Work Text
Heroic ambition seemed to have been the cause of much of the world's pain then- quite like it is now.
No villain ever saw himself a villain: he only saw himself a hero;
and this goes just as no hero ever saw himself a hero: he simply did what he had to do.
No true hero initially sets out with intentions of being deemed a hero.
― Criss Jami
It is generally assumed by nearly every member of the Hargreeves family- and the various employees of the Commission- that since the Apocalypse went down the first time around as a result of Vanya’s unchecked powers, that the only way to restart it is for her to lose control.This is a rather sound theory, and would have continued to be a sound theory, if everyone’s powers had remained the same as they were in childhood. If Klaus had only been able to see ghosts rather than summon them into corporeal form, if Five hadn’t been able to time travel, if Diego couldn’t breathe underwater, and so on, then perhaps the only key to the Apocalypse- or at least, an extreme change to the Earth as it is currently known- would have stayed locked in Vanya Hargreeves’ mind.But this is a superhero story, if a story told about superheroes long after they have stopped saving the world. This is a story in which powers grow and evolve, where an origin story turns into a series of heroic acts turns into early retirement. This is a story with powers that know themselves, that continue to grow long after the hero stops saving the world.The Apocalypse doesn't depend on Vanya Hargreeves- it depends on the actions of Reginald Hargreeves and the damage he caused.The first, maybe second time around, the Hargreeves siblings finished Reginald Hargreeves' destruction of each other. But this time around? With Vanya in control of her powers and the Hargreeves family getting along and learning to heal?The Apocalypse is still not entirely off the table. Vanya's Apocalypse, yes. But someone else's? Perhaps, if their powers are pushed to their limits.-Once upon a time, there was a girl named Allison Hargreeves.-For much of her life, Allison Hargreeves had everything handed to her, and what was not handed to her, she had only to ask for. Her powers gave her whatever she wanted, with almost no limitations save the ones that her father imposed.From an early age, it was drummed into her that the only people she shouldn’t use her powers on were Pogo and her father. The rest of the world was on-limits, as long as she did what her father asked. Even her siblings were fair game, and though she rarely used her powers on them- usually, only after they used theirs on her, like when Five popped in near her unexpectedly, or Diego's knife flew a bit too close to her face- she did use them.It was no surprise that a growing teenage girl who, of all of her siblings, had always wanted most to leave the mansion, would take her power and use it to bend people to her will. -Allison has always wanted a child to raise as her own, despite the fact that she’s never had any urge to have sex. So when she's twenty five, she applies for an adoption and goes searching for someone to help her raise her soon-to-be child. All children need a father and a mother, right? After all, that's why Dad got Mom for Allison and her siblings.And so thus comes Patrick, a perfect father and husband who will kiss her and Claire to sleep.It's not a strange idea to her. She used her Rumor to get the job she'd dreamed of, the fame she'd wanted, the money and trip to L.A. A child and a husband, even one she doesn't exactly love like a wife usually loves her husband, are not that far out of her reach.-And then Claire came along, and years later the divorce, and soon enough Allison was left without a child or a husband and-And she realized, staring at the divorce papers, which spell out emotional manipulation and toxic relationships that she's fucked up. She's crossed a line that she never should have even gotten near.(Once, when she was a kid, she rumored Klaus into just shutting up after he wouldn't stop screaming after a training session with Dad. Once, when she was a kid, she rumored Vanya into forgetting something- what it was, Allison can never quite remember. Once, when she was a kid, she rumored her siblings into not worrying and crying when Five disappeared.Dad always called her a selfish child, and she's starting to realize that he's not exactly wrong.)Allison sits there, and she stares at the divorce papers, and she realizes that there is something wrong with what she's done- to Claire, to Patrick, to everyone she's ever Rumored. She's not sure what exactly she did was wrong, but you can't exactly be accused of emotional abuse and not have done something fucked up.So she signs the divorce papers, agreeing to visitation rights once a month- she loves Claire so much, but she's got to figure out what the fuck she's done- and acquires a therapist. Over the course of the next few months, this is when she starts to learn the horrible truth behind everything's she's done. This is when she learns to hate herself for what she did.
