The past is never dead.

[umbrellahandle]

This post is for anyone that wants to play out or post any established backstory for their characters. It is grouped by the development stage of the 43, but is open to anyone wanting to play in these time periods.  Please indicate in the subject line or the post itself if it is a ficlet, open to others, or closed to a few.

Childhood [1989-2001]
Childhood trauma does not come in one single package.


Teenage Years [2002-2007]
It's difficult to decide whether growing pains are something teenagers have or something they are.


Young Adult Years [2008-2018]
I can't go back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.


Timeline Estimated Timeline based on the Netflix Show.

• October 1, 1989 - 43 women around the world give birth simultaneously, despite none of them showing any sign of pregnancy until labor began.
• October 1989 - March 1990 Eccentric billionaire, Reginald Hargreeves, tracks down and adopts 13 of these children and establishes the Umbrella Academy.
• 1993 - Reginald Hargreeves develops and creates Grace to be "Mom" to the Umbrella Academy.
• September 2002 - The first exposure of the Umbrella Academy as superheroes to the public. Reginald Hargreeves selects Team A for a mission to stop a bank robbery.
• Also September 2002 - Number Five vanishes.
• 2007 - Ben Hargreeves is killed while on a mission. Shortly after, Diego is the first to leave the Umbrella Academy.
• 2014 - Vanya Hargreeves writes a tell all book about the Umbrella Academy.
• 2015 - Luther Hargreeves is gravely wounded while on a solo mission and administered a primate serum to save him. Shortly after he leaves for a long-term mission on the moon.
• February 2019 - Sir Reginald Hargreeves dies under mysterious circumstances. Number Five returns saying that the world will end in twelve days.

Comments

[duelo]

While he doesn't necessarily expect his brother to look up at him, it still stings a little when he doesn't. It doesn't hurt Derek's feelings so much as he hates knowing that Diego's suffering so much that he can't even be bothered to visually acknowledge Derek's arrival. His expression shifts, brow creasing in the center with empathy even as he huffs a soft, humorless laugh and nods when Diego finally does look.

"Least I can do," he replies simply, taking another drink. If he's going to get trashed, he shouldn't have to drink alone and Derek's the ideal drinking partner because he doubles as a designated driver. No matter how much he drinks, it never seems to touch him. Only that one time when he'd been sixteen and he had a few one night, he'd been down for the count, drunk as a skunk. He still doesn't know why it was just that one night and only for a few hours. It doesn't really matter. He remembers that he'd felt it coming on and if he starts to feel it today, he'll nurse the one he's got until Diego's done. "You'd go broke paying for mine," he points out with a smile that falls a little short of his eyes.

It sucks not being able to change anything or make Diego feel better. He knows how hard Diego worked, but some part of him must have known. Derek had. Derek had always known that Diego wouldn't make it as a cop; he hates bowing to other people. Hates taking orders. Derek can't blame him. He'd never tried to stop his brother or give him any reasons not to try, though, because hey...Derek could've been wrong.

He wishes he had been.

For a long moment, Derek's quiet, then, drinking in solidarity and silence. Diego doesn't want to talk and Derek can't think of anything to say that isn't a question, so he just doesn't say anything at all. When the pause in conversation has drawn out for several minutes, he knocks back the rest of his beer and motions for the bartender to serve them each another.

Finally, when the new drinks are placed in front of them, Derek looks over at his brother again. "You could help me get my business off the ground," he offers. "Flipping houses. You'll love the demo step," he adds. The smile still doesn't reach his sympathetic eyes. "Blowing out walls is cathartic."

[throwsknives]

Diego snorts into his beer when Derek says he'd go broke paying for his drinks. He's not wrong, and not only because Derek is a heavyweight when it comes to alcohol. Diego's more than broke. Everything he had, he'd put into this being a cop thing. He could always go crawling back to Hargreeves, but he'd rather sleep on the street first.

He drinks his beer quickly enough to keep pace with Derek and nods at the bartender when they put another one in front of him. He takes a long sip. He should be pacing himself, but now that Derek's here there's no point. He knows he'll look out for him if he gets shitfaced and that's the plan. He would've gotten shitfaced whether or not Derek came or not, but now that he's here there's an added level of need to do it as quickly as possible.

"You mean come and work for you?" Diego looks over at Derek with a smirk and shakes his head. "No thanks." He can't look at him long, that sympathetic look in his eyes pisses him off even though he knows it has no right to. He tries to shrug off the defensive walls rapidly coming up around him. "Though if you want some of those walls blown out for free let me know. I could throw a hammer around."

[duelo]

"No," Derek replies, frowning, his brow creasing slightly. "I mean come work with me. We could be partners. Fifty-fifty. I know it's not the same, man, but it's something and it'd be more fun than going this alone like I'm trying to now," he points out. Yeah, Derek had to buy the first house and he's on the second one, now, but he'd made an okay profit on the first house. He can afford to let Diego go halves without paying in his part of the partnership for a while.

Even as he says it, even as he thinks to himself how much fun it could be to start a business with his brother, Derek already knows that Diego will only double down on the negative response. He'll see it as charity, even when Derek doesn't think it is. He'll see it as pity when it definitely isn't.

"Any time you want to help out on demo day, you're welcome to it," he says, letting the subject otherwise drop. If Diego think he's going to do it without getting paid, he has another thing coming, because Derek pays anyone who helps him out, but all the same. He would welcome the company.

