Who: Diego and Isabela What: A coincidence/random encounter/social engagement/errand. At best. Where: The Star of Bucks! When: 3.16. Status: Log, complete, hooray! Warnings: Language. As can be expected.
Isabela quite liked the tavern she was currently living above - it was a throwback to ye olden days of shared tables laden with stale bread and porridge, straw on the floor and body odour. Don’t forget the rat droppings in the whiskey! But sometimes, sometimes, she needed to venture out into the city - really see what was what, you know? For some reason, Hawke preferred the apartments with modern amenities - she’d been spoiled, she had, but Isabela supposed she could see why. Even if the pirate herself would be just as content living at sea, breathing in the air kissed with salt.
Right now was the time for one of those jaunts to the city. Jaskier had shown her the Star of Bucks, and recommended some drinks - she’d tried a couple, and her favourite was currently the caramel macchiato thing, because it was sweet and ballsy with that espresso and ooh. She’d have to think about what she wanted to try next, so she picked a table and waited, her journal beside her because she still didn’t quite like the talky boxes yet. She wore black leather pants and a corset top with tits-runneth-over (because the weather was decent now! No more cold and snow!), a blue handkerchief holding her hair back, the aroma of exotic perfume, cinnamon and red-hot, cutting through the scent of coffee and baked breakfast sandwiches.
If she got stood up, she’d be plenty upset but she didn’t think that would happen. No one had ever stood up the likes of her before (and lived to tell the tale).
Diego was about five seconds from standing up Isabela.
But, he didn’t. Not for any other reason other than his body might have been a temple, but this temple worshipped the altar of Arabica beans. Five was the one who was particular about his coffee--in a different time that didn’t involve them running from time traveling assassins and stopping the apocalypse, Diego had no doubt Five would have had one of those fancy machines with too many levers and switches and whatever frothed milk was. Klaus, meanwhile, was more the type of whatever the hell a unicorn frappuccino was, garishly bright and cheerful and definitely overloaded with sugar.
No surprise to anyone that Diego drank his coffee black as he could get it, with little concern about where the beans came from or how they had been roasted. Was it hot? Was it caffeinated? Good enough for Diego.
He could spot Isabela right away, there was something about everyone from “Anders’s” (Diego even thought the quotation marks, take that, “Anders” and you too, “Dan” with your fake sounding names) (okay, maybe Dan sounded significantly less fake but at this point in time Diego was committed and he’d die on the hill of “Dan is a fake name”) world that looked like they’d popped in straight from a Renaissance faire. Granted, there was a diverse blend of people here, so it wasn’t like that group stood out anymore than anyone else walking the street, but Diego could tell the leather wearing, pirate queen looking one was who he was looking for.
Diego Hargreeves did not back down from a challenge. Any resistance of “don’t do the thing, Diego” meant that he was going to double down and definitely do the thing--even if the resistance came from his own mind. Diego telling himself to not do something meant he was going to do it. Made perfect sense to him.
Coffee in hand he slid into a chair across from Isabela. “Hey.”
What a delight! Isabela assumed that there was some great internal waffling going on when it came to showing up (since he seemed uncomfortable), but she never claimed to be into men who were mentally sound. Mr. Knives here was probably no exception - but he certainly was nice to look at, all tall and strapping and carrying around loads of rage, so that would do just fine.
“Hello, love,” she grinned over at Diego, a flash of teeth so white they looked sand-polished. “So! What should I get? I want something sweet, but not too sweet. But not too much like dirt either because that’s what we’ve got back in Thedas and it’s awful.”
Antiva was a Thedosian nation known for its wines and also the coffee, but you know. She didn’t stay there very long, despite the place being forged thanks to the efforts of piracy - women were expected to be fair and delicate, and Isabela wanted no part of that nonsense.
“Uh,” Diego started, which was clearly not his most brilliant move and considering he had compared magic to Play-Doh, well. Diego never claimed to be quick on the wordplay. “Fancy coffees aren’t really in my wheelhouse. This is just black,” he said, with a nod down to his own cup. Black to go along with the color of his boring (according to Klaus) clothes and his soul (according to Diego). His was a life of spartan and utilitarian living. Back home he lived in the back of a boxing gym that had little more than a ring and weights you risked getting tetanus from, but the owner let him stay in exchange for working there and no one asked any questions about Diego’s nocturnal vigilante habit. Grace’s cooking had always been made with love, Diego believed she loved them as much as she could have, and so out of respect and love for her he ate her smiley face pancakes and whatever else she cooked up, but left to his own devices and he’d just as soon crack open a raw egg and down it. Salmonella be damned.
He was probably too stubborn to get it anyway.