Allison is a mother and a sister and an actress and a superhero and a villain.Here is what she has to realize. She has to recognize that she fucked up, that she made the absolute worst decisions and ruined other people's lives just to advance her own desires.She can't delude herself into believing that what she did- controlling people's minds, forcing a man to love her, wiping her sister's memory- was anything a hero should have done.(Something she'll think about later, after all the chaos is somewhat over: Vanya's Apocalypse was an accident; Allison's manipulations were a choice.)-When she arrives at the mansion for the funeral, she's still a famous actress. She's still Allison Hargreeves, the cover of a dozen magazines and the headliner of a dozen more movies. She's Allison Hargreeves, sister of Luther and Diego and Klaus and Vanya (and Ben, and Five, but they're long gone, tragedies mourned only distantly by the remaining Hargreeves and certainly not at all by the rest of the world).But what she isn't is Allison Hargreeves, Rumor. She has sworn off using her powers. She can't be the villain of her siblings' anymore.All Allison wants to do is to make up for what she did, who she broke, the world she made that she shouldn’t have.-When Allison was a child, Mom told them all stories. They were the routine fairytales programmed into her, ones like Cinderella and Aladdin and Little Red Riding Hood, but the original ones, the ones with women who danced themselves to death in iron-hot shoes and stepsisters with their eyes pecked out by birds and mermaids who turned to sea foam.Allison always remembers the one about the Pied Piper, about the man who took a village's children away with his song. When she was a little kid, she always thought of herself as the Piper. She always thought that there would always be a way out, that she would always emerge as the victor of the story.(It's kind of telling that she never thought of the Piper as the villain of the story when she was a kid, but rather the hero, because she was the hero of her own story. It was only when she realized that she fucked up that she realized that he was the villain of the story, because she was the villain of her own.)Now, though, she is realizing that she was never the Piper, but one of those children led away by a man who would eventually destroy them. Dad was the Piper, leading them to their own destruction, and she was never anything more than one of those children listening to that destructive music.So now, she tries to be more than a victim or the Piper. She tries to do her best to make up for her mistakes and help out her siblings. She tries to help Vanya. She tries to get rid of Leonard.But she's forgotten the moral of her childhood stories. She's forgotten what it's like to be that child, to be led away, to be fooled rather than the one doing the fooling.It doesn't matter that Allison's trying to be a good person, now. She fucks up, just as she always does, because that's what villains do. That's what destroyers do.(That's what scared little children do. They go into the gingerbread house, run away from their puppetmaker father, don't get the prince to kiss them and make them human. They run and they cower and they fuck up, because they're children and they never learned how to be the hero of their own story.)-But then they get Vanya out of that room in the basement- and Allison may have fucked up, she may have had villainous tendencies, but Dad was far worse than she ever was.She has to remember this, as her family starts to recover and bond with each other. She has to remember that she's not the grand villain of this story. She's a victim just as much as they were-But the thoughts keep haunting her and drawing her up short. Allison used her Rumor against them, changed their memories, made them her playthings. She didn't love them in the way she should have until it was too late.-"You know you can't blame yourself," Vanya says, a few weeks after the Apocalypse, after Klaus has brought Dave back and their family is starting to grow into an actual family."But I'm the one who Rumored you all," Allison says, "I had a choice."Vanya sits down next to Allison on her bed. "Do you blame me for the Apocalypse?" Vanya asks, raising an eyebrow. Her voice stays its same quiet, nonthreatening self, but there's something about Vanya now that commands more respect than she did before. "Do you blame Luther?"Allison shakes her head. "It wasn't either of your faults. You couldn't control yourself, and Luther was still dealing with Dad's death and trying to find a way to protect everyone. He may have went about it all wrong, but I don't blame him for trying.""Then why do you blame yourself?" Vanya asks. "You Rumored me into forgetting because Dad told you to, and if you Rumored any of our other siblings because that was the only way you knew how to fix things as a child, then I don't blame you."Allison thinks about that damn Pied Piper again, about Patrick, about her own daughter. She didn't exactly stop using her Rumor as soon as she left the house. She didn't stop being that villain."You're beating yourself up, aren't you?" a familiar voice comes from the door, and she turns to see Five, dressed in a t-shirt and flannel pants. They're not the pjs he wore as a child, the same pjs he's been wearing for ages since returning, and Allison has to wonder who took him shopping. Or maybe if he went alone, who knows? Allison wouldn't put anything past him. But she is starting to understand his limitations, just a little bit better, from the time she's spent with him since the Not-Apocalypse.They went to the diner for the first time last week, the two of them and Diego, and they've got a second trip planned tomorrow. And Allison remembers why those dinners exist, how they started. Allison remembers the state she found