CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
rota fortunae

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BY NOW, EVERYONE WHO knew Nadine Vidal knew that she was uncontrollable. A volcano, a hurricane, a tornado, whatever—as long as it was a destructive force of nature, wreaking havoc and uprooting lives, specifics didn't matter. You didn't gripe on a volcano for erupting, nor did you yell at a tornado for creating carnage; after all, that was what they were meant to do. Their sole purposes were to ruin, and any arguments on the contrary were, to put in plainly, wrong.

People were a lot more complicated than natural disasters, however. They had no set purpose. No one was pushed out of their mother's womb with their meaning written on their forehead. They'd developed past the rudimentary laws of nature—eat, sleep, shit, mate, and die. Instead of focusing merely on their ancient, animalistic purposes, now they were free to discover their own reason for existing. Whether that was art, dance, or bringing corruption to politics. Whether it was to raise a family, or to garden, or, hell, to see the sunset every day. Whatever your purpose was became your motivation for going on each day. Why, when you woke up in the morning, you eventually got out of bed.

Nadine had always found the concept of 'dream jobs' ridiculous. She'd had one, even as a child, but she'd never believed that there was a point in dreaming of labor. People were not born to serve as slaves under capitalism. They were born, simply, to find their meaning. And, in the end, whatever that meaning was would bring happiness.

Yet, Nadine Vidal didn't always feel like a person. Didn't always believe she was anything more than basic coding. She'd struggled to find her 'meaning' for as long as she'd lived, and yet, she still hadn't managed to uncover it. When she was four, she'd thought it was gaining Mama's approval. When she was sixteen, she'd thought that was Ichthyology; it was why she'd sought to study it in university. When she was twenty-four, she'd thought it was recovering from her PTSD. When she was twenty-nine, she'd thought it was saving the world.

None of them, not even ridding the world of the apocalypse, had actually struck gold for Nadine. Sure, all of those things were what she wanted, but they weren't what kept her going. So, eventually, she began to suspect that maybe she had no meaning at all. Nothing but a primitive coding deep in her bones. This didn't tell her to eat, to sleep, to shit, or to mate, though. No, instead, it told her to destroy.

Just like a natural disaster.

Nadine more often used her fists to fight, rather than her words, but there were a few times where her mouth dealt as painful of blows as her hands might.

This was one of those times.

Okay, Nadine was tempted to lunge across the table, rip Reginald's monocle out, and shove it down his throat, but even the crudest parts of her—the strands of DNA that programmed her to be a fighter, true and true—understood she could not win this war the way she usually did. Like it or not, the Umbrella Academy needed Reginald Hargreeves if they were going to save the world, and Nadine wasn't going to be the one to spoil their chances.

So, instead, mere seconds after Diego had voiced his feeble defense to his father (though to Nadine, it felt like hours had gone by), she slammed her fists down on the table and spat, "Don't you fucking talk to him like that."

Reginald, who'd likely been silently gloating about the oh-so-eloquent way he'd completely torn down Diego's psyche, blinked, moving his gaze to her. Around the table, the other members of the Umbrella Academy gaped. Nadine wasn't entirely sure why—this was what she did, after all—but perhaps they thought even she had a limit.

Well, she didn't. Not when she was a child, and certainly not now.

Reginald's lips thinned into a line. "Pardon me, Miss Vidal?" he asked. Nadine didn't even ask him how he knew her name. He'd probably got it from the same informants who'd given him her location.

"You heard me," Nadine growled. "You don't get to fucking talk to him like that. You think using a bunch of fancy words means that your little spiel has any substance? It fucking doesn't. You could be using the phrase 'more succinctly' or telling him he has a stupid face; either way, you're still a bully. So, you can take your Thesaurus-dot-com psychobabble bullshit, shove it up your ass, and shit it out if you want to use it on someone who actually deserves it. But that person sure as hell isn't Diego. In the grand scheme of things, I haven't known him for that long, but I do know he's triple the man you are. You think he's insignificant? He almost saved the world! If that's insignificant, then you, Reggie, are less important than a goddamned ant. So how about you sit your ass down—metaphorically—and shut the hell up."

Nadine's chest was heaving when she finished her rant, and her hands were trembling. Around her was a sea of flabbergasted faces. Even Diego was staring as if he'd just seen a ghost. Perhaps because he'd never thought she'd stand up for him like that.

