fifthbeatle | [for Obi-Wan (with special guest Nathan)]

Entry tags:

nathan,
obi-wan

[for Obi-Wan (with special guest Nathan)]

It happens sometimes, though Vanya doesn't necessarily want people to know.

She's not ashamed -- not of him, anyway. As is usually the case, any shame is her own, about what she is and what she might be versus who she wants to be. Most people can fuck up in their lives and stand back on their own two feet with minimal damage. Not Vanya, powered instrument of destruction, taught nothing about the truth of her life and how to live with it. She has her family's enduring support. Still, sometimes she can see it so clearly: that little flick of fear behind their eyes. They're not scared of her, but of what she might do without meaning to. She does her best not to use her powers around them, save for the ripples of power that surge when she plays music. It's just a whisper of wind, sometimes just a feeling. To her, it brings a sense of unparalleled rightness. Pushed too far, the feeling becomes something else, something terrifying -- and that feels right, sometimes, too. But she can never tell her family that. Why share knowledge that would only make them afraid?

Nathan is not afraid. Nathan is - and she believes this with the gentlest, most complete fondness in her heart - an idiot. He doesn't know that her powers ended the world (almost twice), but he knows she's afraid of what she can do. Still, he treats her like his favorite roller coaster, hitting her up whenever he's ready to take flight for no reason. Immortality affords him this idiocy. Maybe he's not the best person in the world, but he trusts her and she can be honest with him. Her powers have a way of making him happy. There is no end to the value in that. And she can't hurt him.

She got close once, when the space between her potential and her control widened too far, and she started to take. Not enough time passed to kill him. Nathan didn't even seem to notice. Like the most precious drill sergeant to ever goad a nuclear bomb, he'd only barked at her for dropping him. Anger pressed itself into her chest, but she breathed. And stared at Nathan with clear, cold eyes. And breathed. He didn't seem to notice he was in danger. What a great and terrifying thing.

They're at a different park today, one with slightly less trees for Nathan to get tangled up in. Visibility is better, too. Less safe for Vanya, but probably a better view for Nathan. It's okay. This has been going on long enough, doing it safe enough that she's managed to forget it's wrong. They're just two friends chatting in a park about life, about Darrow, about nothing in particular as one of them suspends the other in the air and tosses him around.

"Are you done yet?" Vanya asks, the smallest, fondest smile on her face. Looking up at him, her skin extra pale, colorless eyes following his trajectory, she feels oddly content.

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"I guess," Nathan calls back, although he probably should be. Vanya has never really hurt him -- except that one time he'd felt sort of lightheaded, but it hadn't hurt -- and he doesn't think she ever will, but he also knows he shouldn't just take advantage of her because she can make it so he can basically fly.

"Just drop me!" he says, knowing she won't. "I can handle it!"

She had dropped him that one time and it had been funny, if a bit painful. She'd seemed to take it more to hear than he had anyway.

Vanya rolls her eyes, charmed to pieces by his disregard for his life. The feeling doesn't trouble her. He's immortal. She's got weird, sprawling power she doesn't understand. They're in some pocket dimension where the comings-and-goings of people are mysterious. Ben is gone. In Vanya's estimation, these games are no stranger than anything else -- as long as no one else sees it.

As expected, Vanya does not drop him. Instead, she jerks her chin up and flings him backward a fair distance where she estimates he will land on softer ground, aided by the little piles of fallen, turning leaves.

From the other side of the park, she holds her little arms out at her sides in a shrug, awaiting his assessment, as if to say close enough?

From where he's landed, Nathan hoots with joy, throwing up an armful of leaves before he sits up in time to see Vanya's shrug, her arms out at her sides. He grins, though it begins to fade in increments when he realizes they're being watched.

By a fucking Jedi.

Nathan would recognize that robe and beard anywhere. The lightsaber at his waist only serves to confirm what Nathan has already been told by that Jedi no one even knows about, at least in his world, because there aren't any movies about her. Rey, he thinks she'd called herself. She'd told him she'd sic Obi-Wan Kenobi on her and now that he's actually seeing the man for himself, Nathan's eyes only widen and he points, then bounces to his feet.

"Obi-Motherfucking-Wan Kenobi!" he shouts.

This is somehow the strangest thing Nathan has said when Vanya's thrown him. Obi-Wan is in the intergalactic zeitgeist one way or another, but Nathan's never exclaimed this name before. Just a creative curse maybe? Or is Obi-Wan Kenobi standing behind her? She glances over.

Yup, there he is.

"Hi, Obi-Wan," she welcomes, like she always does. Like she's not emanating faint white light from under her shirt and hoodie. Shame slithers down her throat. She reminds herself she isn't doing anything wrong. Right?

Still, she finds herself trying to explain, glancing with pale eyes from Nathan and back, "have you met Nathan?" Best case scenario, Obi-Wan says yes and the context assembles itself. Just in case, she adds, "he's a-a friend."

"Hello, Vanya. And no, I don't believe we've met," Obi-Wan says, hands tucked into the sleeves of his robe, his forearms folded over one another. He appraises the young man with some amusement, unable to see him as anything but a younger version of the man he loves very much.