Five in, the nightmares and the alcohol and all the murders he's dragged with him from his time travelling adventures into his life now.Maybe she's not the only villain here. "You're an idiot for doing that to yourself," Five continues, carrying the experience of fifty plus years, of a lifetime alone with his mind. "Trust me, I should know."And he does, she knows that. She knows that Five didn't take the Apocalypse well, spent forty years trying to reverse time and get back.One of the first things he said when he got back to their time was "should have listened to the old man." He kept talking about how he'd messed up the equations, how he blamed himself- even if he didn't realize it- for a lot of what happened. Five is fifty-eight-years old, but there is still something in him, some broken thirteen-year-old boy who arrived in the Apocalypse, saw their dead bodies, and never quite recovered.-Dave is perfectly charming, the perfect partner for her often wayward but caring brother. He is obviously in love with Klaus, absolutely devoted to her brother. He has a certain wide-eyed innocence about their time that makes it easy to forget that he fought in Vietnam, that Klaus didn't meet him in some peaceful cafe but in the middle of one of the most vicious wars in modern history.That perception of innocence is shattered, though, by the moment that fireworks go off nearby for St. Patrick's Day (the Irish Pub down the street gets really into the holiday, what can Allison say) and Dave grabs Klaus and yanks him behind him, raising his hands up as if pointing a gun at Allison's face.(And Allison is so, so thankful that Vanya's currently another room, that her self-control over her powers aren't being tested by Dave's sudden threat.)"Dave," Klaus says, voice shaking (because her brother, famous for his addiction and his laissez-faire attitude about the world, fought ten months in that war as well). "It's okay. We're not- we're not in 'Nam anymore."Dave swallows. "Right. Sorry about that." He lowers his non-existent gun from Allison's face, and she wonders about the war that did that do Dave and Klaus' minds, that gave them each other while tearing them from the lives they once knew. - Allison’s voice is never going to be the same, she knows it. Her throat has physically healed, but her voice will always have that little rasp, her throat that small ache that will always remind her of how destructive Vanya can be, without realizing it.But will her powers still work? She can’t be sure. She hasn’t tested them out since she swore them off.And she's not sure she wants to. She can definitely fight hand-to-hand, she's got her siblings' powers on her side (including Ben and Vanya's, nowadays), and she's been walking around with a knife in her heeled boots since the not-Apocalypse. She doesn't need her powers, and it's so fucking hard to avoid what horrible things she did with them. She doesn't want to know what she can do now.But she can't ignore the loss of power having no voice had given her. Removing the choice of being able to use her powers entirely had definitely set her on edge. (Allison knows that she's had the easiest life out of any of her siblings, and she knows that it has everything to do with her powers. It has everything to do with how she could make people do anything she wanted with just a word, could make them forget or remember things they never would have otherwise. But then she was made mute for a few weeks, and she suddenly understood what it was like to lack even the ability to escape.)She has the ability to use her powers again, with the use of her voice, but she doesn't want to feel hopeless again. When she'd lost her voice, she'd lost even the possibility of using her powers. She'd lost her way of communicating with her daughter, lost the ability to even perform her own job. She can't be that helpless again.So Allison spends the night Googling, and she starts watching ASL tutorial videos. She watches them for the weeks up until they go to visit Claire, trying to learn the grammar and the intricacies of the language. She's got a bit of a leg up when it comes to learning new languages- dear old Dad forced them all to learn English, Latin, and one other language of their choice (Luther went with German, Diego with Spanish, Vanya with Russian, Ben and Klaus both went with Mandarin Chinese, Five with Japanese, and Allison with Creole French), but there are a lot of aspects to sign language that are a bit more difficult to process. After all, you can't listen to sign language and thus have the audio to back up the words on page.But she has a goal that, for the first time that she can remembers, has nothing to do with manipulating other people or being selfish. It has to do with expanding people's understanding.Why did she want to become an actress? Originally it was to escape her Dad, to leave the Academy, to find her own place. To earn fame, to see her name in lights; that was the goal.But dig a little bit deeper, beyond the desires she had as a kid, the blinding lights of Hollywood enrapturing her eyes. Why did she continue?She likes helping to communicate a story to people, to give them a way to tell their stories. Her childhood fairytales, translated to screen, giving people the stories she loved and hated in equal measure. A way to tell stories and express truth, if in a fictionalized way.So this, learning sign language is a way to communicate better, a way to tell more stories, to talk to more people. It is a way to help people understand better, to give them another way to see things. -Allison always wanted a daughter because the person she idolized most in life was not actually Reginald Hargreeves, but her Mom.She was never as close with Grace as Diego was, she knows that. She spent most of her childhood wanting to get out of this place, not really