Reginald—fuck him—still looked unperturbed. Nadine could probably strip naked, grow a pair of wings, and do the Macarena right in front of him, and he'd barely blink. It was unbelievably infuriating.

No wonder his children were so messed up.

After a stretched-out moment of silence, where Nadine was beginning to believe no one would ever speak, Reginald finally clucked his tongue. "A mediocre assertion, the value of which was heavily retracted by the excessive cursing," he began. "You have quite the temper in you, don't you, Miss Vidal? It takes over what could've been a successful argument and turns it into passionate mush."

"I don't need to be Shakespeare to tell you you're a fucking twat," Nadine spat. "You know, when I was younger, I used to worship you. I'd lie in my bed and wish every night that I, too, had been adopted by you, and that I, too, was a part of the Umbrella Academy. But now I see that I've dodged a bullet. Look at what you've done to your children. You can berate them all you want, but whatever their failings were comes back to you. You were their father. You were supposed to treat them like children. But instead, in your eyes, they were nothing but weapons."

Five, whose eyes had been darting between Nadine and Reginald as if he was watching a tennis match, finally spoke up. "Nadine—" This hiss that came from clenched teeth proved to her that he was not at all happy with their little quibble, even if Nadine was doing it for the sake of his brother.

"You bring up an interesting point, Miss Vidal," Reginald interrupted. He seemed to enjoy having someone who fought back against his beratement instead of crumbling as soon as they hit them. "Why didn't I adopt you? I mean, according to the others at this table, I created this 'Umbrella Academy' to stop the end of the world. And yet, you were left out. Why is that?"

"My parents told me you tried," Nadine shot back. "You begged to have me, offering up enough money for them to retire comfortably in their thirties. But they refused, because even then, they knew that the way you were trying to purchase kids like cartons of eggs was wrong."

"Did they?" Reginald lifted a brow. "Well, tell me, how has that gone for you?"

"What?"

"How is your relationship with your parents? Are you close with them?"

"I am with my father," Nadine responded through gritted teeth.

"And your mother?"

Nadine slammed her fists down on the table again. Silverware jumped, and everyone shrank back a little. "Stop trying to psychoanalyze me, asshole. What, you want me to admit my mother is an abusive piece of shit so you can rip on me? Been there, done that. I'm not going to fall for it."

"I just find it interesting that your mother apparently fought so hard to keep you in the beginning, and then realized she didn't want you later. I can certainly sympathize. Perhaps the ability to create illusions would have intrigued me in the beginning, but really, they haven't any actual use to them. Perhaps if you're a street magician or an entertainer at a birthday party, but not for anything that is actually meaningful. Look around you, Miss Vidal. Do you really think you deserved a spot among these people? Your abilities are impractical, your temper is bothersome, you're obscene and incredibly vulgar, and you obviously don't have much in terms of intellect. Think about. If you weren't sitting here right now, do you think much would have changed? Because I think the only thing that would differ is that I wouldn't have such a raging headache."

Nadine opened her mouth, ready to shoot back at Reginald, but found that she couldn't. For once in her life, she was completely and utterly speechless. Everything Reginald had said about her abilities had almost been word-for-word reiterations of what her own thoughts had whispered while she worked with the Umbrella Academy. Illusions had never been as practical as raising an army of the dead or controlling people's minds. Hell, even Diego's power, though less showy than the others, was perfect for a combat situation. But Nadine's relied on her enemies being unaware of her abilities. She could make the floor crumble and set fires to buildings all she liked, but as soon as her opponents knew it was all fake, they could take her down.

And it's not like you're that good in combat, either, a snide voice reminded her. Otherwise, you wouldn't have frozen up against Hazel and Cha-Cha or been taken out so easily by Harold Jenkins.

To make matters worse, what Reginald had said about her personality struck a chord, as well. It was always the reason her exes had left her—she was too blunt, she was too loud, she was too angry, she was too traumatized. Nadine had always been too much of something, but after she'd met the Umbrella Academy, she'd started to think that maybe she could be too much and still have a place.

Now, though, all of her old insecurities came flooding back. Rattling around in her mind was the question Reginald had just asked—what would have changed if she wasn't here? If there was an empty chair where she was currently sitting? She tightened her hands into fists and wondered whether or not the Umbrella Academy would be better off if she'd never flown to America in the first place.

Diego, his brows furrowed, looked like he wanted to say something—and so did Vanya, who was shifting uncomfortably in her seat—but before either of them could open to their mouths, Five was speaking. He seemed to have grown bored of the conflict and wanted to set them back on track. "Look, forget about all of that. We have a catastrophic war coming in five days. We need to figure out how to stop it."