This Nathan, on the other hand, is practically vibrating with energy.

"This is Obi-Wan Kenobi!" he nearly shouts at Vanya. "He's a fuckin' Jedi. All zhoom zhoom." He makes noises similar to the humming of Obi-Wan's lightsaber and guides his arms back and forth as if he's holding one, then grins. "I can't believe you know a fuckin' Jedi."

"Was Vanya levitating you?" Obi-Wan asks, lips pressed together in amusement.

"What? Oh, yeah, it's cool, mate," the curly haired boy says. "I can't die."

There's a perfectly good joke here about how it's actually her brother that knows about fucking a Jedi, but Vanya's not going to scream it across a park. She'll laugh about it with Klaus later.

"Obi-Wan's part of the family," she explains, smiling over at Obi-Wan. The man is very amused and it makes the taste of her embarrassment more bitter. Luckily, Nathan's around being Nathan and Obi-Wan's not out to humiliate her.

"And somehow," Vanya says, "he's not a Hargreeves." She gestures with restrained pride to her friend - her actual friend that she made on her own, who she spends time with and who likes her for who she is - another powered soul who knows what it's like to grow up without powers. Vanya regularly wonders what a day in Nathan's life would be like, and dreams up the answers with alternating horror and delight.

She realizes she is still yelling at Nathan from across the park. "Are you coming back?"

"What?" Nathan asks. "Fuck no! Rey told me he'd slice me up with his lightsaber if he knew all the shit I got into. No offense, dude, but you're scary."

Obi-Wan holds back another laugh, lips pressed together as he looks over at Vanya with his eyebrows raised. This boy may look like Klaus, but his energy is utter chaos, and Obi-Wan has to consider how lucky they are that a person like this in Darrow isn't Force sensitive. He would be a terribly destructive force out of sheer energy.

"None taken," he calls as the boy waves, then wanders off, seemingly unconcerned with anything at all.

"Bye, Nathan! You owe me lunch!" she calls after Nathan in his retreat. She ducks her head and adds, sheepishly, "Kinda wish you hadn't seen that."

Obi-Wan is her family, isn't he? No small wonder here that she'd know how to identify the feeling. Darrow has been good to her and all of them -- mostly. Living without Ben hasn't been great. This hurt may be her own fault. Everything ends eventually.

"Is it true he can't die?" Obi-Wan asks in return. He's not overly bothered by the idea that Vanya is practicing her abilities in a safe manner, using them in a mostly controlled environment on someone who truly cannot be wounded in the process of it.

How else is one meant to learn how to deal with what they have? It would be like telling Force sensitive children not to practice on one another, when Obi-Wan is well aware they do. He had participated in it plenty himself, had even once thrown Plo Koon a little too far in the midst of a game.

"It is," Vanya affirms, shoving her cold hands into her coat pockets. "I... think we got close once." She shifts her weight on her legs, telling herself she's fine, it's fine, nobody's perfect, etc. "He just laughed." Vanya may have freaked out then, but she can't help the bubble of a laugh now. She'd cried and he bounced up and asked to go again.

Vanya looks up at Obi-Wan again and sees that he is still unperturbed. Maybe she wasn't doing anything wrong.

"Are you going somewhere?"

"Just a walk," he answers, looking at Vanya with a barely restrained expression of amusement. "Are you expecting me to scold you?"

It seems as though she is. Obi-Wan is not the right man for it, certainly not in this situation and maybe not at all. While he is happy to offer guidance and advice, he failed his own Padawan to the extent that undid the entire Galactic Senate, undid the democracy they had been working so hard to protect. Anakin's powers are ones Obi-Wan understands completely and still he had failed.

He won't presume to be the one scolding Vanya for using powers he can't possibly begin to wrap his mind around.

"A little," Vanya undercuts, freeing a hand to tuck some hair behind an ear before placing it back in her coat pocket. Obi-Wan looks the Jedi equivalent of ready to burst out laughing, which makes Vanya laugh.

"This may come as a surprise to you, but I am not used to understanding." Of course, it will be no surprise to him at all. Putting the obvious influence of her father aside, she explains, "musicians and music teachers aren't known for their patience, either."

There's another matter, something she can never find the right words to talk about. What is the right way to practice with powers that can devastate? When she finds herself wanting destruction sometimes, too?

"I'm not much of one for scolding regardless, but it would be a little hypocritical of me, given just how far I once threw Plo Koon during our training," he answers, giving Vanya an easy smile.

"Because training is necessary," he says. "For Jedi and for you. Even if this may not be the most traditional way in which to do so, I can't say it isn't working for you. Especially if your friend is a willing participant who can't really be injured by your powers. It seems to me you're doing the best you can."

Obi-Wan's gaze goes to where Nathan has disappeared and says, "He's an interesting fellow."

Vanya laughs again, more subdued the more she settles into the comfort of not being a disappointment. She thinks better of it and asks, "they were okay, right?" She imagines so, since Obi-Wan dropped this little nugget of a memory like it was no big deal.