focusing on who she was leaving behind. When she got out of the mansion, she tried to never look back at the place she came from.But when she thought, sometimes, about the past- the only part of her childhood that she loved was the time she spent with Mom, the small things that Mom did for her. The magazines left on Allison's bed, the small knit bracelet with the stars weaved into the pattern, the gold embroidery on the inner lining of Allison's jacket. They were all the reminders of the star that Allison aspired to be.So now, in the last few nights before they go visit Claire, before Allison sees her daughter again, she spends time with Grace. Allison ends up with Mom in the garden, working side by side weeding Mom's beloved flowers. Allison doesn't think she's ever seen Mom dirty before- Mom's always been perfectly neat, a picture of pressed lace and starched linen- but Mom seems pretty happy now, gloves in the dirt and an old pair of Allison's sneakers on her feet.Mom hums as she works, a tune Allison thinks she picked up from Vanya that she thinks is...wait, is that twenty one pilots? Alright, that one might have been Diego or Klaus, not Vanya. Well, whatever it is, Allison gets used to it, a nice background tune that makes it easy to just slide into the repeated motions of weeding.Eventually, though, the music is interrupted by Mom speaking. "The best thing I ever did in life was be your mother," Mom says, "But I must admit, it is nice learning to do things outside of you lovely children as well."Allison watches Mom's deft fingers yank out weed after weed and she nods, understanding all the reasons Mom wants to learn things outside of the Umbrella Academy, to become something beyond just what Dad programmed her to do.For a few minutes, they return back to blissful work. Allison really enjoys this sort of repetitive work, the sun on her skin, her hair pulled back and a tank top on. Though she's gotten to spend more time outside than Mom over the years, she's not really used to getting her hands dirty like this. Allison's pretty sure she likes it. "I also do love all the new family members I am getting to meet lately," Mom continues, "I knew you children would always get your happy endings."Allison learned how to tell fairytales from Mom. She learned to tell stories without regard to violent endings, to tell bedtime stories about battles and heroes and villains and unhappy endings. Claire is the heir to Grace's fairytales, gruesome as they were. Allison's fairytales have different characters in them- the children of the Umbrella Academy as the main characters- but they carry the same themes.(What makes a villain a villain? What makes a hero a hero? When both kill and hurt and die, both look for answers and try to save the things they love and reach for the things they want, where do you set the line?)Grace doesn't tell them fairytales about death anymore. Instead, with her programming readjusting itself in a near-organic way, she tells them the same kind of stories that would have given Allison hope as a child, stories where the princesses escape their dragons and dragons become friends with mice. She tells them the kind of fairytales that Allison always acted out in movies without really understanding them.She tells them stories with happy endings- a novel concept to the children of the man who raised them on warnings of the apocalypse."Someday," Allison says, "I want you to meet your granddaughter."Mom looks up at Allison, a happy glint in her eyes. "I would love to meet your daughter, dear."-The night before they leave, Vanya and Ben decide to drag everyone into a dance in the main hall. It turns out to be pretty fun, actually, with everyone trading out partners throughout the night.Vanya's mentioned once or twice that she has a song associated with each of them, and it seems like most of the songs that play Allison can figure out associations for as well. Right now the song playing is Nothing Matters When We're Dancing by the Magnetic Fields (but some new remix, Allison thinks it might have even come from some Netflix show or something or the like), which Allison knows for a fact has got to be Diego's as he had a hardcore Magnetic Fields phase (that he likes to pretend didn't happen) when they were kids.Klaus and Dave seem to be in their own bubble, dancing around in some style that seems rather old-fashioned, but to them probably seems pretty modern (or at least to Dave it does, and Klaus seems way too happy dancing this way with Dave). Diego is dancing with Vanya, and Luther with Five (which Allison wishes she could take photos of, because it's the most hilariously tense yet relaxed dance she's ever seen).Currently, Allison is dancing with Ben, who is certainly a far better dancer than she remembers him being at age twenty."Death did you well in the dancing skills realm," Allison says, and he gives her a wry smile."Didn't really help me in any other way," he says, and she feels just a pinprick of guilt. He's got a point there."Hope Dad's dance skills are forced to approve in the afterlife," she says instead, thinking of the Piper and the children dancing out of the town."Imagine him having to have fun," Ben says, and she tries, but she can't. All she can think of is Dad's stony expression and the time where Mom tried to get him to say goodnight to them but he didn't even look up from his work."Does it make me a bad person to say that I'm glad that he's dead?" she asks, looking at her kindest sibling.Ben looks at her, and looks at their siblings, together and happy for the first time in their lives, and he shakes his head. "No, I don't think it makes you a bad person."