We are Family (Unfortunately)

Part 1

The circumstances of my birth were not normal. I was born in the same hour, on the same day, in the same year as forty-three other kids. These women, my mother, was not pregnant five minutes prior to going into labor. And we are special.
     We have powers. Superhuman abilities. For example, my brother Luther, he has incredible strength. At the age of thirteen, he could chuck a grown man like a baseball. And my sister Allison, every lie she tells comes true. And me, I stretch like elastic.
      Father told me my powers work because of the lack of calcium phosphate and osteocytes cells. In their place, there is polymer molecules, what makes rubber stretch. I have millions in every inch of bone and muscle in my body. I'm basically a human bouncy ball.
    There's one story, when I was four, one day I refused to take a bath. Before then, I had not shown any signs of powers. No matter the tests dear old dad put me through, I was this ordinary little girl. But that day when I needed to take a bath, I wasn't having it.
       I escaped one of my many nannies and ran all the way down the hall, I slipped just before I got to the stairs. Down I went, bouncing along like a child's lost ball. I remember reaching the bottom and looking up at the horrified faces of my nannies. I just looked up smiling and giggling, happy to escape the bath for today. Then my training began, just like all of my siblings. Except Vanya.
       Vanya was actually entirely, completely, and fully ordinary. Which of course, was a real dampener on my Father's spirits. Now he only had seven extraordinary children, not eight. None of my brothers or Allison ever included Vanya in our games, or missions, or anything really.
     And, on our thirteenth birthday, we got our mission suits. They were specially fitted to our bodies and powers. Diego's had knife holsters, Five's could jump through space-time with him, mine was integrated with fire-proof polymer, and Vanya, she got a new violin. By then, I think she accepted not being special, but I remember the hurt in her eyes when we left for our first mission. We were all suited up, smiling, proud, for our first official picture as the Umbrella Academy.

   "Dad, you forgot me." Vanya told him.

   Dad got behind the rest of us for the picture, "No, I did not. Faces straight, eyes forward. No smiling."

   "Dad!" She insisted.

"Quiet! No talking"

"Dad!!"

   She was not in that picture. Or any picture following that.

     And our little superhero party didn't last long. Five disappeared when we were 13, shortly after we had come out to the world about our academy. Ben died when we were 16. I don't like to think about it. Then it was Klaus. Once we turned 17, Klaus started using drugs to suppress the ghosts he saw. He was constantly high, so he stopped coming on missions. Then Diego left for Police Academy. Vanya left when we turned 18. Allison when were 19 and she got her big acting break. And Luther, he stayed until he was about 26. When he was 23, a mission gone horribly wrong almost killed him, so Dad injected him with a serum that turned him into an ape man. He was in a coma for almost 3 years. When he woke up, he went to the moon. Research to save the world, Dad said.

   I never left. I lived in the same house, slept in the same room for my whole life. My father was an old man when he adopted us. I thought I could stay, just to take care of him, go on the odd mission, repair Mom, play cards with Pogo, and spend time with the people (and android) who raised me. So that's where I've been. Right up 'til the day Dad died.