“Get whatever’s first on the menu,” he suggested, with a shrug. “Who cares. You hate it, whatever. Shouldn’t offend them anyway, it’s your taste buds. Take it you didn’t have a Starbucks in wherever Thedas is?” A place with magic, no doubt. For someone who had grown up with a talking, fully intelligent monkey as a butler, a brother who could teleport, a sister who could warp reality by speaking a rumor, another brother who could speak the dead, another brother who could draw up Eldritch monsters, yet another brother who survived a gorilla transfusion, Diego who could whip knives around corners, and whatever it was exactly that Vanya was capable of, he wasn’t entirely sure why he was having a hard time with the magic thing. Maybe it was just that Diego, by his very nature, was suspicious of everything. Especially things he couldn’t see. At least at the Umbrella Academy, he could see his siblings using their talents, and it could be explained away with “something Reggie Hargreeves caused.” Magic was still an unknown factor to Diego, and as such, he didn’t trust it.
He didn’t trust anyone, or anything, but still.
Isabela laughed, a cheery sort of sound. “Oh, no, we didn’t have a Starbucks in Thedas,” she shrugged. “Didn’t have electricity or indoor plumbing either, like you lot have here. We didn’t have a lot of things.” Like any way to live comfortably, in safety - Thedas had problems, and depending on the region, the laundry list of ‘what was wrong’ tended to be miles long. Though in most circumstances, you could just describe it as a simmering pot of shit - keep the heat up, it’d boil, overflow and burn everything. That was just the way of things.
“First thing on the menu - living dangerously, hm?” Dark eyes glittered, like onyx. “Alright, I’ll see what I can do. You stay there - keep that attractively handsome bum in the chair.”
She liked chilly drinks best, she’d discovered, so went with the cold brew with salted cream cold foamy stuff or whatever - it looked like ale, though she was also a little fascinated with the way the coffee changed colour when the cream stuff was poured in; it looked like art. Triumphant, she brought it back to the table. One sip had her approving of this decision. “Oh, that’s delightful,” she sighed. But anyway, enough about her! “So, tell me aaaaaall about yourself,” Bela encouraged. “Are you married?”
Not that it mattered, really. She’d once freed a ship of slaves and nearly got her ass killed for it - safe to say Isabela fell under ‘I do what I want’ pretty regularly.
“Yeah, really dangerous,” Diego drawled to Isabela’s retreating form. “Might spell your name wrong.” See, Klaus and Allison might have made fun of the way he dressed, but there was Isabela wearing leather, it was entirely practical and--nooooooooooooooooooooooooooope his head swiveled right back around to stare daggers at the faux wood on top of the table while he took a gulp of too hot coffee.
He tilted his head in curiosity, examining the way the cream filtered and swirled slowly down through the darker coffee. But that was a stupid thought, and why people should just stick to plain coffee. Diego’s eyebrow, the one with the scar cutting straight through the last bit, arched high into his hairline. “No, Beyonce, no one’s put a ring on it,” he said. And then, belatedly, realized that reference would probably be entirely lost since Isabela came from a world without indoor plumbing. The Hargreeves seemed to have come from a slightly different time themselves, because even though it was 2019 where they were from, none of them used cell phones. But come on. There were some references that crossed universes. “Or whoever your world’s version of a multi-billion dollar singer is.”
Allison had been married and had a kid, and Claire was a cute little girl judging by the photos (not that Diego read that stuff, okay?). For a split second it seemed like she was going to be able to live the most ‘normal’ life out of the Hargreeveses, even though she was an actress in Hollywood. But then Patrick turned out to be a gigantic douchefactory and look, probably Allison was to blame too but you know what? You didn’t go around blasting your shit for other people to see right, Vanya? So screw Patrick. But oh no, Diego was the bad person for being a little bit suspicious of “””””Dan, short for Daniel”””””. Jesus Christ.
“Why, you got some…” uh. “Knight or...wizard, or,” yeah, Diego was really scraping the bottom of the barrel here. “Dwarf,” that seemed like a word. “Gremlin?” maybe not so much.
Bela sipped her newly acquired drink, tucking one knee over the other. She’d even left a nice little tip in the jar, though the barista seemed distracted by the ample bosom which she proudly displayed - if you’ve got it, flaunt it, and she certainly had it. “You were closest with wizard, sweet thing,” she said. “Dwarf’s not a bad second guess, I actually am best friends with one - he’s got a hairy chest and writes erotic novellas in his spare time. No gremlins in Thedas though, not that I know of.”
She didn’t know what a Beyonce was (mental note: look that up later) but she got the general gist of the statement anyway. “Tried it out - not the ring, specifically, but the whole thing,” she waved a hand, generalizing the concept known as commitment,”...he’s dead though. That’s the thing with do-gooders, you know? They’re so...self-sacrificing.”