"War?" Reginald repeated, finally turning his scrutinizing eyes away from Nadine. As soon as he looked away, her eyes began to burn with tears. "Men will always be at war with each other."

"No, this isn't just some war," said Five. "I'm talking about a doomsday. The end of the world."

Reginald took only a few seconds to absorb this. "Well... you're the special ones, aren't you? Why don't you band together and do something about it?"

If Nadine wasn't so humiliated, she would've laughed at the suggestion. Band together and do something about it? That was exactly what they'd done the first time. The old Reginald Hargreeves had killed himself just to bring the Umbrella Academy back together, but it turned out that he'd had too much faith in them. Vanya had still blown up the Moon. The world had still ended. Billions and billions of people—including Nadine's parents and friends—had still been wiped out in an instant.

Before anyone there could voice this, however (though a bitter Nadine doubted they even would, considering how quiet they'd been for a long time, now), Klaus suddenly lurched in his seat, his arms flying up into the air. His body began to tremble, his mouth open but unable to take in air, and his entire seat shook with the force of his spasms.

"Is he having a seizure?" Allison asked.

"Overdosing, probably," Diego muttered.

Luther looked to his siblings. "Should we do something?"

The sheer nonchalance in all of their voices proved that they thought this was another case of Klaus being Klaus. This was further confirmed by Five, who whispered, "Klaus! Now is not the time. What are you doing?"

Like a slow-motion animation, Klaus's trembling body turned to Reginald. When he spoke, his words came out in a choked gasp. "I-I'm..."

Reginald motioned for him to speak. "Out with it, boy!"

"...Ben!" Klaus finished, then promptly dropped from his chair and landed in a groaning pile on the floor. With his chest heaving in shudders and his skin bleached white, Nadine could tell there actually was something wrong with him. She almost got up to check on him, but her legs were shaking so much that she knew if she did, she'd end up right beside him on the ground.

But why had Klaus said Ben's name? Was he here? Klaus had said that ghosts couldn't time travel. She couldn't be certain, especially when she couldn't think straight—Reginald's beratement kept repeating in her mind like a record with only one song. And it didn't help that her little illusion demonstration and the aftereffects of her hangover had both contributed to giving her a migraine. She took a shaky sip of her drink and tried to resist the urge to put her hands over her ears.

Klaus's little demonstration seemed to have been the last straw for Reginald Hargreeves. "Well..." he began, stacking his notebooks together and getting to his feet, "thank you for coming. I've seen about enough."

"No, I..." Luther began speaking, but his father ignored him. Stepping delicately over Klaus's prone form, he began making his way to the elevator—or perhaps the bar. Luther's face contorted, and then it was his turn to slam his fists against the table. When Reginald looked back, he leaped to his feet and tore open his shirt. Buttons cluttered to the ground, revealing Luther's altered frame to everyone at the table. It was just as hairy and inhuman as Nadine remembered it to be.

"Look at what you did to me," he growled. When Reginald did a once-over, Luther gestured at his body. "Look at it!"

Five sank back in his chair, muttering something Nadine couldn't hear. She just crossed her arms, waiting for Reginald to start cutting into Luther, too. He didn't end up doing it, however. Instead, he completely disregarded Luther, turned to Five, and said, "You in the culottes. A word, in private?"

He began to stride away, and Five, sensing an opportunity, was quick to follow. The remaining people at the table exchanged uneasy glances, and Allison raised her hand. "Check, please."

Five minutes later, the members of the Umbrella Academy had gathered their things and made their way back to the elevator. The ride down, back to civilization, somehow managed to be even more uncomfortable than the ride up. No longer were they all standing straight, poised, a little nervous yet mostly dignified. Now, they were all a mess—their clothes and hair still splattered with the carnage of the fruit platter's explosion; Klaus lying on the ground, his eyes closed; Diego leaning a hand against the elevator wall, his jaw clenched; Nadine wedged beside Klaus, her arms crossed. They spent most of the elevator ride in complete silence, as they had the first time, until Allison commented, "Well, that went as well as any Hargreeves family function."

"I feel so violated," Klaus muttered, rubbing his neck. "I need an herbal bath. You had no right to possess me."

Nadine looked down at him. She had no idea what the fuck he was talking about, but for once, she'd didn't care.

Allison then turned to Luther. "Congratulations," she said.

