vanya hargreeves | number seven (theordinaryone) wrote in thedisplaced, @ 2020-03-13 20:32:00 |
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Entry tags: | !log/thread, diego hargreeves, vanya hargreeves |
WHO: Vanya Hargreeves & Diego Hargreeves
WHERE: Diego's place at the back of the gym
WHEN: Backdated to before the cruise
WHAT: Diego thinks Vanya should learn to fight
RATING: Some talks to Hargreeves Family Drama
STATUS: Complete
As much time as Diego was starting to spend in the gym, it was clear to see that his life was tied into the backroom that had suddenly appeared along with him in Tumbleweed, Texas. Mementos from childhood, namely the cross stitch his mom had made, along with posters from fights, an early Umbrella Academy mask, and a ridiculous collection of knives, some on display, some not. But this was what Diego brought Vanya back to, with only mild hesitation. Vanya hadn't lived through the destruction of the manor the way the rest of the displaced Hargreeves siblings had, but the memory was fresh in Diego's mind and here he was inviting her into his personal space, knowing she was capable of destroying it in an instant. With someone else, this may have been considered an act of trust, but both of them knew Diego didn't actually trust anyone. This invitation was more out of convenience than anything else. "So. This is my place," he offered, stating the obvious. "Thought it would be better here, if things got out of hand or something." He offered her an apologetic shrug, but he wasn't one to shy away from honesty. The last place she wanted to be was a gym, but she also didn’t feel like fighting Diego on this either. It wasn’t worth it. She was a little thrown off to follow him into the back though, and that was probably written on her face as she looked around his place. It wasn’t somewhere she’d want to stay herself, but she wasn’t surprised Diego wouldn’t be at the house. “You know this gym is designed to withstand powers, right?” She wasn’t sure that would help the gym in her case though. Besides, if things go out of hand, she didn’t think being in the back of the gym instead of the main area would make a difference. “...whatever you’re comfortable with, I guess,” since she didn’t want to be here either way. "That's what I hear," Diego replied. He hoped that included his new addition somehow. "You want anything to drink? I have water…" That was the extent of it, so it was water or nothing. He went to get himself a bottle and got her one as well. "Believe it or not, I was more concerned about you than the gym. I would hope things wouldn't get that out of hand." A pause. "You really don't want to be here, do you?" He did want to see if things between the two of them were as cool as she had suggested, because he didn't necessarily believe it. He wasn't sure he was as fine as he was acting, but they did need to find a way to exist in the same place. And he was trying, in his own way, to make that happen. “No I’m good.” No water required, she didn’t think any water would make her feel less awkward. “Concerned about me how?” She didn’t quite get why he was concerned about her when it would be the gym that was more in danger. Vanya shrugged her shoulders, taking her bag off of her shoulders as she did. “I’m not...a fighter,” she said looking around the room, and pretty much anywhere he wasn’t. “Dad leaving me out of everything aside, I saw what the life was like with you guys. I don’t want it.” The superhero life had destroyed their lives. If all of their existence hadn’t been based on being extraordinary enough for their dad, Vanya’s thorough education and lack of involvement in fighting might have actually put her in a good place in life. "Unwanted attention?" Diego asked. Sure, she hadn't cared so much when she was destroying the world but again, he hoped it wouldn't escalate that quickly. "Yeah, well Dad had a fucked up way of doing things," he replied. Five had disappeared, Ben had died. Fighting wasn't the issue, their father was. "Seems like it would be good to know how to fight in a place like this, but if you really don't want to, I'm not going to make you." Even though Vanya wasn't looking at him, he was looking straight at her. "Have you practiced your powers to where you know you can control them if you did need to use them?" Shaking his head, it was still wild to think about. A week or so ago he'd have still said Vanya didn't have powers at all. Then she'd managed to blow up the moon. And now she was somewhere in the middle of those two things, cognizant of what she could do without having experienced it the same way he had. If he wasn't going to teach her to fight, he still had questions. Vanya shrugged her shoulders, “I don’t think anyone is going to pay that much attention. But maybe.” He had a point, she knew it. It would make sense for her to know how to fight, especially if their powers stopped working. She knew that could be the case. “The school I work for is originally a school kind of similar to the one dad tried to make. Only less horrific. They have rooms on campus for training with powers. I’ve been working on them there.” She thought she had been doing well, until the zombie incident. “I’ve made progress but...during the last attack in Tumbleweed some people got hurt.” "Trust me, Vanya. Even in this weird-ass place, you do what I know you can do? People will notice." Diego nodded, even if he didn't know about the school at all or if he thought less horrific wasn't very descriptive considering how horrific their father was. But then she mentioned people getting hurt and he raised his brow, waiting for further explanation. When it didn't come, he prompted her along. "Yeah? What happened?" She clasped her hands in front of her, eyes dropping to the ground uncomfortably. “Maybe.” she said with a shrug. “There are people way more powerful than me here.” “There was a zombie invasion,” she said, still mostly staring at the ground. “It was straight out a horror movie. The town was overrun.” it was not an experience she ever wanted to live through again. “They made it to the house and I tried to stop them.” she technically did stop them. “Five got hurt falling down the stairs. Though he might have just been drunk.” she said with a shrug. “But one of Five’s friends was living with us at the time and she got...caught up. She’s okay, but she was unconscious for a while. She didn’t come back to the house after that.” This was the second time one of his siblings had mentioned regrets about the zombie apocalypse, all the while Diego was having a hard time wrapping his head around the fact that there had been a zombie apocalypse at all. And regret wasn't something he dealt with well. Oh, he had his own regrets, buried deep within him, hopefully to never ever surface again. That was the healthy way to deal with such matters. Anger and