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❛ ᴡᴀsᴛᴇʟᴀɴᴅs ᴏғ ᴛɪᴍᴇ​​​​​​​​​​. ❜ ° . ༄
- ͙۪۪˚   ▎❛ 𝐓𝐖𝐎 ❜   ▎˚ ͙۪۪̥◌
»»————- ꒰ ᴀʜ sʜɪᴛ, ʜᴇʀᴇ
ᴡᴇ ɢᴏ ᴀɢᴀɪɴ ꒱


❝ WE'LL HAVE TO SETTLE THIS
THE OLD-FASHIONED WAY ❞

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Note: before we begin, I'd like to announce that for the first several chapters, I'll be using Viktor's deadname of Vanya and she/her pronouns to address him in the first scenes where he hasn't transitioned yet. Once he does so in the show, I will appropriately call him by his name and preferred pronouns. 

At this point, there was pretty much nothing that could surprise Dolores Hargreeves anymore. If you told her that— in this new timeline— the president of the United States was a Chihuahua who wore a Sombrero, spoke Mandarin and ate pasta only on Tuesdays, she would probably take this information in stride and just ask where the nearest bathroom was. So, she was hardly shocked when The Umbrella Academy learned that their escape from 1963 did not go exactly as planned.

The first clue that all was not right with the universe was the fact that Ben's portrait was over the mantlepiece instead of Five's. The second came in the form of the Hargreeves' very much alive father. His original children (poorly) hid their shock at this new development.

"What are you talking about?" Allison demanded. "This is The Umbrella Academy."

"Wrong again," the man snapped. "This is The Sparrow Academy."

Footsteps sounded above them, causing the group to turn and look up to the balcony. A formation of six figures— including a literal floating box— appeared in front of the window.

"Dad." A man suddenly appeared before them with a hostile expression on his face. "Who the hell are these assholes?"

Behind him, a young woman with dark brown hair watched them with her arms folded across her chest and an unfriendly look in her eyes. Dolores' gaze fell on her counterpart and she sighed. "Ah, shit. Here we go again."

Klaus' face lit up in an overjoyed smile. "Ben."

Luther stepped forward with disbelief written all over his expression as he stared at his once-deceased brother. "Is that really you?"

Before the ghost from their past could answer, Diego lost his temper. "And who are the weirdos on the balcony?" he shouted up to the six unidentified newcomers.

"They are the Sparrows," new-Dolores spoke up. Her voice was cool and detached in a way that original-Dolores had never used. The brunette nodded to the older man. "His children."

As she said those words, a rumbling shook the house ominously but the two groups, caught up in their current altercation, didn't notice. Seeming to put two and two together, Five shifted subtly to block his Dolores from her counterpart in fear of the oncoming effects of Paradox Psychosis. He put a hand out to keep her behind him as he glanced between the pair. "I'm sorry. What do you mean, your children? That's not possible, old man."

"Of course it is!" Reginald answered promptly. "I think I'd know, wouldn't I?"

The rest of his children— who were really adults— came down the stairs to join them on the ground floor. Original-Dolores huffed and crossed her arms petulantly at her husband's overprotective measures. She was fine! She'd just gone through this not even a week ago and she'd held up better than he had! Out of pettiness, she made to move away from him but the boy's outstretched hand quickly grasped her arm to keep her in place. Briefly, he turned to give her a stern look. "Stay behind me, Dolly."

She glowered at him in response but stayed put. A quick glance in her alternate self's direction revealed that the young woman was now smirking, probably because she'd been so easily cowed. It only served to make her more irritated.

Perhaps in an effort to break the steadily-rising tension, Klaus spoke again: "everybody can see Ben, right?"

"Cute hat, Sundance."

A rather savage giggle escaped past new-Dolores' lips and her smirk became more prominent. She seemed to straighten with confidence as she added, "if he's Sundance then that big guy's gotta be Butch."

