Chapter Text
*) years old*
On the twelfth hour, of the first day in October 1989, 43 women around the world gave birth. This was unusual, only in the fact that none of these women had been pregnant when the day first began. Sir Reginald Hargreeves, reclusive and eccentric billionaire and adventurer, resolved to locate and adopt as many of these children as possible.
The door to a rather large mansion opened and stiff-looking man lead a stream of stiff-looking women into the entry hall. Each woman pushed an expensive pram with a child inside. The prams were numbered and the line followed numerical order.
As the man lead the line further into the house, a small head of blonde hair peered around the corner from the upper floor. Sharp blue eyes followed the line of women, acutely aware of the sounds the infants made as they were pushed along.
“Delores!” a woman’s voice called as a blonde woman dressed in 50s style clothing approached the girl and placed a hand on her shoulder. “Come along dear, you’ve lessons to complete.”
“Coming mother.” the girl nodded obediently.
He got seven of them.
*******
In a dark room two rows of bassinets sat, four on one side of the room and three on the other. Each had a child in it. Four out of seven of these children were sleeping peacefully. The other three were not.
It’s hard to imagine dad having a life before we came into it. In truth, it’s hard to imagine him as a person at all really. My brother Klaus liked to joke that dad was older than dinosaurs.
But in the end, he was a human being like all the rest of us. His own childhood, his own mistakes. One such mistake was a drunken exploit in his early twenties that lead to the birth of his only biological child: Theodore Francis Hargreeves. My siblings and I only met him a handful of times, but I’m told that it was dad’s mission to turn his son into an exact copy of himself.
The door to the nursery swung open and a girl no older than seven in an expensive silk nightgown came in. She groaned in frustration as she shut the door behind her. “Of course Grandfather put you all right down the hall from me! How am I supposed to get any sleep with you carrying on like this?”
And in some ways he succeeded. Theodore had his own drunken exploit at a young age that lead to the birth of someone my siblings and I got to know a lot better: Delores Theodosia Hargreeves.
Huffing, the girl came to the bassinet marked with a number four. She scooped up the boy making the most fuss out of the children and held him at arms length in front of her. “What’s your problem huh? Why’re you so mad?” the baby continued screaming over her, his little hands grabbing at nothing. Delores sighed and brought the boy into her chest, frowning when she tangled in the wires that were attached to him. “Well that can’t be comfortable.”
Peeling off the stickers that attached the monitors to his tiny head, she sighed wondering what the old man had in store for these kids. Her mother had told her that Hargreeves had purchased the babies straight from their mothers. The idea of selling a child should have been abhorrent to the young girl, but she doubted the cost had been much more than what her Grandfather had paid to make her biological mother disappear. Her father had been using his father’s money to solve his problems since birth. Paying the hooker that had birthed her to give her away had been par for the course. Perhaps it was a family thing.
The boy in her arms brought Delores out of her musings as his tiny fingers pinched her nightgown. “You just want someone to be close to you, don’t you?” She scoffed dryly. “You’ve got a long life ahead of you kid.” the baby’s crying was beginning to day down, leaving more room for the sound of his newly adopted siblings fussing. Delores peered into the other bassinets, pity filling her. She wouldn’t wish her family on anyone, and if these kids turned out special like Hargreeves thought their strange births merited, they had more than a distant caretaker awaiting them.
Perhaps her mother could help them. Grace had been designed by her Grandfather to care for her, but she supposed she wouldn’t mind sharing. True, there was only so much the android could do; she was designed to be loyal to Hargreeves first after all. Any proper mother would take their child far away from here.
Perhaps she could help them.
Delores Theodosia Hargreeves. What can I even begin to say about Delores Theodosia Hargreeves?