He looks over at his brother and watches as he drinks, deciding it's probably time for him to set the pace and Diego doesn't really disappoint. Derek keeps pace and prepares himself mentally for what he's pretty sure is going to end up being an exhausting night. Whether Diego's drunkenness takes him to dark and angry places or dark and brooding places, Derek is going to have to pick up the pieces — which he's good at — and put them back together again — which he's not as good at. If he does a decent job, he won't see Diego again for a while. If he does a terrible job, God only knows when or if he'll see him again and Derek sees so little of his siblings as it is. He can't really afford to mess this up.

[throwsknives]

Diego can hear the push in Derek's voice, can tell that he really means it when he invites him to be partners with him, but his brain shuts down the idea immediately. He hadn't been cut out for the force, what makes Derek think he's cut out for this? He can see all of it going downhill way too fast. Derek starting to resent the brother who couldn't carry his own weight. Who had to sleep on his couch for months before getting his shit together. As much as he knows Derek is one of his few siblings he's capable of working seamlessly with, he also knows that he doesn't want him to see him pull his life together again after this magnificent failure. He takes a deep breath and shakes his head. "Maybe it's being thrown out on my ass, but something tells me that this whole normal life thing isn't going to work for me."

Still, it means something that Derek offered, even if he can't accept it. Derek has always been one of the softest of them, even if he pretended that he was just as tough as the rest of them. He'd been kind when the others hadn't. He'd stood by Diego even when he was being an idiot. That kind of loyalty meant something, even if Diego wasn't in a place to thank him for it right then. Or maybe ever. There was a reason Derek was one of the few siblings he actually stayed in touch with.

"Yeah, give me a couple of beers and I'm there." He lets it drop also because he knows Derek won't understand his stubbornness and he's not going to point out that Derek doesn't really need him to succeed. They both know that on their own. He'll probably make a few bucks boxing Friday night. People will pay to see a Hargreeves go slumming. He won't lose a game, but he will take a punch or two if it means more money to get a place to sleep.

"How's business anyway? You meet any girls or just plumbers with big cracks?"

[duelo]

As much as he wants to; aches to, Derek doesn't push the point any further. He doesn't hide the disappointment in his voice even though he tries to hide if from his face as he looks down and nods. "You gotta do what's gonna work for you," he agrees almost begrudgingly. He wishes that Diego would try, because maybe he could still do what he wanted to do off on his own in his downtime, but he'd have a steady income without some asshole breathing rules down his neck. Derek likes to think that he's a pretty chill boss, anyway.

Derek shrugs a little to answer the question, taking a sip. "Not bad. But no, I haven't met any girls unless you count the stylist. But that's not really what you're asking, I'm pretty sure, so no, I'm still not getting laid," he replies with a small smirk. He has a handful of siblings who always want to know about that; whether he's seeing someone yet, because out of the lot of them, he always seems to be the one that stays out of the dating scene entirely. Sometimes he misses the sex, for sure, but it's just easier not to get all tangled up in that nonsense; he always gets hurt.

Taking another drink, Derek lifts his eyebrows. "What about you?" He wants to ask about Eudora but he doesn't know if that's still a thing and the last thing he needs to do is unwittingly kick his brother when he's already down if it isn't still a thing.

[throwsknives]

Diego snorts as he takes a sip of his drink, shooting Derek an amused grin. That's exactly what he was asking. He's disappointed by his answer, though he knows Derek's never been Luther levels of virgin, he's also not as free as some of his other siblings. "Why don't you and the stylist take your working relationship to one with benefits?"

He's teasing, but it could be an option that Derek hasn't considered. He's the more chivalrous out of all of them and Diego knows for a fact that taking things from all business to all bedroom can be one hell of a nice trip. "It's good to have someone you got things in common with to come home to."

He sighs and takes a long drink of his beer. "I got 99 problems, but that ain't one." He grins but it doesn't come close to reaching his eyes. "Who needs that anyway, right?" He shrugs and takes another drink. "You're probably better off on your own."

[duelo]

Derek laughs a little in spite of himself, nearly choking on the mouthful of liquor he's just taken from his glass. With a cough as he swallows it, Derek rolls his eyes and shakes his head. "That's not a great idea. I need her. If...nay, when I fuck it up, inevitably, then I'll be out the last step of my business model and then I wouldn't sell anything."

Another laugh escapes him, this one more hollow and dry. "If I wanted to come home to someone I had things in common with, I'd just rent a two bedroom and live with one of you guys," he points out. "It gets messy. I always fuck it up, anyway. It's better like this."

Taking another drink, he nods a little and motions to the bartender for another round as he sets his empty glass back down. "You know, she'll come back around. I have a feeling," he says, keeping her name out of his mouth because Diego almost definitely won't want to hear it right now He knows Eudora a little, but his werewolf nose knows her enough to have read the chemosignals when she'd been around the few times he'd run into them together. She loves Diego. So, Derek shrugs a little. She'll be back. For now, more drinks.

"You know it would be costing me a lot less money if we just hit up a liquor store and went back to my place than staying here, right?" he asks, although part of him thinks that maybe that's a portion of the allure of being here. Spending someone else's money is always better than spending one's own. If he were DIego, he'd be taking full advantage of it. Getting kicked out of the Academy has earned him that, today, at least.

[throwsknives]

As far as he can tell Derek's not the one that fucks things up. The last maniac he'd fallen for had been hellbent on taking them all out and that had been one of the tamer girlfriends all of them had had. "Nah, you just haven't met the right kind of woman yet."

He ignores the comment about Eudora, knowing full well who he's referring to and decidedly choosing not to even go there. She's the last thing he wants to talk about right now. He can still see that mournful disappointed look she'd given him when he'd been packing his shit. Who was he kidding? Even she'd seen him fucking up coming from a mile away.

"You're right," Diego says, picking up the beer the bartender just put in front of him. He chugs it down and sets it on the bar before pushing himself off the bar stool. "Let's go."