"I'm sorry," Vanya began, "but I'm not the only one seeing two Doloreses, right?" Murmurs of agreement met her words and she looked a little relieved.

"Oh yeah," the original Dolores said with a shrug. "I'm an old hat at meeting myself now. Third time's the charm, right?" She eyed herself with some suspicion. "Feeling any murderous intentions yet, Dolores?"

"Shouldn't I be asking that of you?" the other brunette shot back aggressively. "You're the ones who dropped in here like you own the fucking place."

Reginald took this as an opportunity to introduce them: "they call themselves The Umbrella Academy. A group of scheming, perfidious malcontents who accosted me in the fall of 1963—"

Dolores scoffed. "I hardly accosted you, you old man! In fact, I was quite civil in requesting—"

"I would not call forcing a meeting with me civil, Mrs. Hargreeves. You did, in fact, terrorize my butler." He returned to addressing his children. "Be warned, the claim to be my spawn."

Allison didn't appreciate his choice of words. "Claim? Look, Five, what the hell is going on?"

His gaze had hardly left the opposing group, namely the copy of his wife that was staring at them as if the original family of Hargreeves was nothing more than scum on the bottom of her shoe. "I don't know yet, but it's concerning."

"Is he telling the truth?" This question came from the dark-skinned man who stood at the front of his siblings. He seemed to be their Luther as his voice held a note of authority.

"Not the part about us being perfidious," Vanya said.

"No, we're amateur-fidious at best," Klaus offered.

She continued as if she hadn't been interrupted: "but we are his children. This is our house."

"Yeah, yeah," Luther agreed. "We, uh. . . we grew up here."

One of the new siblings— a stocky man whose face was partially melted— mocked him from the back of the group: "yeah, we grew up here." His sister— the one whose eyes were concealed behind dark sunglasses— snickered in response.

"I kind of think we would have noticed you," a pretty woman with long, light brown hair chimed in.

Luther certainly noticed her and his tone changed abruptly. "Hi! I'm Luther."

"O-kay," Allison quickly cut across him as she stepped forward. "None of you belong here."

"Oh!" the sunglasses-wearing woman exclaimed. "Well, then I guess we'll just pack our bags and move out."

The cube next to her spoke in agreement and his siblings laughed.

"You slay me, Chris," Ben stated. At his comment, new-Dolores seemed to laugh a little louder than the rest of the Sparrows.

A woman with blonde hair entered the room then, carrying a plate of cookies in her hands. "I wasn't expecting company," she began shakily. "This is the best I could do on short—" Her voice became more robotic as she began to malfunction. "—short notice."

Diego pushed past his siblings to get closer to the familiar mother-figure of the Hargreeves household. "Mom."

"Mom?" the dark-haired sibling repeated in a monotone voice. "She's a robot, you perv."

"It's not a robot," Diego said defensively.

"Hey," Luther added, "don't you call him that!"

"Or what?" Ben taunted him.

"Why don't you come closer and find out?"

As the siblings' interaction began to get more volatile, Five turned to the brunette who stood behind him. "Whatever happens, Dol, stay out of it. Alright?"

Her mouth dropped open in outrage. "But I can help! I mean, I-I don't know how—"

"Stay out of it!"

Dolores' eyes widened at the fierceness of his tone and she even took a step away from him out of shock. After being together for thirty-plus years, they were bound to have their fair share of fights; certainly some had even gotten ugly (verbally, at least— never physically.) But still, he'd never snapped at her unprovoked like he had now. She saw guilt flash in his eyes for a split second before he turned back to face the leader of the Sparrows.

"You have thirty seconds to get out of our house," he told the opposing Academy.

"And if we don't?" Allison replied with challenge in her tone.

"Then we'll have to settle this the old fashioned way."

"Look," Vanya protested. "We just fought a literal army. Okay? This doesn't need to get ugly."

New-Dolores let out a sarcastic laugh. "That'll be hard for you since your faces are already hideous!"

