– we only see each other at weddings and funerals –

17 years ago

There was total turmoil when the bank was robbed. Reporters, police, onlookers and more reporters jostled around outside the entrance, panting to get a damn good headline. Hungry and with tingling fingers, they stared at the building, from which no one could get in or out.

What a mess that was.

Inside, the turmoil was no less, no. Armed with ugly guns and shouting loudly, the robbers ran through the bank, shoving the poor hostages, who had only wanted to go about their daily lives, and pointing their weapons at them.

"Don't move, God damn it!" one of them yelled at the people.

They moved closer together in absolute terror, panting and some crying. Oh yes, these damn bandits were sure of their success.

"Hey!" another suddenly shouted, "What the hell are you doing here? Go back to the others!"

A young, cheeky Allison Hargreeves had skipped up to him gleefully, her hands clasped innocently behind her back. She just smiled at him for a moment.

"I heard a rumor," she then said blithely.

"Can't you hear right, you damn brat?"

The girl now leaned forward and looked the man straight in the eye. "I heard a rumor that you shot your friend there in the foot."

Ha, what a ridiculous girl! - some might think.

But the man, fogged into a dangerous trance, pointed his gun at another of the robbers without a moment's hesitation. Ignoring his protests, he pulled the trigger, hitting the man's foot. He fell to the ground, screaming in pain, and didn't get up again - one down.

"Not bad, not bad," complimented another schoolgirl with blonde braids who had just joined them.

Elna Hargreeves patted her sister on the shoulder with a grin as she chewed on a piece of gum. The man who had just shot his buddy came back to his senses, looking fully disturbed at the gun in his hand, then at Allison, then back at the gun. "What the-" he trembled and then pointed his gun at the two girls.

Allison was about to make another move to make him unwilling, but Elna interrupted her, rolling up her sleeves: "Leave it, dear sister, that's mine."

Still grinning, she held out her hands, a white glow emanating from them. "I hope you like spiders."

The man blinked at her in confusion until suddenly hundreds, no, thousands of big, fat spiders came crawling out of the corners of the bank, heading straight for him. He understood too late and when the nasty beasts started creeping on him, he panicked and tried to knock them off his arms, his legs and his neck. But as soon as he got rid of one, two more followed. It was completely hopeless for him. He rolled on the floor, screamed, wriggled around, tried everything to get the spiders off him - but they just kept crawling around in his face.

And the funny part about that? There weren't any spiders at all. No, because only the man and Elna saw all this; everyone else just saw a complete idiot losing a very humiliating battle against air. Could Elna have made Allison see it too? Yes. But it was just funnier this way.

So, while Elna was giggling to herself, a terrible clang pierced the bank building. Luther, who had just broken through the glass roof, landed unnecessarily dramatically on the floor, straightened up and grinned at his sisters.

"Great entrance," commented Elna, who now left the man alone (he whimpered as he stumbled away).

"You bet! And I told you to wait for me, remember?"

"Pff," Allison made before pointing at two more guys who had just come running up from behind, "Watch out, Luther!"

Unimpressed, he turned around and threw one of them against a wall, who cried out in surprise, before being silenced.

Elna inhaled sharply through her closed teeth, "Ouch."

Just before the other robber could shoot at one of the siblings, Diego came suddenly rushing over, throwing two of his knives and shouting with heart and soul, "Guns are for pussies, real men throw knives!"

Elna giggled as the knives flew around the corner, whizzing past her and cutting into the man's thigh and arm. Of course, he was now on the ground too.

"This is going really fun today, isn't it?" said Elna, clapping her hands excitedly. Somehow, she always found something amusing about missions like these, even if she didn't really enjoy the missions themselves. Using her powers here was fun, yes, because when she used them to annoy her siblings at home, she was always getting scolded from Dad (not that that would stop her anyway, it was just unpleasant). But on the missions, she could let her creativity run wild with how she scared people. Otherwise, she found these missions quite annoying and unnecessarily stressful.

Now they had gathered around a counter, where another bandit was now backing away in complete fear, terribly unsure which of the siblings he should now point his gun at. Therefore, rather ineffectively, he just waved it around in front of their faces.

"Get away from me, you freaks!" his voice quivered.

"Be careful up there."

"You'll break something if you keep dancing around there."

"Fucking shit, back away!"

"Or what?" There was Number Five (finally). In his blue light, he had teleported behind the man on the counter and was now grinning broadly at him, sitting cross-legged. The man whirled around, shot at Five once, twice, three times, but he was long gone again - now he was standing on the other side of the man.

He quickly pointed his gun at Five again, but he no longer had it in his hand. No, there was now just a stapler, which he desperately used to click on Five.

"That's one badass stapler," commented Five, before hitting him with it so hard in the forehead that he fell backwards from the countertop.

"Ha!" shouted Elna.

After a few moments, they were all gathered around a lanky Ben standing in front of the door to the vault. There were more robbers in there, they heard, and someone had to take care of it for better or worse.

"Is that really necessary?" he asked meekly.

"Come on Ben," Allison tried to encourage him, "you can do it."

Only a defeated sigh came from him, along with a mumbled "I didn't sign up for this", before he disappeared behind the door.

The remaining siblings took a few steps backwards, away from the door, when all they heard were the screams of the robbers and saw flying bodies and blood splattering on the frosted glass. All in all, it was disgusting. Luckily, that scene of horror didn't last long.

Ben, now even more dejected than before, stepped out of the room after a few minutes. He stood there dripping in blood. "Can we go home now?"

He hated it, that was clear.