-The next day, the door to Patrick's house opens to Claire and Patrick, Claire in front, dressed in a pair of jeans and red t-shirt (Patrick's been doing a really good job of taking care of her) and Patrick behind her, quiet suspicion in his eyes.Patrick looks at them all over Claire's shoulders, probably noting the fact that Klaus is wearing one of Allison's skirts, Luther's giant stature, Diego's leather harness, Dave still wearing his army vest over top of normal clothing, and Five's continued insistence on wearing small suits on a constant basis. Ben and Vanya look pretty normal (easily hiding their least-ordinary powers), but it must look like Allison's brought the entire circus with her. "Claire," Allison says with a small smile. "I want you to meet your Aunt and Uncles."Claire's eyes and smile are wide as she looks up at the seven people Allison's brought with her, and for a moment Allison readies herself to explain who everyone is. But then her daughter- her wonderful, brilliant daughter, smarter than Allison ever was- begins to identify everyone."You're Spaceboy, Uncle Luther," Claire says, pointing at Luther first. Fair guess- Luther's a giant among men, with an unmistakable overcoat. Her face is screwed up in thought and determination as she keeps going. "You're the Seance, Uncle Klaus," she says, pointing to Klaus, who is wearing his army vest over top of a pair of ripped black skinny jeans with a number of necklaces dangling from his neck."You're the Kracken, Uncle Diego," she says, moving onto the next Uncle, and the number of knives still attached to Diego's vest even after Allison told him not to be conspicuous kind of gives that away.Then Claire's gaze narrows on Five. "You're The Boy. But you're gone!""I'm back," Five says, and to Allison's (increasingly decreasing) shock, the smallest of smiles grows on his face. "And I go by the name Five."Claire grins. "Uncle Five, got it!"Then she turns to the last three of them- Vanya, Ben, and Dave, none of which have any identifying characteristics (at least not any from Allison's stories). And yet, to Allison's shock, Claire keeps going."Well, you must be Aunt Vanya," Claire says, then leans in a bit, cupping her hand around her mouth as if about to share a secret. "I don't have any powers either, Aunt Vanya, so don't worry."Vanya smiles, her eyes growing a bit wet, and Allison nearly grins despite the fact that Vanya's powerlessness is kind of a thing of the past. She's so fucking proud of her daughter."I think you're the Horror, Uncle Ben," Claire says to Ben, "But you're dead.""Well, so am I, young lady," Dave says, crouching down in front of Claire and offering out a hand to shake, and Allison can see Patrick's eyebrows raising. "But your Uncle Klaus brought us back for a little while."Claire's face lights up. "That's awesome!"Ben nods. "That's what I said." Claire turns so that she's looking between Allison and Patrick. "Mama, Daddy, can they all come in and play for a little while?"Patrick looks at Allison, who gives him a small, hopefully reassuring smile. It is her weekend, but she understands his hesitance. She's never brought her siblings to meet Claire, and as far as Patrick knew the last time she saw him, Five was dead. And so was Ben.So yeah, this is probably a bit much.But Patrick nods. "Of course they can, sweetie," he says, and he smiles at Claire with such love in his eyes that it makes Allison's heart ache. Was that her? She doesn't think it was. She doesn't think she Rumored Patrick into loving Claire. She thinks that was entirely him, and she thinks that's why she let Claire almost entirely.(Allison knows she could Rumor him into not loving Claire. She knows she could Rumor him into giving Claire up, into staying married, into loving her.And if she was a different woman- if she was the woman Dad tried to raise her to be- she would have done it.)-It's only after Claire and all of her Uncles and Aunt are sitting in the living room, Claire keeping them enthralled with a story about, of all things, the invention of penicillin (her most recent hyperfixation, Allison is sure), that Patrick takes her aside to the hallway."Let me just tell you that I don't forgive you for fucking with my mind," Patrick says, expression firm but voice shaking just a little. "And the only reason I'm letting this happen is because Claire deserves to get to meet her Uncles and Aunts."Allison refrains from mentioning the fact that she does, technically, have visitation rights and instead just nods. Patrick has a fucking point here, and everything that she's been trying to do to help redeem herself means nothing compared to what she did to him and his mind."I understand," Allison says, because she does. She really doesn't deserve any sort of custody of Claire, not even visitation rights, after Rumoring her daughter. But she's selfish and she wants to see her daughter so she doesn't say a word. That's why she didn't say a word, during the divorce proceedings. "I want to make up for what happened," Allison says, "I've sworn off using my powers entirely. I haven't used them since the divorce."The shock in Patrick's face isn't a surprise, but it still kind of hurts even though she deserves it. "You do understand I can't trust you when you say that, right?"She nods. "Definitely understandable."He swallows, glancing into the living room, and she remembers how happy they used to be. She remembers that after Rumoring him for the first time (still unforgivable, that manipulation can never be excused, even if it only happened the one time), they had been truly happy with each other. She remembers the lovely dates, the cuddles on the sofa while they alternated watching their favorite movies (Harry Potter and Dreamgirls for her, When Harry Met Sally and The Departed for him), the trips to the zoo with Claire with Allison's hair wrapped up for a disguise.They had been a family, for what it had been worth. They were happy, though it was a false sort of happiness. Allison did loved Patrick, and she still loves Claire.