May comes in like a lamb; Umbrella Academy

16

Valuable didn't even begin to describe what Mary Hargreeves was to the mafia.

Dean Harmon had been calmly spending his afternoon in a cafe, the thunder and rain outside just adding to the serenity of his day. Upon looking up from his newspaper, he happened to lay his eyes on a girl who had fallen and was now weeping outside of the cafe. After studying her appearance, he made the connection that she had shocking similarities to the girl on the front of his newspaper. He hurriedly flipped to the page that was listed on the front cover, and skimmed through the article.

Up Close and Personal: Mary Hargreeves' First Hand Experiences in the Umbrella Academy!

Dean started to smirk.

He had found his most valuable weapon.

Mary continued to sob into her hands, her head beginning to hurt as she got a bit dizzy. She felt a hand on her shoulder, and looked up to meet the eyes of a middle aged man she had never seen before.

"Hello. Do you want to go inside? I'll get you a nice drink." The man said softly. Mary looked behind him and realized the café. Turning to him, she nodded slightly, her eyes partly closed from exhaustion.

Now in the café, Mary gently sipped a mug of hot chocolate, using everything in her power not to let her mind wander back to her family. The man walked back from the counter after ordering himself coffee and sat down across from Mary.

"My name is Dean Harmon. You're Mary Hargreeves, correct?" Mary nodded. Dean cleared his throat, leaning forward, "I apologize sincerely, Mary, but I fear your family is in deep trouble." Mary's eyes widened, and she stood up.

"What?"

"A group of undercover individuals have been targeting your family for years. And now that two of their powerful members are gone I fear they'll attack sooner rather than later." She began to turn around, Dean stopping her.

"Let go of me, I have to go back."

"you can't. I'm afraid they only have access through you, and if you go back you have a chance of endangering your family even more." Dean explained. Mary looked crushed. After all, she had just been told her whole family is in trouble because of her. She, defeated, sat back down in her chair, sighing.

"I can't believe this...what do I do?" She asked, nearly crying. Dean looked at her sympathetically, thinking for a bit before responding.

"..I'll tell you what. You come with me, and I'll work with you. We can train together, and get rid of those who are a danger to your family. What do you say?"

"Alright."

Mary spent months perfecting every weapon on the market, yet both her and Dean agreed that she was the best using double pistols. Yet the artillery took awhile to master, the mental practice was much harder.

It took years for her to perfect how she should feel once she walked into the houses, offices, gyms, libraries, parks, and anywhere else to kill them. She couldn't feel anything relatively close to remorse, as Dean had told her. After all, they were going to kill her family.

Right?

Night after night she would walk into the large underground station-like place where her, Dean, and many others she had met lived. The others often heckled her for always looking so young, yet they all kept it at teasing, knowing full well that Mary Hargreeves could be unbelievably dangerous.

She spent 10 years of her life being utterly alone, perfectly and cleanly killing whoever she was ordered to.

It was the 11th year that she met Claudia.

Claudia Harmon, Dean Harmon's niece, had bright orange hair and brown eyes, and an outgoing and kind personality. She visited Mary and the "agency" every day after she came home from highschool. Though she was 17 and Mary was technically 22, they always got along.

The only downside was that Claudia wasn't aware of what jobs the "agency" did. That wasn't much of an issue for Mary, she just strayed away from the topic every time they spoke. They sat on Mary's almost hard bed, chatting about what types of boys they liked or who in popular news they thought were in the wrong.

One day Claudia had brought her earphones over, and Mary asked her what she was listening to. Claudia smiled at her and turned to her.

"You wanna hear?"

"I wouldn't be opposed to it." Mary replied, making Claudia laugh.

"You talk like someone from the 18th century sometimes, it's kind of funny!" Mary smiled a little, her cheeks warming.

"Oh, haha..sorry." Claudia shook her head to tell her not to worry about it, and scooted closer to Mary, handing her one of the earbuds. Mary placed it in her ear, her eyes widening when she heard a sweet and soft tune. Claudia smiled at her reaction.

"It's a beautiful song, isn't it?" She asked Mary, who nodded in response. The two of them sat back against the wall listening to any song that Claudia wanted, her head resting on Mary's shoulder as both of them closed their eyes. They peacefully drifted to sleep together.

Whenever Claudia came over, Mary would finally smile. There wasn't much more for her to smile about, anyway. She had no other relationships with anyone else, and she was murdering people every other day.

But she was doing it to protect her family, right?

Her beliefs of that thought had began to waver much earlier than when she truly understood, but she feared backing down would kill her family, so she just kept going.

She had been ordered to kill a family of four on March 22nd. As she paced around her room gathering up her pistols, Claudia ran into her room. She was breathless, tears streaming down her cheeks. Mary turned to look at her, hiding her pistols behind her back.

"Mary, they're lying to you! Nobody's after your family, they're only using you for your powers! You have to trust me, and we have to go!" Claudia grabbed her hand, and a shot rang out in the room. Mary was suddenly splashed in the face with a warm liquid, and as Claudia's lifeless body crumpled to the ground in front of her, she realized it was blood.

She began to burn with fury, feeling her eyes strain from being more intense and bright than usual as she looked up to meet the eyes of Dean. He opened his mouth to speak, but Mary wouldn't let him get the pleasure.

Stretching her arm out, a transparent white snake began to appear from her arm. As she walked closer to Dean, she touched his arm, the snake crawling up his arm and curling around his neck. The snake began to strangle him as Mary tightened her fist.

"Ma...ry..." Dean managed to gargle out, before, in a quick, almost spastic movement, Mary flung her arm out to the side, the snake following suit and snapping Dean's neck. She practically glared down at his dead, bloodied body as the snake disappeared, feeling practically nothing.

She walked out of the door, stepping on Dean's body on her way out. One of the workers ran to her.

"Mary! What's all the ruckus ab-" pulling out her pistols, Mary shot the man once between the eyes, continuing to make her way down the hall, the blood of her only friend still covering her. She shot anyone she encountered, one, two, ten. She heard someone whispering behind a desk when she made her way to the door.

Walking behind the desk she found a dark haired man, cowering in the corner and visibly shaking. She held a gun to his head.

"Where am I." She demanded.

"Th-th...the mafia." He responded. Mary shot him.