Title: better find another superstition
Fandom: tua
Rating: teen
Length: ~500 words
Author notes: vanya gen, unreliable narrator, title from gerard way's baby you're a haunted house

It’s 8:26pm and Mom still hasn’t come to tuck her in. Her fingers are trembling, soft vibrations shaking her room. Bedtime is 8:20 to 8:30, Mr. Hargreeves is very precise about that.

Mom was supposed to tuck her in at 8:20, start reciting a new bedtime story, and have her all set by 8:31. The clock ticks another minute forwards, and Vanya gets out of bed, doesn’t care if she gets in trouble.

Once she’s in the hallway it’s easy to follow Mom’s voice, hears her saying, “Picture the word, you can do it.”

Hot anger rolls over her, the hallway lights flickering. Mom was made for her not Diego. Diego can work on his stutter with Pogo or Number One or anyone else in this awful house.

“Number Seven! This is most improper, get to bed!”

Vanya turns to the Monocle, thinks about making that tiny circle of glass explode, bits of blood spurting-

“Did you hear me Number Seven? It’s already 8:29!”

“I want Mom!”

“You’re being disobedient, Number Seven! To bed now, or you won’t see Grace tomorrow.”

Her fingers twitch, but she knows the threat is true, shoulders slumping with a sigh as she goes to back to her room. Distantly she hears Mom say, “Very good Diego! You did it, I’m so proud of you.”

In that moment, Number Two stops being her favorite sibling and Five takes his place.

(It’s easier to keep Five as a favorite once he’s gone. No one can dethrone a legend.)

.

Ordinary.

She even hates the word. Bouncing around her mind, echoing in every mirror.

Ordinary face, ordinary mind, ordinary child.

She doesn’t know what deal her biological mother struck to get Hargreeves to take a powerless child, but she hates them both. Hate’s easy, intertwined with envy.

No powers, like the other six. She isn’t Mr. Hargreeves’ favorite (does he even like any of them?), not Mom’s favorite (Diego), nor Pogo’s favorite (Luther). The whole world favors Allison, and the dead favor Klaus. Ben’s dead, and Five is gone and she knows any of her siblings would happily trade her for a chance to see them again. (It wouldn’t even have to be good odds.)

Vanya picks up the violin, starting the Bach over again. At least music she can learn and steadily get better at, it doesn’t matter that she’s ordinary as long as she can practice. She’ll practice more than anyone else in the entire world, keep playing until she’s the best at it.

She’ll learn to be great, if it’s the last thing she does.

.

Winners, saviors, get ice cream. She can’t save a school bus full of children, much less the world like her siblings do every other week. Mom is feeding the favored four in the kitchen, and Vanya’s reading her history book, pretending not to notice them. The trick is not to move- Mom’s programmed to notice moving objects, and the others won’t say anything unless they have to.

Vanya thinks she’s had ice cream before, but it’s an old enough memory that it could be a dream.

One day, she’ll live all on her own, eat ice cream and watch television, and go to sleep whenever she wants. One day, she’ll be free.