing to worry about. She ignored the sinking feeling in her gut and the dull throbbing in her head, and ate her breakfast.
Later, she would hug her knees and sob uncontrollably when she thought of that day, even if she had taken her pills just before. She would think about the last time she saw her brother alive, she would feel as if she was drowning. She would spend years wondering about how it could have all been different, if something had changed, anything. Maybe she could have had her best friend back.
A long, long time later, Vanya Hargeeves caused the apocalypse. And Five Hargreeves was stuck in it to rot for four and a half decades. The lives of every single soul on the planet but one were lost in rubble and ruin.
But what if it had all gone differently?