A cloud slid over Diego’s face, Diego who didn’t exactly look approachable or warm to begin with. But this one carried something more somber and...thoughtful unlike the thunder and rage that normally was the precursor to most of Diego’s actions. Patch had died not that long ago, all things considered, and Diego hadn’t had much time to sit with the feeling. Not that he was exactly a ‘sit with the feeling’ kind of guy, he wasn’t. His immediate response had been to go kill Cha-Cha and Hazel, but somehow some boneheaded words from boneheaded Five got through to him and he didn’t. That wouldn’t have been what Patch wanted anyway. She believed in justice, in the good of people, in following the rules because the rules were valid and the right side always prevailed. She was beautiful, responsible, called Diego out on his shit, and even though they had been broken up for quite some time, they had remained close friends. It was one of those ‘in another time, in another place’ sort of stories.
He grieved for her, like he grieved for Grace. People who actually gave a damn about who Diego was, not Number Two of the Umbrella Academy. And if Diego was being honest with himself, Patch’s death fell on him, too. He was the one who pushed her to break protocol, he’d been the one to encourage her to go rogue, like he would have. If she had just waited for backup, maybe, just maybe she’d still be alive. Or not, the apocalypse would have still happened anyway.
“I’m sorry,” Diego said, after a moment. He actually meant it too, his tone not colored with sarcasm and snark, the same way he’d meant it when he sat in the car and talked to Klaus about losing Dave in Vietnam. “Always gotta be the good ones, you know? Meanwhile plenty of dicks, douchebags, assholes, and fuckfaces get to roam the planet for years and years with their dickery, douchebaggery, assholeness, and fuckfacedom.”
Good words, Diego.
Those were good words. Isabela was impressed. “Thank you,” she replied, tilting her head a bit, roses-are-red mouth twitching a bit on the uptick, like she wasn’t sure whether she should smile or not. It was a serious conversational turn but fuckfacedom sort of elicited a bit of a laugh regardless.
“It’s - well, it’s not alright,” she said, poking her straw ‘round in her drink. “But - he made his choice. Thought he was doing the right thing for the situation at the time. I’ve got to accept that. And I do,” Bela added hastily. “It’s just difficult sometimes, aye? I’m sorry about yours too - if, well, you sounded like you knew how it felt.”
The softened expression also tipped her off. She understood - and she hadn’t really talked about Hawke with anyone since arriving here, partly because there was a bloody different version of her dead manfriend and surely she’d just weird them all out by speaking about the Garrett Hawke she’d known and loved. This Hawke had Anders to go back to anyway, and Bela couldn’t pretend she wasn’t side-eying that. But anyway. It wasn’t so bad to talk about it now, actually. A somewhat healthy coping mechanism for once.
Diego shrugged, entirely uncomfortable with this sudden vulnerability. Receiving kindness wasn’t something that came innately to any of the Hargreeveses, weaknesses had been forced out of them. But for Grace’s simple, straightforward, constant love and devotion, even though she was an android, Diego might have been much colder and harsher than he was. It was easier for him to listen to problems but more importantly, solve them, than it was to have his own listened to. “No one can tell you the right way to grieve,” he said, gruffly. “So you do what you need to do in order to look yourself in the mirror, and sleep at night.”
He had an idea of what that meant for Patch--do good, seek justice, work on his anger. Ugh.
But for Grace, that idea was a little bit harder. Probably watch out for his siblings.
Double ugh.
“It happened not all that long ago,” he admitted. “So I’m still a little,” a gesture to his temple. “Cuckoo for Cooca Puffs, which you don’t get either. Thank God we have this weird alternate universe with magic and monsters and shit, huh?” Actually, the monster part sounded pretty good if only because Diego had never fully given up the ideals of justice and protecting others. Sure, there were plenty of people who knew how to fight, but sometimes, you just wanted to hit something as hard as you could and not think about it.
“Well that’s enough emotion time for the rest of the decade, you tell me something now.”
No, Cocoa Puffs wasn’t on Bela’s radar - but for that one too, the gist of the phrase was easy to pick up on. “It’s something you don’t ever get over per se, but - you learn to live with it. And you go on, I think, because humans are resilient fuckers. And become less Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs,” she grinned - it sounded strange coming from her, because Maker’s cock, what did it mean.
But oi, yeah, emotion wasn’t always her strong suit either - she’d gotten better, thanks to Hawke, but overall Isabela was more ‘ruthless pirate’ and less squish. “Something about me?” Slurrrrrrp, she sipped her drink, considering that. So dainty. “I’m Captain of a ship,” she said. “Well, I was. The Siren’s Call, was her name. And they called me the Queen of the Eastern Seas, the Sharpest Blade in Llomeryn - spent some time in jail, I did. All in various port cities.” It wasn’t like any jail could hold her for long though - ha, that was a laugh.
“What about you? Interesting facts?”