(But what happened wasn't right, it was never right, and Allison has to accept that fact.)His expression is conflicted as he says, "Claire does miss you. I may hate that she doesn't understand what you did, but you are her mother, for whatever that was worth to you."Allison releases a long-held breath. "Thank you.""I don't trust you, you gotta know, but maybe...well, maybe you can come over a little more often." Allison's heart surges in her chest and she tries not to cry from happiness. She never would have expected this, but she doesn't want to ruin it. "Maybe twice or three times a month instead of just the once. Still supervised, of course, but just a little more. For Claire."She swallows and nods, not wanting to ruin this. "Of course. For Claire."Maybe she can prove to Patrick that she can be trusted, that she has changed. Maybe she can prove that she is no longer the villain. Maybe she can no longer be the villain.-After a few weeks, they all move back to the mansion. The decision is hard one, as it means she'll only get to see Claire every few weeks, but she's used to that. And it's also not something she can easily change without years of trust-building between her and Patrick.Something she can change, though, is making herself a better person. And she can do that by continuing to rebuild her relationship with her family.So they go home, but then Cha-Cha and Jack show up, and Diego develops powers, and Allison's dealing with a whole host of new problems and the proof that some of Five's theories about power upgrades aren't as crazy as she'd once thought.AS far as she can tell, Five's upgrade was the power to travel through time. Vanya's had to have been the ability to go from simply telekinesis to world-shattering destruction (and thank god they never had to see it in this timeline). Diego's is the ability to breathe underwater.As for the others, well. Ben- he's dead, so she's not sure if his abilities can grow if he's dead. And Luther- well, most of his body is not his original DNA, so the ability to upgrade might have been lost as well.Allison supposes that leaves her and Klaus, if Klaus' upgrade wasn't the ability to make ghosts go corporeal. Five's uncertain about that (which is driving him insane, not knowing the answers), but on the other hand, Five's theories on Allison's powers seem like they might be pretty rock-solid, though she hasn't tried them out yet because of that whole ethics-of-her-Rumor thing.Well, for now, she doesn't really have to focus on that whole thing. For a few weeks, Allison's life passes by without too much conflict. She continues to go to the diner with her brothers, continues to hang out with Vanya, telling stories, continues to garden with Mom, continues to shop with Dave and Klaus. She makes a life here at the mansion, the kind of life she never got here as a child. She makes her room and her family at the mansion something not to run away from, but to run toward at the end of the day.Things are tense, though, she can't deny that. They're waiting for another attack from Cha-Cha and Jack, and thought things seem calm, the fear of that attack is always at the back of her mind. She wants her family to stay safe.They made it through what would have been the Apocalypse- they've gotta be able to make it through this.-Then Cha-Cha and Jack grab Klaus and Allison while they're shopping one day, and when Allison wakes up in a random hotel room she finds Jack there, flint-eyed and hands raised over her and Klaus, who is writhing on the floor in agony. Not that she can't relate- there is sheer pain scorching through her joints, shredding through the points on her body she knows are her most sensitive pressure points. Her weak knee, the base of her neck, her hips- they're all on fire.She can barely think through the pain, but she knows that she's got to find a way to get the torture and the pain to stop. She's gotta use her powers, however she can.But then she opens her mouth and finds that no words can come out.Well, shit. Whatever Jack's using to hurt her and Klaus, to keep them incapacitated- it must be blocking her powers. (And it must be blocking Klaus' as well- that must be why Ben isn't here, using his monsters to save her and Klaus.Fuck, fuck, fuck. They're torturing Klaus and she can't do a fucking thing if she doesn't get her powers to work. She has to find a way to somehow access her Rumor. A way to bring the words about, to communicate her-Oh, shit. Allison's got it. "I heard a Rumor," her hand signs, her fingers creaking with pain as they move. The world bubbles in front of her hands. But this time, instead of stopping a few feet in front of her body, the force of her Powers keeps going and going until for a moment, the entire world seems to be held still in the sway of her powers. "That you don't have any way to hurt us."(Not that Jack forgot that he had a way to torture them, or even that she heard that he was stopping hurting Klaus- no, that he'd lost his abilities entirely.) Instantly Klaus slumps to the ground, sucking in gasps of breath, and Jack's gaze focuses on Allison as the breath returns to her lungs as well. He doesn't seem too perturbed by the loss of the weapons from his belt and whatever was hurting them, but she could be reading him wrong."So your powers have advanced, haven't they?" Jack asks, and Allison doesn't know how he knows about the powers-advancing thing. Klaus levers himself up from the floor, just a little bit, clearly still fatigued. She is, too, pain wracking her body as she moves. Whatever Jack did- the powers he somehow has, the tech he's somehow used- it's left massive damage."How do you know?" Klaus croaks."Your brother's not exactly casual about his theories," Jack says, gaze still unnervingly on target, expression still stone cold. Allison can feel the words on the tip of her tongue. I heard a Rumor that you were dead.She tried that once, as a kid, on one of her first missions. It didn't work then.But now- she feels that it just might. If Five's theories hold true- and when has her brother's theories ever not held true (save his transportation into a child-like body, but that's one fluke in fifty eight years)- then her words should have the power to bend physical reality around her.But should she? She's never killed a man before. Vanya, Five, Luther, Diego, Ben- they all have. But their powers are direct- hers are not. If Allison spoke it, she could decide how he died, but if she just said I heard a Rumor that you died, would that be ethical?Well, of course not. Killing people isn't ethical. That's gotta be the most basic rule of ethics ever.