Title: A Rose by Any Other Name
Fandom: Heroes
Claim: Niki x Peter
Set: #21
Prompt: A Rose by Any Other Name
Word Count: 513
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Peter Petrelli is always admired a rose, and Niki is the ultimate one.
Notes: Future fic, based on ep.20 'Five Years Gone'. Written for fivebyfiction challenge. Beta-ed by the magnificent karathephantom at LJ.
A Rose by Any Other Name
- Niki Sanders & Peter Petrelli, Las Vegas, 2010 -
Niki is pretty, that much he knows. He isn't blind.
His girlfriend is pretty, but so are many girls out there, especially in the night club that they own – an upscale gentlemen's club – and they are all more than willing to take their clothes off completely, unlike she. And he isn't without admirers either; Peter Petrelli may sit quietly on the farthest corner of the club, but he still gains the most attention from the girls. For some reason they seriously dig his scar, and his cold, piercing stare isn't helping the growing fan base at all.
But he sticks by her, still does and will forever, because he's always admired a rose.
And Niki is the ultimate one.
Even a few years ago, when he broke her out of the MOAB Federal Penitentiary, he could see how different she was from everyone else.
She was extremely weary and tired, just like any other prisoners he rescued that night, but there was a force in her eyes that moved something in him. He didn't need to be a genius to figure out how scared she was, but even so, there was a particular fire in her eyes telling him that no matter how much she was freaking out, she wouldn't give up easily.
It was the flame of a fighter.
From that moment on, he was captivated.
Soon he learned that she was, indeed, a true fighter. She had been through a lot – he listened to her life stories, which lasted for hours, about her abusive father, her late twin sister, even about her ex-con husband and the life he left for her – and yet she still stood on her own, she still had that flame burning.
Peter couldn't help it. He had been too drawn by her fire and let himself give in to his old nature that was a caregiver.
In a blink of an eye, it wasn't just Peter's life, and it wasn't just Niki's life – two separate ones – anymore. It became their life.
And, of course, later he came to find out that Niki not only used to take good care of herself, but she also took damn good care of her son, Micah. Her son whom she lost in the New York explosion, tragically (or was it ironically?) at Peter's hands.
Niki had – and still has – no idea that it was he who exploded that fateful day in November, but he knows.
He has known for some time now, but still he cannot find the nerve - cannot find the heart - to tell her, and so he keeps it quiet, keeps it his only secret from her.
And she becomes a full-grown rose with its deadly thorns for him.
Every time he looks at her, he can't stop asking how she can be so damn beautiful, so breath-takingly beautiful.
But at the same time there's a pang which pierces him.
She's painfully beautiful, too.
And that is his Niki.
She is his rose, by any other name.
FIN.