That earned her amused chuckles from her super-powered siblings? Friends? Original-Dolores wasn't sure what her alternate self was to them. Vanya remained unphased by the insult. "Let's all just calm down and let's talk."

"Psst!" Klaus hissed at his once-brother. "Ben-er-ino! You look so much better alive then you do dead. Am I right? Except that haircut."

"What the hell did you just say?"

"Come on, come on." He didn't pay much mind to Ben's very obvious anger as he moved towards him. "Stop with all the hostility, Mr. Grumpy Pants." He paused as he noticed the changes to Ben's face. "Oh wow, nice scar. Muy macho."

"Shut your mouth!" Surprisingly, this did not come from the man himself but the alternate version of Dolores. She'd stepped forward— almost protectively— and was glaring at Klaus furiously. Ben shot her an irritated look in response, displeased with her speaking up for him.

Klaus ignored their exchange and extended his arms. "Come on, just hug your brother—"

Before he could finish his sentence, Ben drew his fist back and punched him squarely in the face. The long-haired man took the full force of the hit and stumbled backward; he even went so far as to trip over the table and roll on the floor dramatically. Luther stepped up to defend his brother. "What the hell? You didn't have to do that!"

"Oh, I'm pretty sure I did!"

"That's right, he did!"

The group finally devolved into fighting and Dolores— though she was loath to let Five win after he snapped at her like that— was quick to get out of the way. She kept herself pressed to the edge of the room as she watched the siblings grapple with each other, feeling utterly useless as she did.

"So." She turned to see her other self join her away from the fighting. "What are you to them?"

Dolores raised an eyebrow at the interrogation but decided that so far, it was harmless enough. "An in-law. What about you?"

"Team manager," she answered. Her tone was far more pleasant now that they didn't have other company listening in. "In-law? Which one are you married to?"

"You're not surprised that a fifteen-year-old is married?"

"You're not surprised that I'm thirty even though the math doesn't work out?"

"Touché," the original Dolores admitted. "I've seen enough in my time to accept weird things at face value. How'd you get your picture on the mantlepiece?"

New-Dolores shrugged. "Maybe I'll tell you sometime. Oh— you might want to duck."

They both did as she suggested to allow one of Ben's tentacles to penetrate the wall above them before it retracted. They stood. "Aren't you going to fight me?"

"Nah," her other self said. "You're not aiding your academy so I'm not about to just attack you. Speaking of which, why did you ask if I had murderous intentions? If you know. . . you, then shouldn't you know that we don't do that sort of thing?"

"It's called Paradox Psychosis," Dolores explained. "It happens when there's more than one of you in the same timeline. The last— and most volatile— stage is homicidal rage."

"Interesting. Do you feel that now?"

She shook her head. "I've met myself three times and never reached stage seven. My husband, Five— er, the other teen. That's who I married, by the way— only experienced it once and almost immediately went there. Granted, he's been saving the world for three weeks in a row now." Once she said this, she realized this was probably why he'd been short tempered earlier. While that didn't completely excuse him, she could forgive him for it.

"The teen?" new-Dolores repeated. She watched the boy blink around Ben as they fought. "He's alright-looking, I suppose."

The brunette stared at her with some indignation. "You suppose? But we have the same taste!"

"Eh," she said. "Maybe it's because I'm not a teen that I don't really see the appeal."

Original-Dolores spluttered with disbelief. "How can you not?"

"Maybe because I already like someone else."

She watched her alternate self critically. The other Dolores' gaze seemed to stray to Ben even as she tried to figure out why she— original-Dolores— liked Five so much. "Oh, gross!" she exclaimed as she put the pieces together. "You like Squidward?"

The brunette huffed. "Don't call him that. How can you not like him?" Her expression became rather mischievous, though it was a look that Dolores was used to giving Five. Seeing it directed at someone else almost felt like. . . cheating in a way. She shuddered as the woman continued: "don't you want to know what else he can do with those tentacles besides fight?"