(But then again, that's never stopped her family before. And does that make them villains, too? Does that make them as bad as she is?)Then Jack raises his hand, something shiny and metallic and sharp in it, and Allison knows she doesn't have a choice.(Sometimes the villain becomes an anti-hero, saves the world instead of destroying it, and their morals are still shaky but they're doing better. Their reasons are better.)(Sometimes you have to kill a man to save the world. Or, at the very least, save the people you love.)"I heard a Rumor," she says, power rising in her throat as the knife flies, "That you died."-There was once a story about a woman who destroyed the world she lived in, who turned herself into the greatest weapon the world had ever seen. She killed her family because they couldn't show they cared about her, destroyed the mansion they lived in, created an Apocalypse that her brother had to survive for forty years.Her sister has a moment, here, to recreate that Apocalypse. She certainly has the powers to do so- she can speak anything into being, wield death and life with her words.But she won't. In this story, there are seven family members who would destroy the world to save their family, not one girl who will destroy the world to destroy her family.In this story, the Pied Piper puts down her pipe for her family and only picks it back up to defend them. In this story, the Pied Piper isn't a villain but instead just a woman, who under very different circumstances may even have become a hero.-"Holy shit," Klaus says, getting up off the ground. His every movement is labored, agony clear in the way his joints practically creak as they move slowly, but he's grinning. Allison thinks, distantly, that he really shouldn't be so happy about the corpse on the ground, but that's really the least of her problems. "You just killed him."Allison nods. "Turns out we all really do have some upgrades on our powers."Klaus nods. "Alright, then. We should probably get back to the house. Keep the others from freaking the fuck out."Allison realizes that since Jack somehow cut off Klaus' powers for a moment, Patch must have disappeared from Diego's side. Their siblings must have some idea of what's going on and are trying to save them.(Well, they're gonna be a bit late to the party.)"Should we get rid of the corpse?" Allison asks. "Cha-Cha'll take care of it, right?" Klaus answers, and she swears under her breath."Fuck, I forgot about Cha-Cha." She takes a quick glance at her brother, who is brushing off his clothes- his skinny leather pants, a purple silk button-down, and that now all-too-familiar army vest. The Army. Well, shit. Klaus was a soldier in Vietnam- not exactly a strategist, but not exactly unfamiliar with battle either. "What do you think she might have been up to while Jack worked on us?"Klaus shrugs. "I'm sure once we tell Five about the whole thing he'll probably take care of Cha-Cha himself."Allison's not sure she wants that to happen. She knows she can't really protect Five- he's an fifty-eight-year-old assassin with far more kills under his belt to her one- but that doesn't mean she wants him to go back to how he used to be. He's been doing pretty well nowadays, without being an assassin, without murdering people. Does she really want to put her brother back into that life again? She knows that he would have no inhibitions when it comes to taking care of Cha-Cha, but she doesn't think he deserves getting thrust into that violence again. She's seen his alcoholism and his nightmares- she really hates the idea of sending him back into that self-destructive state.There's really a simple solution, here- Allison could speak Cha-Cha into death. She could kill Cha-Cha as easily as she did Jack, could prevent Five from having to return to his assassin's ways.Can her Rumor work without a person to work on? She knows that it can now manipulate biology itself- can it manipulate space?(Does she want to try it? Does she want to risk sliding into villainy again? Can she handle being the Piper, for whatever that may mean? Can she handle the utter power her words now hold?)"I heard a Rumor," Allison says experimentally, ignoring Klaus' raised eyebrow. "That Cha-Cha was right in front of us.""Fuck, Allison-" is all Klaus can yelp before Cha-Cha pops into being right in front of them, a very conspicuous container of gorilla tranquilizer in her hands. Anger boils in Allison's stomach- there is only one reason she could need such a thing as gorilla tranquilizer- Luther. Cha-Cha was on her way to do to Luther what Jack was just doing to Allison and Klaus."How the fuck did you do that?" Cha-Cha asks, raising an indignant eyebrow, and Allison's kinda scared by her own power but is also kind of proud of it at the same time."You brought the assassin here?" Klaus asks, rather nonplussed by said assassin. Allison's pretty sure that's gotta be from his previous encounter with Cha-Cha that he told Allison about, the one in the hotel."I heard a Rumor," Allison starts, but she's not entirely sure how she wants