Luther blinked. "For what?"

"I think that's the first time you've ever stood up to Dad."

"Oh, well, congratulations on hitting such a huge milestone!" Nadine drawled with a cheesy grin, pumping her arms to mimic a cheerleader. "Go, Luther!"

Luther and Allison both glared at her for that. Again, Nadine didn't care. She'd had enough of being civil. Had enough with pretending she wasn't a complete bitch.

Vanya looked to Diego, who was still looking sullen. "Are you okay?" she asked him, her voice full of concern. Nadine sank against the wall.

"So much for having my back in there," Diego replied, his eyes moving to his siblings. "Nadine was the only one who spoke up. Thank you for that, by the way, and I'm sorry for what he said to you. It shouldn't have just been you, anyway." He breathed out a sigh, and Nadine slumped. At least one person acknowledged her little spat with Reginald. "Team Zero, my ass."

With a ding, the elevator doors slid open, releasing them all from the uncomfortably confined space. Diego exited first, closely followed by Nadine, who gave nary a glance to the others. She was trembling in anger, her blood boiling even hotter than it had when Reginald had insulted Diego. Apparently, she'd gotten into the delusion that, what? She was somehow part of the family? She may have been an unofficial part of the Umbrella Academy, but she doubted it would ever shift to anything more than that. She should've known. She should've fucking known.

No one ever wanted her. Not really.

She was stalking down the steps, heading for the front doors, when a voice suddenly called out to her. "Nadine, wait."

It was Vanya's voice. Typically, Nadine would stop for her; would turn around and listen eagerly to what she had to say. But today, she wasn't in the mood. She kept walking, even as Vanya called out for her again. Even when her voice finally petered into nothingness.

When she got outside, she saw Molly's car parked at the front, its engine running. She hadn't promised to come pick Nadine up, but Nadine wasn't exactly complaining. If Molly wasn't here, she'd either have to call another cab, spending more of her rapidly shrinking cash, or ask one of the Hargreeves for a ride home. As each of those options seemed as appetizing as pulling teeth, Nadine was glad to have a third.

She practically sprinted to the car, her flats clattering on the sidewalk gravel. Pulling open the passenger door, she slid inside, immeasurably grateful that Molly was here. Molly, her Molly, beautiful as the Moon. Molly, who was leagues better than anyone Nadine had ever known.

"Nads," said Molly, a smile spreading onto her face. "How did it go? I got here only a few minutes ago; I was expecting you to come later. My grandparents didn't keep me as long as I expected they would, and after the wonderful date you gave me earlier, I thought this was the least I could do." Then she finally took in Nadine, in all of her messy, red-eyed glory, and asked, "Hey, what happened? Is everything all right?"

Nadine buckled her seatbelt, her eyes continuing to burn. "Things... things didn't exactly go as planned," she admitted. And then she started crying.

Her thing had always been her ability to keep her tears in, but that had apparently been thrown out the window now. Nadine sobbed for the second time this week, tears sliding down her cheeks and—humiliatingly—snot running from her nose. Molly's eyes went wide, and she turned off the car and bundled Nadine into her arms. Her head nestled into Nadine's shoulder and one hand rubbed soothing circles into her back.

"It's okay, Nads, it's okay," she kept saying. "I've got you, I've got you. It's okay to cry. Just let it out. I've got you, all right? I've got you. I'm here." She kept saying that, and kept holding Nadine, and Nadine kept thinking, I shouldn't have come to America. I shouldn't have come to America.

She continued to sob, her mascara running down her cheeks, and she held Molly Hamasaki like she was her lifeline.

And, really, in a way, Molly always had been.

NADINE WAS STILL a mess when the two of them arrived back at Elliott's. She'd finally stopped crying a few blocks back, but now she'd dissolved into those little shuddering gasps one dealt with whenever they'd finished such a hearty sobbing session. It was mortifying, even more so than Reginald's insults toward her, and what made it even more so was the fact that she just couldn't catch her breath. No matter how many times she tried to sync her breaths to Molly's, she'd inevitably end up right back at her hyperventilating.

It made her feel like a child. The nine-year-old girl Louise would taunt. Back then, whenever she was upset, she'd run up to her room, flop down on her bed, and squeeze her stuffed rabbit for hours. The session would only end when she finally calmed down, or Beau came to talk to her.

Of course, now, she didn't have a stuffed rabbit or her father to help her out of this. It was like she was stranded in the middle of a lake, treading water desperately without help of a life jacket.

