::Groan:: Folks, writing this chapter was like pulling teeth…with dirty pliers rummaged out from the corner of a rat infested barn…no anesthetic …bad music playing in the background. I think I rewrote it about three times, and honestly, I have no idea why I struggled so much. ::shrugs:: oh well, please enjoy!
Summary: Nathan's bad day continues the unprecedented downward spiral as Claire has a run-in with a certain lightning bug and Peter makes interesting (and unwelcome) friendship choices. AU
Sitting around the dining table with his sweetly dimpled pregnant wife, unashamedly adoring younger brother and precocious goldilocks of a daughter, Nathan cast his eyes towards the heavens above…and wondered when he had unknowingly provoked the retribution of an ancient pagan god to have deserved the events of the past 24 hours. Or perhaps the old beggar woman he had been snubbing on the street for the past four months had finally executed her frequent and surprisingly eloquent threat to "rain curses from the darkest circles of hell upon his parsimonious soul".
What else could explain the unnatural phenomenon that was his abominably bad day? He had awoken to a hormonally charged, weepy wife and the accusation that he didn't love her anymore. At work he had been greeted with a painfully patronizing lecture followed, of course, by the unwelcome news from Mohinder and Peter's original take on the phrase 'catching a bus'. Rather than ending his day by sinking into the warmth and camaraderie expected at the family hearth, he had arrived to an empty, tomb-like house, devoid of all refreshing feminine hospitality. While the solitude did present the opportunity for Peter to dash up to his room and change out of his severely distressed clothing, Nathan was highly disappointed not to be greeted by the open arms of his burgeoning wife or the excited bounce of his devoted daughter. Unfortunately, there was an all too appropriate reason for their absence, as he quickly learned. His little princess, his cutie pie, his angel face had been suspended from school. For fighting. At ten years old.
Breathe, Nathan. Breathe.
Ignoring all compulsions towards diving headlong into his bed and disappearing until the day had expended it's outpouring of misery, Nathan poured himself a stiff drink, only pausing momentarily to covet the laggardly flow of the liquid between finely pellucid crystal borders. His father would have been proud of his staunch determination not to expose his extreme emotional turbulence. Instead, as his father would have done in a similar situation, he ushered his family to the table at precisely six o'clock. "Punctuality is order," Arthur's voice echoed through the halls, "and order begets power."
The foursome was silent throughout the first course, each Petrelli focused on his or her personal slights and tribulations. Claire was the first to speak out, her sense of injustice boiling up and beyond the limits of her infantile tolerance.
"It isn't fair," she shouted, slamming her small palm against the table top without enough force to even jostle the silverware.
"Claire…"her parents warned.
"It isn't!" she insisted, her blue eyes bright with unshed and very angry tears. "She started it but I'm the one in trouble. Is that fair?"
"Is that true?" Nathan turned to his uneasy wife, eager to believe that his little girl was merely being abused by an unjust system rather than have to deal with the repercussion of having fathered a mean spirited hell cat.
"It isn't as simple as all that," Heidi began carefully, smoothing her napkin over her disappearing lap. "That young girl is in the hospital right now. Claire has to face those consequences, no matter who started the fight."
Nathan eyed his wife, taking in the slight nostril flare that spoke of her determination, a trait only her husband could recognize. He turned to his daughter, her bottom lip trembling in outrage. "Tell me exactly what happened, Claire," he said in the even tone that Claire and Peter had secretly dubbed his lawyer voice.
She inhaled deeply, bolstered by an encouraging grin from her uncle. "It was that stupid Elle Bishop. I didn't do anything to her; I hadn't even said anything to her all day. I hadn't even seen her except for lunch time. That's the only time upper levels and lower levels are in the same place, but all of a sudden I'm walking out to meet mom after school and the dumb girl zaps me from behind!"
Nathan groaned and rubbed a hand across his eyes. "Again? Man, how many times are we gonna have to deal with this girl? How old is she now, 13, 14? When the hell is she gonna grow up?"
"Nathan, please," Heidi gently chastised, "you know that Elle has certain…issues."
"Yeah," Claire spoke up, "she's crazy so she can use me for target practice. That's really nice."
"Sweetie, that's not what I meant."
"Or maybe it's not 'cause she's crazy, maybe it's because her dad's the richest guy in the world," Claire added, allowing upset tears to finally stream down her face. "I know I heal, but it really hurts. It really, really does. And I was so sick of it so I just- I just…when I saw the fountain I remembered what Mr. Smith said about water and electricity so I just…pushed her in." A solitary hiccup accented the end of her confession, endearing in her childish fit.
Heidi was solemn. Nathan felt conflicted. Peter laughed.
"Seriously?" he snickered, ignoring Heidi's slight scowl for the moment. "What happened?"
Claire grinned, tears forgotten. "She lit up like the fourth of July."
"That is not funny," a disgusted Heidi interrupted their howls, aiming a pointed look at the young people. "Stop it immediately. I'm ashamed at you both, laughing while a thirteen year old girl is in the hospital, possibly very seriously injured. Is that funny?"
The pair quickly sobered, shaking their head in the negative. "I didn't mean to hurt her that bad," Claire whined defensively. "I just wanted her to know what its like. She's never even apologized to me, did you know that? She's been mean to me for years and she…"
"That's enough," Nathan barked, irritated beyond expression with the pointless twittering over perceived wrongs that were really little more than a foolish school girl spat. "Claire, life isn't fair. Don't expect it to be. You can't stop Elle from being a little jerk but it's no excuse for your running around like a hooligan, getting into fights. You're a Petrelli. Act like it."
