Title: Definition of a Messed Up Family
Author: TardisIsTheOnlyWayToTravel
Setting: After season 2, ignoring season 3.
Author notes:
Complete and utter crack!fic…
DEFINITION OF A MESSED UP FAMILY
Claire Bennet scowled to herself. It wasn't fair. She finally meets a bloke who's cute, sensitive, caring and funny, and he turns out to be her uncle.
Why did she have to have such a hot uncle?
She'd been living with Nathan for a while now – she didn't call him Dad, because while he might have given her half her DNA it wasn't like he'd actually behaved like a dad at any point in her life; she already had a dad, however much of a mess he might have made of it – and even though she hated dealing with all the political stuff, and living with Nathan's wife and their children, and the way that Nathan tried to act all paternal sometimes, and definitely Nathan's mother, the worst thing of all was the way that Peter was always dropping around.
True, life in the Petrelli household would have been unbearable if it weren't for Peter's gentle empathy and sense of humour and general lack of derangement, but on the other hand it would be much easier to get over all his attractive qualities if he wasn't always there demonstrating them.
She sighed and went back to her starting point: it wasn't fair.
Glowering quietly, she finished getting dressed and went downstairs to join the others for breakfast. Maybe it'd take her mind off Peter.
o0o o0o o0o o0o
The first Peter knew of how weird his day was going to be was when he answered the door.
A middle-aged-edging-into-older woman of about his own height smiled up at him with eyes just like his.
"Hello Peter," she said softly.
"Who are you?" Peter asked suspiciously. Maybe it was her eyes or the way she was looking at him, but some instinct was suddenly screaming that something important was going to happen.
She smiled sadly.
"I'm your mother, Peter."
"Um, give me a sec," Peter said, and shut the door in her face.
-
He walked back towards the kitchen where most of the family was still having breakfast.
"Mum," he called out, "there's some blonde woman at the door telling me she's my mother."
He noticed that Claire was actually eating breakfast with everyone for once, because she had paused with her spoon of cereal halfway to her mouth and was staring at him as if he were mad.
"She's here?" Angela snapped in deadly tones. "That woman has the nerve to show up here?"
"Mum?" Nathan questioned.
"Mum. Tell me who she is," Peter said warily.
Angela gave a contemptuous sniff, looking away from him.
"She's the blonde bimbo who let Mortimer knock her up and then dumped you on our doorstep."
Everyone froze.
"Excuse me?" Peter managed.
Angela finally looked at him, with an expression that suggested that she thought he was being extremely thick.
"Yes, she's your mother, Peter," she said witheringly. "Mortimer didn't want to have anything to do with you, irresponsible as he was, and Arthur didn't want his nephew abandoned by some floozy where who knew what would happen. So we took you in."
"Wait, so Uncle Mortimer is my father? And that woman out there is my mother?" Peter wanted to make sure he had everything completely straight.
"Yes."
"So Peter's not my brother?" Nathan looked utterly betrayed.
"No he's not." Angela spoke shortly. "He's your cousin."
"Right." Peter went back to the door and opened it. "Hi."
"Hi," his mother smiled back, tentatively.
"You'd better come in." Peter paused, and added, "Uh, don't worry about anything they say, they're all a bit nuts."
His mother followed him back to the kitchen, where everyone was still in shock over the discovery that Peter was not, in fact, their brother, brother-in-law, or uncle.
Angela looked daggers at the blonde woman.
"I told you that if we took him in you were to have nothing to do with him," Angela said icily. "He would be raised as our son, and that would be all he knew."
The blonde woman glared back.
"Listen, you –"
"So," Claire told Peter. "I guess you're not my uncle, huh?"
"Yeah," Peter agreed, having been thinking the exact same thing himself despite everything else that was taking up his attention at the moment. "Guess not."
His mother and adoptive mother were both yelling at each other now, and it seemed that they must have known each other rather well at some point, because they were both currently yelling out various indiscretions that the other had committed.
"– OH YEAH, WELL WHO CAME ONTO THE BELLBOY –"
"Excuse me," Peter interrupted. "Hey!"
Both women turned to look at him.
"I think I'm going to need to think this through a bit," he told his mother. "I'm sure you're nice and everything, but you're also a complete stranger, so, no offence or anything, but I'm going to need some space."
He turned to the young lady who as it turned out, was not his niece.
"Claire, feel free to slap me if you think this is weird or anything, but do you want to go on a date sometime?"
Claire smiled at him.
"Sure. You know, there's a good milk bar only a few blocks away that does great milkshakes. We could go there now if you want to."
"That sounds great," Peter said.
"I'll just get my purse," Claire said, and left the kitchen. Peter followed to wait in the hall for her.
Everyone stared for a moment, completely stunned.
Angel and Peter's mother went back to insulting each other again.
Nathan buried his face in his hand.
"This family gets weirder by the day," he muttered.
His wife and younger children could only nod in speechless agreement.
END