Then, to make matters worse—and prove that Nadine had never had a single stroke of luck—when she stepped out of the car, she found Luther and Diego exiting their own. Nadine wasn't that upset with Diego—he'd suffered tonight, too—but she did feel as if her truce with Luther had been shattered.

Wiping her face desperately, trying to scrub away the remnants of her tears, Nadine headed for the front door, Molly on her heels. She resolved to just ignore the other two, to head upstairs and go straight to bed. Unfortunately, that wasn't how things would go tonight.

She was making good progress in the beginning, completely disregarding Luther when he called out for her, but when she finally mounted the stairs and followed Diego, Luther, and Molly all into Elliott's house, the hairs on her neck immediately rose. At first, she couldn't quite understand why, but then her eyes completely settled on the little puddle of blood that sat on the floor.

"Blood," Diego muttered to Luther, who'd already been rifling through the cabinets, searching for something to eat (despite Reginald's promise of a 'light supper', none of them had actually had any food during their meeting with him). Molly, who had been pulling off her jacket, stopped right before hanging it on the hook.

"Oh, Lord," she murmured. Nadine's stomach lurched.

The four of them walked right up to the bloodstained floor, and Luther bent down, touching his finger to the blood. He held it into the light, so as to be totally certain it was, in fact, blood, and then swore. "Shit."

"Elliott?" Diego called.

"Do you think something happened to him?" Nadine asked, her anger washing away in this newfound worry. "An accident, or something?"

"Maybe not an accident," Diego said. "Split up, but stay alert. Yell if you see anything."

As he pulled out a knife and went to search one of the rooms, Molly took Nadine's hand. She was trembling, terrified that something had happened. Nadine wanted to console her, but she wasn't sure there was even a way. Something terrible might have happened. Something terrible might still.

"Come on," she urged. "Let's go check the bedroom."

Molly nodded, albeit a little weakly, and the two of them headed for the room. They had only just opened the door, however, when Luther called out to them. "Guys."

There was an odd vacancy to his tone that told Nadine he'd found something. Something bad.

Nadine looked at Molly. "You might want to stay here," she said. And though before, Molly may have argued, today, she didn't. She just sat down on the bed, pulled her knees to her chest, and waited.

Nadine headed to the source of Luther's voice with apprehension. She found him in the living room, right by the railing. He was standing in front of Elliott's dentist's chair, and in it was Elliott himself—completely stationary. Bile boiled up in Nadine's throat, but she forced herself to round it, to stand beside Luther and look upon Elliott's face.

It was worse than she'd expected. Elliott's lips had been forced open, held by some kind of clamp. Several of his teeth were missing, leaving the interior of his mouth bloody and jagged, and a scalpel had been stabbed into his upper lip. Blood stained the area from his mouth to his neck, and some of it had spotted onto his flannel shirt. What made it worse, however, was the knife, still buried to the hilt in his chest.

Elliott was dead, but it hadn't been a merciful end. His body told a tale of agony, of hours spent praying one of them would arrive back home in time to save him. It told the end of the story, too—where he had finally been stabbed, and died with his last companion being the one who had so brutally tortured him.

Nadine was so engrossed by the sight of Elliott's mutilated corpse—and the piercing, sickening stench emanating from his body—that she didn't even notice the trail of blood underneath the dentist's chair. It was only when Diego muttered a curse did she moved her eyes off Elliott and went to see what he was looking at.

He was peering over the railing, staring down at the floor of Elliott's store—the floor that was now covered in blood, arranged methodically into words.

ÖGA FÖR ÖGA.

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HAVEN: hoooooo boy. reginald really is the scum of the earth, isn't he? nadine really put all up her defenses around him and he STILL managed to get through them by being the biggest asshole he possibly could. i hate him so much and i hate that he's alive now.

also, this might be niche, but have you ever seen those edits/animatics with the audio that goes like "i'm gonna be just like you, no matter what you say i can do" that starts off perky and ends up depressing? every time i revisit this chapter, i'm reminded of that audio, and i picture the first half being thirteen-year-old nadine, completely idolizing the umbrella academy, and the second part being her at the light supper shrinking under the weight of reginald's words. this probably sounds stupid unless you know the audio, but ahhh it hurts to imagine.

i hope you enjoyed this chapter despite the angst! don't worry, we're getting a lighter chapter next with the infamous öga för öga scene :))))) well, sort of a lighter chapter.

thanks for reading!! <333