𝐻𝒶𝓅𝓅𝓎 𝒯𝑜𝑔𝑒𝓉𝒽𝑒𝓇 - 𝐵𝑒𝓃 𝐻𝒶𝓇𝑔𝓇𝑒𝑒𝓋𝑒𝓈 𝓍 𝑅𝑒𝒶𝒹𝑒𝓇

Part I

"My name is Vanya Hargreeves, and this is my story."

Vanya sat at the typewriter, already exhausted with the burden of what she was about to do, but she had to go on. This was a story that needed to be told. So she slaved away, day after day and all through the night.

"We were never really a family." She wrote, her heart cracking with each word she put on the page despite how much she believed they were true.

"We were our father's creation, family in name, and smile... but not in fact." Her own words kept replaying in her head as she posed for a photoshoot. How difficult she found it to produce those smiles she spoke of.

"In the end, Ben made it big with his mystery novels at the age of 18, he moved out to live with Y/N who was attending film school after resigning from The Umbrella Academy. Once that happened, there was nothing really connecting the rest of us. We were strangers living under the same roof..." She read to her small audience in the library.

"...destined to be alone" Luther read those words before aggressively performing a pushup and turning the page of the book below him. He hated how much those words applied to him.

"...starved for attention" Allison knew that was a dig at her. She also knew it was true. She squinted and leaned forward, hoping that if she stared hard enough they'd become false. All she accomplished was frustrating her makeup artist in the process. 

"...damaged by our upbringing"  Diego threw what must've been his hundredth blow at the punching bag he so badly wished was Vanya. How dare she make such assumptions?... Even if there was some truth to her words.

"...and haunted by what might've been." The words resonated with Klaus a little too much. He was angry, livid, incandescent that Vanya would attack him like this... but to some extent, he understood. He just hoped Ben and Y/N would too.

"Oh my god..." Ben muttered, parking the car at the side of the road for a moment to process the words Klaus had just read out loud. Y/N shared a glance with him. They'd thought Klaus was just high when they'd  picked him up from rehab and he began ranting about how they should've never trusted Vanya. But the words she'd written said it all:

"... We found it hard to love, but I loved one person with all my heart. I loved Y/N more than a friend should. I wished Ben had never gotten in the way. I sometimes still do."

"She wrote that? I can't believe she would do that!"  Ben was beginning to go off on a rant while Y/N was silently pondering over Vanya's feelings that she'd failed to recognize.

"Shh!" Klaus shut Ben up, leaning back as the car started up again. He'd usually hate any silence, he'd find it eerie. But right now, all three of them needed to think.

"Ultimately, we all wanted to be loved by a man incapable of giving love." Five shook as he read the words on the dirty, blackened pages. He wasn't angry. He was scared. Scared at how easily Vanya was able to lay him and his feelings bare. But he'd never be able to congratulate her on how well she could understand him... unless he found a way out.

"Our father never missed an opportunity to remind me I was ordinary. A hard thing for a little girl to hear." Reginald would never read those words. He'd never come to know what a terrible father he truly was, for he'd shut the book the moment he opened it. Just like he'd shut out its author all those years ago.

"If you're raised to believe nothing about you is special, if the benchmark is extraordinary, what do you do if you're not?" Slow and scattered applause rang around the small bookshop. Vanya looked up to see the few spectators that listened. 

She'd told her story. Even if not everyone wanted to hear it. Even if not everyone wanted to believe it.