"Ugh, no! Let's talk about something else." She couldn't help but gag with disgust at the thought. Thankfully, a new distraction presented itself. "You might want to duck again."

They both crouched to the floor as Diego's knife came sailing towards them. It embedded itself in the wall and Dolores turned slightly to tug it out of the wallpaper. She gave it her best shot to throw it back in his direction but failed miserably— it landed handle-side down on the couch cushions. Alternate-Dolores chuckled. "You really don't know how to fight, do you?"

"No," she said with a sigh. "Someone never thought to teach me." (By 'someone,' she of course meant Five.)

"Ben would never let that happen," her other self informed her proudly.

"Yeah, yeah. Your disgusting tentacle fetish is so much better than my super-sexy time-travelling man," Dolores retorted with sarcasm evident in her tone. "Anyway, enough about that. Do you live here full time? What—" A thought suddenly occurred to her. "What about our family? Mom? Dad? Uncle Ed?"

Before she could answer, Ben had risen from when Five had knocked him out and found his next victim. Klaus was lifted into the air from across the room. "See? We're hugging! This is progress!"

"I still live with mom and dad," the brunette replied. "They're fine, but I spend most of my time here, with my real family."

"But you're not even super-powered!"

"They don't care. They appreciate the abilities that I do have since it helps the team run more efficiently. I'm not a mascot."

"I didn't say that you were," Dolores commented mildly. "But it does kind of sound like you're trying to convince yourself of that. Have you considered seeing a therapist?"

"I'm fine with a capital F."

"F as in failure. Your academy are a bunch of assholes. I'm almost ninety-nine percent certain you're only here to make them look better."

The other woman clapped her hands together suddenly. "You asked about Uncle Ed, didn't you?" she asked, making no effort to change the subject subtly. "Well, I don't know much about him— we're not close— but he's fine, I guess."

"You're not close?" Dolores repeated with surprise. "I was close with my Uncle Ed."

She made a face. "That weird man? No thanks. All he does is hide away in that old tin shed of his and mutter about how this timeline's fucked."

The brunette froze. "What do you mean?"

"What do you mean, what do I mean?"

"How did Uncle Ed know that the timeline's screwed up?"

Her alternate self shrugged. "How should I know? He's always mumbling about something. None of us pay attention to him anymore."

During their conversation, the concentration of siblings had shifted so that there were now more Sparrows in the room than Umbrellas. Dolores stiffened at this sudden realization and watched their leader warily as he approached Luther. New-Dolores looked down at her younger counterpart. "I think this fighting is about to get messy. Why don't we go someone a little less. . . crowded? We can talk more there."

"Nice try, but I'm not an idiot and I'm not going anywhere with you." she replied. "In fact, I might even feel like helping out right about—"

She was cut off by the other woman's hand tightening around her wrist. "I'm sorry. As much as I don't want to fight you, I also can't let you aid your family. I have a duty to my own, you see."

"Of course," Dolores agreed amiably. She paused before she spoke again: "hey, are you familiar with this question? Y'know, the one that goes like this: if you punch yourself and it hurts, are you strong or weak?"

The brunette nodded. "Yeah, I've heard it. Why'd you ask?"

The teen turned to. . . well, herself and smiled at her pleasantly. "We're finally gonna know the answer." With that, she drew back her fist and punched the older version of herself in the face. New-Dolores immediately released the grip on her wrist and cupped her hands to her face as she cried out in pain.

"So she's weak and I'm strong," was original-Dolores' conclusion as she shook out her hand. "But fuck that hurts. No one ever tells you how much pain you'll be in after you punch someone. Anyway, nice chat. Hopefully I'll never see you again!"

With that, she ran out of the living room and burst through the main doors of the Academy into the bright sunlight. After all, Five was right: the best thing that she could do in the face of thirteen super-powered siblings was stay out of it.