~☂︎~
DAY FOUR
While Luther and Allison were coming to terms with the unsettling fact of your disappearance, the pessimistic gang---Diego, Lila, and Five, found something equally unsettling.
Their mission after successfully sneaking into the exclusive gala, was to locate their father, and bring him back. As Diego had put it, "get it in, get out." And once the get in part was complete, their eyes were peeled for a younger but still old version of Reginald Hargreeves.
"I don't see Dad anywhere," Diego commented. Standing in the middle of the reception room, the trio tried not to stick out with their last-minute party outfits, of course the school boy uniform wasn't helping.
Five's eyes scanned the room as he sipped on a glass of champagne. The judgy looks of old money families wondering why a boy was drinking weren't going to stop him from getting mildly drunk.
"Just keep an eye out for the Majestic Twelve," He replied.
As they had found out hours earlier, the Majestic Twelve were a shady organization composed of twelve rich men of America, notorious for committing rumored crimes. And the Majestic Twelve member named Hoyt Hillenkoetter was hosting this gathering of the rich at the Mexican Consulate.
"I got the upstairs," Five gestured to the grand staircase at the edge of the room. "And Diego, try not to do anything too stupid."
With that helpful advice, Five split off from the group, leaving Lila and Diego alone.
"Oh," Lila's attention was immediately caught when the music changed, "they're playing our song." Grabbing Diego's tie, and taking a last swig of her champagne, she preceded to drag him onto the ballroom floor.
Wrapping herself in Diego's arms, the two of them began to waltz to the Mariachi music. It was lovely, the way that Lila fit so well into Diego's grip. The way the two of them flowed effortlessly together with the music. And staring into Lila's eyes, Diego could almost imagine he was in love. Almost.
"Someone's got moves," Lila teased with a smile as Diego spun her in a circle.
"My father insisted on ballroom dances," he muttered, his focus a little too caught up with the sight of her.
"One never knows," he began to mock Reginald, "when the paso doble will be the difference between life and death, children."
Lila smiled as Diego dipped her, "My mum used to say something like that."
The almost lovebirds continued the next few minutes with their "comfortable" paso doble, that is until a certain woman on the other side of the party caught Diego's eye. Even through the bustling crowd, he'd recognize her face anywhere. Especially with that hairstyle.
Lila felt Diego's grip slacken before he was completely frozen on the dance floor. What now? She followed his line of sight, barely catching the face of the beautiful women through the crowd.
"Well, you are easily distracted." She commented, slightly amused.
"It can't be," the shock festered in him as he ran through the possibilities. There was no way in hell. Of all places, of all times.
Diego mindlessly started to walk toward her; Lila left forgotten as he pushed through the crowd. There in the room by the staircase, standing in a classy dress, her hair elegantly tied up. She turned around, and Diego was hit with a deeper sense of surprise.
"Y/n?" He whispered.
They had been looking for you everywhere. Everywhere. Diego had never found Five more annoying than he had these past four days with the boy's obsession in finding you as soon as possible. And here you were, at a fancy little party, mingling with the rich, looking as if you were one of them. With all the Umbrella Academy's fates after getting dropped in the sixties, yours had to be the best.
"Y/n!" He repeated your name again with a little more urgency, trying to catch your attention. He tried not to question why you weren't you 13-year-old self, but a grown ass woman, and a beautiful one at that too, but this was all a little overwhelming to him.
As your head turned, Diego thought he would finally get some answers, but what he got was even more questions. Your face lit up in a smile as you were greeted by a wealthy looking man.
". . .What?"
Greeting was putting it to innocently, the man approached you, wrapping his arms around your waist before pulling you in for a kiss.
A kiss.
A kiss.
Shit, well Five was not going to like that.
Diego took a step forward, attitude flaring, ready to confront you. But he was shocked into stopping when a young girl came around the corner, also embracing you, the word Mother on her tongue.
Shit.
He spun the opposite direction faster than a professional salsa dancer, "what the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck."
Diego's mind was racing as he sped walk his ass back to Lila.
"We need to find Five and get the hell out of here."
But get the hell out of there, they did not. Instead, they found themselves ambushed upstairs by some platinum haired freaks who were trying to kill them. Five, Lila, and Diego managed to fight off the assassin's, narrowly escaping outside and into the midnight grassy lawn. They leaned up against the stone wall, catching their breaths. Lila particularly cursing, because her heels did not help during the fight.
It was then when Five saw the familiar silhouette of his father about to get into a limousine. He stumbled forward in a rush, without even thinking the ancient Greek that had been drilled into the Umbrella Academy's brains growing up spilled out. Sentence after sentence he spoke as he rushed forward, until Reginald finally looked back in curiosity.
"Reggie? What are you waiting for?" The southern accent of his date, Grace, shook Reginald out of his trance. With a smile he got into the car after her, trying to shake away the thoughts of the strange boy that spoke ancient Greek.
Five watched as the car left, a feeling of hopelessness washing over him, all that fighting and they had failed to accomplish their task. Again.
At this rate, the world really was going to end.
Diego and Lila finally caught up with Five, standing next to him as they watched the limo drive away.
"Was that him?" Diego assumed.
"Yeah," Five muttered.
~☂︎~
DAY FIVE
"No, no, no, see I-I don't understand!" Diego aggressively paced back and forth. "They keep following me!"
"Wait, who?" Luther asked, preoccupied with frying up 25 five eggs in a skillet.
It was mid-morning in the kitchen of Elliot's tv place, and what would've been a peaceful morning was interrupted by the ramblings of Diego Hargreeves, although at least this time it wasn't about J.F.K.
Diego threw his hands up in frustration, "those Dutch sociopaths!"
Five, leaning against the door frame with his coffee, peered his eyes at the rambling man, "They're Swedish, you idiot," he scolded, "hired guns paid to eradicate us before we do anymore damage to the timeline."
Diego whipped around, this air of craziness surrounding him, which made Five question if he needed to put low quality Batman back in the psych ward.
"Yeah, but why now? I mean, I'm. . ." Diego snapped his fingers, grasping at a thought he just couldn't quite pinpoint. "I was fine! For three months until you showed up!"
Luther continued to fry his eggs, nodding along to Diego's rambling, "Yeah, I was here for a year and no one messed with me," his last comment ended with a quick glare to Five.
Five rolled his eyes, "even if it was my fault, which it isn't. We only have six days before the end of the world, we're nowhere close to finding Dad, and I'm starting to think Y/n's gone missing."
Diego paused, the anger fading, "Well. . .about that."
"About what? Do you know where she is?" Diego's words grabbed Five's attention in a flash.
And said man only stared at Five, pity in his gaze, "you're gonna to want to sit down for this."
~☂︎~
I love plot twists, and trust me this is not the worst one in SJ Universe, there will be more to come.
And speaking of the SJ Universe, I'm going to be doing an SJU head-cannon after every chapter. It's like a little scenario that would happen in the universe where everything I write is actually apart of the show, for example:
SJU Head-cannon: Once this episode was aired, not only did your characters popularity sky rocket, the edits of older you Diego saw took over the Umbrella Academy fandom on TikTok. It's also cannon that older you is being played by your famous celebrity older sister.