“You’re saying pirate?” The skeptical eyebrow made an appearance again. “Like, yo ho, rum, plank, sails?” God, Diego’s knowledge outside of pop culture and the weird survivalist stuff Sir Reginald had them listening to around the dining room table was slim. Ben had always been the reader of the family, and Five was way too smart for his own damn good with his equations scribbled up and down the walls. His eyes narrowed. “How sharp?” Because yes, of course that’s what Diego would focus on--mock away, siblings, but Diego had plenty of good arguments for the superiority of knives over other weapons. They mostly started and ended with him flinging one at an impossible angle and hitting an impossible target.
He leaned back in his chair, arms crossed. “Pretty sure anything interesting is already out there. Six siblings, four are here. We’re the family who always complains about our bullshit father and when we’re feeling especially like assholes, call each other numbers. Vanya plays music,” and that was better than saying ‘Vanya caused the apocalypse and tried to kill all of us’ so that seemed like progress, “Allison was magically healed,” insert quotation marks here, “By your friend, Anders,” about seven sets of quotation marks around his name, obviously. “Klaus has weird fashion sense, Ben used to be a ghost, now he’s a ghost with the internet. I fight, throw knives, hate everything. Don’t know how much more there is to know.”
Yep, that summed them up nicely, he thought.
“Ooh, right! Anders mentioned that,” Bela replied. “We didn’t always get along when we were traveling together but he’s a skilled healer, I will say that much. It’s difficult for mages to learn much of anything unless they go on the run. When they’re young they’re taken away from their families and to the Circles of Magi, which claim to be educational institutions but they’re really just prisons?” Thedas as a whole was afraid of mages - tensions between mages and Templars had always run high, but of course what’s-his-face exacerbated it by blowing up a chantry.
Still, Hawke had been a mage. She fought beside him, with him - for mages, for freedom. It felt good, at the time, to take a stand. She supposed. Even if she wasn’t a mage herself.
“And, ooh, I’ll show you my dagger of the Four Winds sometime,” she added. “It was reconstructed during a mission to free formerly cursed pirate ghosts. It’s got four jewels in it, really pretty. Really sharp.” She nudged Diego under the table with her foot, eyes twinkling. “Next date.”
“What a surprise, people are dicks everywhere,” Diego muttered. Because he did not want to empathize with “”””Anders”””” thank you very much. “”Magical healing”” or not. He also didn’t like the idea of having to work through the volumes and volumes of issues that came with being a Hargreeves, bought as babies, referred to only as numbers until Grace the android had more compassion and care than Reginald Hargreeves and gave them actual names, valued only for what they could do, constantly in competition with each other. Listen, Diego wouldn’t say that what had happened to Vayna was fair or good, but it wasn’t like the rest of them were living in some sort of paradise at the same time.
And now here they were, mostly all together.
Diego’s face wrinkled in disbelief, suspicion, and a whole lot of other emotions. “This is not a date,” he said, with a curl of his lip around the word. “You got coffee, I got coffee, we happened to do it at the same place at the same time. It’s bordering on coincidental.”
“Well, see, I’d call it a social engagement which is what a date is,” Isabela hummed, slurping up the rest of her drink. That was delicious, she’d love another! Though the caffeine buzz would probably have her unblinking and going out to steal a ship and sail it as far as possible before getting turned around again.
She propped the cusp of her chin in her hand, observing Diego with poisoned honey eyes, amber in the right light and often glinting with mischief. Now was no exception. “Oh, but you prefer the no strings attached sort of thing? Don’t call it a date, just skip right to the romp? I don’t really mind that, of course, but here I thought I’d have to woo you first.”
“You’re pushing it with errand, at most, maybe a random encounter, but even that’s too familiar,” Diego corrected. But the drier than the desert in a drought, biting tone Diego’s voice normally held was colored with something else. A little bit more humor than his regular go for the jugular way. His mouth twisted and twitched, as if it wanted to pull into something new, or at least, into something it hadn’t been used to in a while. Diego had built a fortress around himself, one of sarcasm and knives, and anger, and his own independence. There hadn’t been room for much else.
With a flick of his wrist, his coffee cup flew into the garbage can along the wall while Diego got to his feet. Sure, Diego was used to working with knives, but the principle of trajectory was the same for all thrown objects. “Rejection the second,” he said, holding up two fingers in front of him. “Good try though..” The two fingers went up to his forehead where he gave the approximation of a salute before turning on his heel. “See you around, Captain.”
Oh, come on - like Isabela wasn’t going to notice that Mr. Knives almost smiled at her, all genuine and not one of those smiles that was as fake as some of the tits around here (but hers were real, and she was proud of it, thanks). She sighed, casually leaning back in her chair and wiggled her fingers in a goodbye.
“You can count on it, sweet thing,” she replied and what was that saying? Hate to see you go but love to watch you leave? It fit so splendidly now.