to finish that. Does she want to repeat what she just did? Jack was attacking them- Cha-Cha is currently not doing anything. Self-defense doesn't apply here as an ethical defense.Allison is trying to be a good person, here. She's trying not to be a villain. She may have just killed a man, but she doesn't want to again.But she has to save her family, one way or another, and there has to be an answer for that. There has to be a way not to kill Cha-Cha as, despite her past crimes, she has no weapon in her hands right now."I heard a Rumor," Allison says, hoping that she can stop herself from continuing to use this power in anything but the most emergency of situations. "That you forgot you were an assassin."Cha-Cha's face goes slack and the tranquilizer container clunks out of her hand. She then keels forward and collapses, and well, Allison wasn't expecting that reaction to her Rumor, but it did the job.(And damn, Allison almost wishes that she'd been willing to use her Rumor before as it would have solved a lot of issues.)"Well, fuck," Klaus says, "Now what are we going to do with the bodies of two assassins?""Yeah, now Five can deal with this," Allison says, already feeling the leftover pain starting to drain away. A couple of Ibuprofen and the pain should be gone. Five and Diego can deal with Cha-Cha's unconscious body and Jack's corpse, and everything should be nearly back to normal. (She nearly laughs at that. "Normal"- she doesn't think anyone in this family has ever known what that word means.)"Let's call them and then go home," Klaus says, and she nods.- They all end up in the downstairs dining room that night, Five's precious coffee and Vanya's favorite brand of tea being passed around. For once, Five isn't complaining about people taking his coffee- instead, he seems almost relieved that Klaus and Allison are both okay.Though Klaus is smiling and joking like always, Klaus is pressed up close to Dave's side, hands intertwined on Klaus' lap. Klaus seems fine, but Allison has a feeling that tonight is going to be a night in which Klaus and Dave collapse into bed, curled around each other in comfort instead of sexual interest.Patch sits next to Diego with her boots in his lap, and Luther is currently talking to Mom and Pogo about something at the end of the table. Allison's sitting with Five on one side and Diego on the other, Vanya across from her. They're a chaotic mess, that's clear to see.It's not perfect, but it's family. It's a family that repaired itself after it was built broken by the man who created it. It's not a family of heroes or villains. It's just a family of children who are finally growing up.-(Outside, at the edge of the property, a small pile of rubble that sits where a statue of Reginald Hargreeves once stood. Jack the Ripper's body is gone, taken to a burial site by Cha-Cha, and Harold Jenkins' body is long ago cremated.The physical demons haunting the Hargreeves' family are gone. Now all that's left to do is to create lives for themselves.)-So Allison takes her cup of coffee from Five, gives him a smile of thanks, and then leans back in her seat. She is here, among family, and that's a plenty good happy ending to her. Three of the people here are dead, two are at least part-ape, one's a robot, one can't die, one once caused the Apocalypse, one spent half a lifetime being misgendered, one spent four decades alone in the Apocalypse, and Allison herself, well, she just killed a man.Some might call them monsters and villains and maybe even heroes, but Allison- she just calls them her family. At the end of the day, this isn't a story about how the Hargreeves siblings failed. This isn't a story about a woman standing alone at the end of the world, destroying everything because she has nothing left. This isn't a story about a Piper and the children who followed him to their doom.This is about a woman who was a hero who was a villain who was just a girl, trying to make what she could out of the world. This is about a family that finally stands together and refuses to fall together."Hey, Allison," Diego says, turning to face Allison just slightly, and she lowers her cup from her lips. He holds up his mug to her. "Good job."She clinks her mug against his. "Thanks," she says with a smile, and for the first time in her life she feels unconditionally proud about her abilities and why she's used them.Here's to the future of the Hargreeves family and whatever that entails, daughters and boyfriends and girlfriends and robot moms and ape butlers and powers growing and time travel and yeah, this life is never going to be normal. She's never going to go back to the quasi-normal life she lived with Patrick and Claire, without super-powered siblings and loved ones brought back from the dead.(And Allison has to admit that she kind of likes that.)"You think Klaus' upgrades will show up before Alyssa visits next week?" Vanya asks after taking a sip of her tea.Allison shrugs, looking down the table at her brother, whose smile is slowly growing back into its usual lazy confidence. Klaus is safe (enough) now, and who knows what's going to happen next week in regards to powers? With this family, anything can happen.Well, whatever happens, Allison's looking forward to it.The Piper is dead. His children remain, trying to find their own way in the world. And yeah, they're making mistakes, but they're creating a happy ending for themselves. And god, that's got to count for something.And if it doesn't, well- Allison's going to make it count for something.
And I'll build a fire, you fetch the water and I'll lay the table
And in our hearts, we still pray for sons and daughters
And all those evenings out in the garden, these quiet hours turning to years
And it's all to come, for now we're still young
We're just building our kingdom, but it's all to come
-Allman Brown