bitterness? Those were emotions he understood. So maybe he wasn't the best equipped to help his sister right then, and for a moment he was lost. "Alright, over here," he said, moving to the most open area in his place. "I'm going to show you a few things, at least." Even as abrupt as that was, Diego wasn't trying to dismiss what Vanya had told him. It was just his own weird way of trying to deal with that new information, coupled with trying to deal with her, and the Vanya he'd most recently witnessed before arriving here. He was trying. Well. Okay then. That had gone nowhere. She probably shouldn’t be surprised about that. It was never like Diego was one for feelings, or comfort, or emotions in general, and he hadn’t even been drugged. So she followed him to the open area, dumping her bag and jacket on the ground by the wall. She planted her feet in the open area, and then looked up at him questioningly. Did she look about as tiny and squishable as she felt at that moment? Yeah, she had her powers. But without them she was back to being very small, and not metaphorically. Physically she was tiny, and had zero idea what damage Diego expected her to be able to do. “You do get that I am barely over five feet and barely over a hundred pounds, right?” "Core strength, Vanya. At your height, anything I do risks putting me off balance. And if I look at you, I'm going to underestimate you. Like we all did. For years. So keep that in mind when you think you can't fight back without powers." He dropped all of that casually, because he had to. But for a moment, he looked at her, acknowledging that part of their history, clearly trying to make up for a small part of it. "Plus you can channel what you're feeling into this too," he offered. "Only way I got through childhood." Nodding, he asked, "So you ready?" Core muscles. The most developed muscles on Vanya were the ones that she engaged for playing the violin. Everything else was not much of a concern. She walked a lot of places, maybe that helped. Power she knew she had. Just not physically. “Seriously I doubt there’s anything I can do against someone like Luther. He knocked me out by hugging me.” Or pretending to, but it didn’t take much. Even if he was apparently part monkey now. The only way she got through childhood was her music. “Uh, if I told you to channel what you were dealing with into music instead of fighting, would you be ready?” She didn’t even know how she was supposed to stand. “Sure?” "Okay but Luther is the exception not the rule," Diego pointed out even though he got caught up in what she said next. She continued speaking, but he was held up at the idea of how their brother had subdued her. "Wait, Luther did what?" he asked. "Is that how you ended up locked up?" He could picture it, their brother who hulked over him, much more so Vanya, acting like he cared and using that as a ruse to knock her out. The fact that it hardly took his imagination bothered him, and he looked at Vanya, alarmed. Not that she might react, only that her trust had been abused in such a way. “...yeah, he…” she paused for a second trying to find the right words. “I came home after Allison and Leon-” A pause. “everything. To try and explain, to maybe get help. He told me she was alive, but I couldn’t see her because she was resting. I asked if I could wait there. He said of course I could, because it’s my home, and he knew I didn’t mean to….hurt her.” And she really, really hadn’t. It had all happened so fast. “So he hugged me, and then just…” choked her out with his arm. “I woke up in that cage.” If he showed up here, she didn’t know if she’d ever trust him again. “Anyway, I’m just saying, the only thing I know about fighting is what dad had me write down about you guys, and I’ve forgot most of that by now.” "Alright. Let's fix that," Diego said, then proceeded to walk her through a half dozen exercises, showing her how to fight back and use her height to her advantage, or maybe an attacker's height, against them. Either or, his goal was simply to show her it wasn't impossible, that she could fight back if she kept a cool head. Maybe not against Luther, but he could barely go up against Luther even if it pained him to admit it. Also, if he was fighting Luther he most definitely did not have a cool head. And this wasn't a direct response to what she'd told him about what Luther did, but it was him responding as best as he could while keeping emotions at bay. Because who wanted to deal with those, especially as conflicting as they were. But after that series, he did place a hand on her shoulder, avoiding a hug as he tended to do that anyway, but especially given his asshole brother's use of one. "I'm sorry," he said, though it was probably unclear to her by now what he was actually apologizing for. Vanya really had no idea what she was doing. She did her best to follow along with him and do what he instructed. Some of it was familiar from their childhood when she would record stats for their dad, but she had no idea how she was supposed to remember all this. She wasn’t, she knew that. If she was going to get this she was going to have to practice, just like she did with music. She understood what he was trying to say some of the time, she could kind of see how she might sometimes have an advantage, but for the most part she was pretty sure she was screwed if it came to a physical fight. But she would try. His apology caught her off guard, and she looked up at him with a confused expression. “For what? I’m fine. It wasn’t that painful.” "Luther," Diego replied flatly. And then he relented more. "And for the fact that I didn't fight him on it." Apologies weren't really his thing, because Diego really hated admitting he was wrong. But the way Luther handled things was even worse than he thought, and he owed his sister at least that much. Of course, this entire lesson was part of that apology, but Diego had learned over time that sometimes things needed to be said. Even if he struggled to say them. Oh, that. Yeah, awkward. Each time a new sibling arrived, or a sibling with no previous memories of this place arrived, this conversation or something along the same lines seemed to be happening. “Yeah, it...sucked.” she said with a shrug. “But it’s been a year for me and I just...want to move on? It’s easier here, usually. So maybe if we could just start again?” A clean slate was asking for a lot, she knew that. She had reasons to not trust him, he had reasons to not trust her. But they were in an alternate universe and hanging onto it was not doing them any good. It's been a year… That still messed with Diego's head, and he was silent as he moved away from Vanya, staring at her. "You do know I'm not going to get over how insane that is, right?" he asked. "But sure, we can move on. I wanna go through all of that again just for repetition anyway." |