More of that increasingly familiar, welcome content warms through her. She's not sure there are words for how grateful she is for Obi-Wan's infinite patience, his gentle strength. All she can do is murmur quick thanks and regard him with a fond little smile.

"Nathan's one in a million," Vanya agrees, glancing back toward where he'd just been before. "Even without powers." Not like Vanya, who was a drop in a bucket of average before she knew who she was. It seems like so long ago and yet, just new.

"Plo Koon?" Obi-Wan asks, then smiles, quick and bright. "Oh, he was fine. A bit sore for a few days, but he certainly repaid me a few weeks later and we were only... eight or nine at the time. Children tend to bounce back a little quicker, don't they?"

Master Yoda, on the other hand, hadn't been especially pleased with young Obi-Wan, who had a tendency to bend the rules until they almost snapped just before backing off and claiming innocence. The rules he broke were the ones no one tended to realize.

"He felt... chaotic," he says. "Your friend, that is. Like a storm of selfishness and selflessness all at the same time. A dangerous combination, were he a Jedi."

"Usually," Vanya agrees, unable to keep that tinge of melancholy from her voice. The children she taught were resilient, but she never treated them the way she'd been treated at their age. How well did Klaus bounce back? Or Ben? God, she wishes she could stop thinking about him and how everything feels like that rainy evening all over again every time she catches a glimpse of his open door down the hallway.

"Chaotic is a good word to describe him." Selfish, too. Vanya hasn't seen much selflessness, but she supposes she hasn't been given the chance. Would Nathan stick his neck out for her if she asked him to?

Trick question: Vanya would never ask. She may have built up the confidence to take space in public, but she is no closer to asking for help from anyone that isn't a Hargreeves (or in her present company).

"He's handsome. Reminds me of someone, but I can't figure out who."

"Hmm, he did seem very familiar and yet..."

Obi-Wan trails off, smiling a little. It surprises him less than it might someone else, likely because he's seen his own face here in Darrow, in Dan, and Harley had mentioned a man in her life, too, who looked just like him.

"Young, though," he says. "He can't be much older than Anakin, if he is at all." And somehow Anakin seems like much more of an adult, but he has been on the serious side since he was a child.

Vanya doesn't respond, at first. She doesn't know a lot about Anakin: only who he is to him and that he's in Darrow. Anything else is conjecture. It seems like there is something fraught about their relationship, but Vanya's never asked, like she is tempted to do now.

"Anakin who you trained, right?" Vanya ventures. She laughs. "Can you imagine training Nathan?" Lightsabers for dicks and a lot of bitching, no doubt. It's funny to imagine, as long as they're saying this side of serious.

"Yes, I trained Anakin," Obi-Wan answers with a nod. "Though not only me. When the Jedi are young, they live and learn at the temple on Coruscant. They're taught by many of the Jedi who have come before them and once they're of a certain age, if they've become proficient, they're chosen by Jedi Masters as Padawan."

But it was always going to be the case that Anakin was his Padawan. Obi-Wan had promised Qui-Gon, after all.

He smiles a little and says, "Oh, I don't think our friend Nathan would be cut out to be a Jedi."

"You chose him," Vanya extrapolates thoughtfully. Instead of keeping her thoughts to herself, she reports them to Obi-Wan. "I can't imagine what The Umbrella Academy would have been like if it had been run more like the Jedi Academy. With, like, real teachers and measurable results. Instead of a robot programmed by an absent father figure." Mom, as many called her. Vanya finds it difficult to call her that, just as she finds it troublesome to recall Pogo's place in her young life. She hates him with the same blind rage that hates Reginald. Obviously.

All three of them are gone now, two of them by Vanya's hand. The worst days aren't the ones when she misses them: they're the ones where she's sure she'd do that much all over again.

"I believe Anakin was always meant to be my Padawan. I promised my Master I would train him as he died," Obi-Wan admits. "I think, even if I hadn't, I would have wanted to. Anakin was... is special. One of the most powerful Force users I have ever encountered, but he was and still is prone to outbursts of anger, which is very dangerous for someone with such great power."

Obi-Wan tilts his head slightly and says, "I don't believe your father had any interest in shaping people who would be fulfilled, happy, and skilled, to be quite honest. With the way you and your siblings speak of him, it seems as if he wanted a team to make himself look good because of his achievements."

It's difficult not to relate to this person she doesn't know as he's described. It makes her wonder what he's capable of, what he's done. She would like to meet someone like that, just to know they exist. She may not be the most powerful -- from what she'd seen of Dad's journal and what's happened with Klaus in Darrow, many of the Hargreeves have powers they've yet to discover -- but she's the most careless. Vanya is the least equipped and the most likely to cause devastation of them all. Did people say the same thing about Anakin? What happened?

"That tracks," she says of her father with a small, apologetic smile. She's had enough therapy to have stopped wondering why their father did the things he did. What she can never seem to stop wondering about is how or why she was born, and what poor, unsuspecting person she could more rightly call Mom is like.

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[for Obi-Wan (with special guest Nathan)]

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