Elna came skipping up to him, put an arm around his shoulder, completely ignoring the fact that her clothes were now all bloody too, and walked with him towards the exit.

"Gum?" She held out a crushed and crumpled packet of gum to him, in which there were perhaps two chewing gums left.

He hesitantly took one.

———————.+*•.•*+.———————

2019

A few moments had now passed, and they were still silent. Nobody really wanted to say anything and draw the unpleasant attention to themselves.

One of them was brave, however.

"I figured, we should get this started", Luther cleared his throat, everything was looking at him, "I guess, we should have some sort of memorial service. Right at sundown in the courtyard. At Dad's favorite spot."

"Dad had a favorite spot?", Allison asked, one eyebrow raised.

"You know, right under the oak tree."

"And yet I always thought it was at his desk," Elna hummed absently.

"No, he always used to sit there, don't you know?"

Silence. Heavy silence. And Elna knew, that everybody wanted to say 'No, we fucking don't.'

"Will there be refreshments?", Klaus asked as he walked towards them, handing over a drink to Elna (not without being glared at by an unamused Luther) and slumped onto the sofa between Vanya and Elna, "Tea? Scones? Cucumber Sandwiches are always a winner."

"What? No. And put that out," impatiently he pointed at Klaus' cigarette, "Dad didn't allow smoking here."

Elna chuckled as response.

"Is that my skirt?", Allison suddenly questioned, navigating with a hand movement to the piece of clothing he was wearing.

"Oh, yeah, this. I found it in your room," Klaus lifted the fabric with one hand, waving it around, "it's a little dated, I know, but it's very breathy on the bits!"

Of course, Klaus wouldn't shy away from stealing some nice clothes from his dear sister and Allison would let him do so. He had been doing that since ever, after all.

Luther interrupted. "Listen up! We've still got some important things that we need to discuss, all right?"

"Like what?", Elna rolled her head lazily towards Luther, taking a sip of her drink, "We'll bury him or whatever and then go on about our usual business, carrying on and being happy. Just like we always did."

She stood up, raising a finger, "That, of course, is one option," making some unclear hand movements Elna made two steps in the center of their gathering, "Or we could try to do something fun afterwards!"

Suddenly, her face lit up, the bored expression being displaced by a grin. "Do you remember the last time we did something together, that wasn't a funeral? Because I certainly do not."

"You missed my wedding," Allison said with a raised eyebrow.

Ah, yes, that was something, she remembered. For two or three moments there was an unpleasant silence in which Elna grimaced, being caught. 

"Yes, yes, but besides that? How about a disco? Or bowling? That-"

"It's not that you would try to do something about our lovely family situation," Diego cut her off, suddenly, "I haven't spoken to you in three years, by now, and that was not my fault."

"I am trying right now." She took a huge sip from her drink that tasted awful, by the way. It was good that there was enough alcohol in it to keep her from staying too sober for this.

"And you still missed my wedding," Allison repeated sourly. Elna didn't understand her sudden shift in manner when not two hours ago they were hugging and talking so sweetly.

The desire to turn right on her heel and leave this house was getting louder by every moment. Why did her siblings have to be so resentful about anything? After all, the last couple of years had been hard. Harder than they were maybe thinking, and therefore she was unbelievably glad to be with her family again and it was making Elna upset that she could not tell them every little detail. They wouldn't understand, anyways.

"You see, I am also a busy woman. Work is not doing well on me, I guess", she said chewing nervously on the inside of her cheek and watching every of her siblings hoping for some sort of reaction, that wasn't judging or disappointment.

They just stared back. Klaus had no idea what to do and just looked at her as uncertainly as she herself was doing. Vanya watched her half awaiting half guilty. Allison had her arms crossed and stared. Diego had his arms crossed and stared. And Luther was being Luther and watched her puzzled and without understanding.

Elna chuckled nervously, humorlessly.

"Then what do you do all day that keeps you, oh, so busy? If I may ask?", Luther said slowly, after a couple of moments, that had felt like hours, had passed.

Hesitating, Elna blew a strand of lose hair out of her face. The answer to this question should have been easy, yes.

"I work at the bank, I own it, you see? The business is a tough one, but I am incredibly good at it, making more money than our stupid dad did," is what she didn't say.

Because that was not the case.

But what was the case?

"The thing is..." what should she say? The truth? The truth was that she had no idea what to say to her family. They stared at her so meanly, demanding an explanation for all these missed gatherings and never answered calls. Something, she just realized, was damaged. And yet there were things she could not tell, could not explain. Or was it that she didn't want to explain it? Truth was always harder than the illusion of something.

"The thing is," she started once again, "that I am around the world, all the time. I have travelled so much, I- I suppose I got lost on the run."

Biting her lip she watched her siblings, unsure of what to expect. Silence fell over them, once again and Elna wanted to run or disappear or anything to happen that would drag all the attention away from her. But none of that sort happened.

"That was a really bad excuse," Diego, resentful as ever, grumbled.

Hopeful for any kind of help to soothe this misery of hers she looked over to Klaus. But he just stared at the Persian carpet on the floor making an expression that signaled him agreeing to Diego's words.

It was hopeless.

Elna gulped, hard, and emptied the drink in one last go before saying "I really tried."

She didn't cry when she left the room, even though she wanted to do that very much.

————————————————————————

A/N: I apologise for not posting for a long time but school sucks. However, I wish yo some delayed merry Christmas and a wonderful new year! And because Christmas has been and I feel funny I gift you some sketches of our darling Elna.
Much love, Eleanor

P.S. I ave just realised now, how similar Elna and Eleanor sound. That is not on purpose, Elna is no persona. I just liked the name lmao