"Fine," Claire hissed, head held high, eyes daringly locked onto her father's. She stood and pushed her chair back with one quick movement. "May I please be excused? I'm not very hungry."
Even though the waves of hauteur radiating from his daughter were so intense that he almost felt compelled to wipe their residue from his eyes, he couldn't help but admire the girl's mettlesome nature. 'At least she listened to me,' he smirked half heartedly as she stalked from the table. 'That was definitely a Petrelli-esque move. Get as angry as you like, but be polite about it.'
The three remaining diners reverted to silence of the cold and stony variety.
Nathan sighed resignedly. "I should go talk to her, shouldn't I?"
"Yes," Heidi agreed, "in a few minutes you should go apologize to your daughter. Just give her a little while to calm down. Remember, we women-folk crave understanding."
"What would I do without you?" Nathan gazed at his wife with admiring eyes, reaching out to gently cup the side of her neck and leaning in to graze his lips against the smooth coolness of her brow.
She giggled prettily at the unexpectedly romantic gesture. "Probably ruin every meaningful relationship you've ever had."
"All the more reason to keep you around," he whispered, raising his hand to return a stray hair to it's proper position behind her delicately turned ear, resting his hand along the side of her heart-shaped face once his task was completed.
Peter cleared his throat loudly. "This is getting a little awkward," he grinned cheekily from across the table as a bold flush stretched across Nathan's face to creep through that of his wife. He sagaciously interpreted Nathan's next dangerously barbed glare to call for his immediate dismissal. Recognizing that after the awful day his brother had endured the older sibling might very well respond to any further brotherly ribbing or gentle teasing with the projection of any accessible objects, such as flatware or steak knives, towards the general vicinity of Peter's head, nothing could have inveigled the young man to remain in his vulnerable position for a moment longer. He excused himself, reminding his guardians that he was expected at a friend's house to work on a school project, but just as he twisted his torso to extricate himself from the uncomfortably hard backed chair, Heidi called out to him in a voice laced with concern.
Her brow was set in a confused frown as she laid her napkin on the table and cautiously crept to where Peter stood frozen in suspended animation half out of his chair. Nathan couldn't understand what had so stricken his wife that she completely abandoned the romantic overtures of their conversation; then Peter turned to look at Heidi, exposing the lean line of his neck as he did so. There it was. A line of dry blood caressing his brother's developing jaw line.
'Shit.'
"What is this?" Heidi was asking when Nathan deserted his internal monologue. Before either fellow could respond with anything remotely intelligible she had soaked the corner of Peter's napkin in a half empty water glass and used the damp cloth to scrub at the stain marring Peter's olive skin.
"Oww, geeze…" Peter complained.
"Oh stop," was her pitiless reply. Her face paled as she pulled the cloth towards her for inspection. Nathan and Peter offered helpless glances to one another.
"We can explain," Nathan began calmly.
"Its blood," she acknowledge quietly. "What is going on?"
Now, the boy's hadn't necessarily gone so far as to fabricate some vague but thoroughly specious explanation for use in the event that Heidi became aware of Peter's earlier unpleasantness. They had simply agreed that, considering her delicate condition, the whole truth surrounding the situation might become a bit overwhelming. Nathan could have handled the situation with the unimpeachable grace and delicacy found only among talented liars. Peter, however, was a terrible liar; un-truths of all degrees were contrary to his character, even as a teenager. With the addition of Heidi hovering over him with her breathy concerned sighs and luminescent blue eyes, the kid never had a chance. He always had been a sucker for a pretty face.
He divulged it all in an outpouring of details, beginning with his good deed as NY's unofficial information kiosk and ending with his obviously un-thorough scrub down in Nathan's office, though no mention was made of looming government encroachment. "Guess I missed a spot," he joked with a shrug, a commendable but flat attempt at lightening the morose atmosphere.
Heidi wasn't appeased. "I don't understand. I thought Claude had shown you how to control the absorption of new abilities. How is it that you're still picking up abilities off of street corners?"
"It wasn't like I just walked by and took on his ability." He couldn't help feeling slightly offended by the woman's line of questioning. "When we were saying good bye he shook my hand and I remember feeling kinda funny, but I, um, didn't really think anything about it…at the time." Peter bashfully dropped his gaze to his fidgeting feet, unable to look at his sister-in-law as visions of Nikki danced tantalizingly before him.
"Even so," Heidi persevered, "You told us that physical contact wasn't a trigger anymore. This is serious, Peter. You know you were only allowed to start high school at the Academy under the condition that you absolutely control your ability."
"I know, and I can," he swore vehemently. "I've been going to the Academy for nearly two years and I haven't absorbed any abilities involuntarily…other than, well, today and that was only under special circumstances."
"What special circumstances?" Heidi continued to question, feeling for the first time the full weight of the responsibility of guardianship for the unusual boy.
Peter squirmed uncomfortably under her probing stare. "I was just, uh, distracted and I guess I wasn't really paying attention."
"What could possibly distract you to the point that you even slightly lost control?" The brother's instinctively met each other with identical knowing glances. Breaking away, Nathan crossed his arms and lowered his eyes to marvel at the intricate whorls in the hardwood floor. He let his brother stammer for long painful moments before stepping behind him to drop his hands heavily onto the smaller shoulders.
"The kind of distraction in a mini skirt and a plunging neckline," he revealed with a proud twinkle in his expressive hazel eyes. "He's a teenage boy, Heidi…"
"Ah geeze," Peter groaned, shrinking back into the seat and leaning his blushing face into his left hand.
Heidi was momentarily stunned, but quickly regained function as the humor of the situation began to dawn upon her. Poor Peter. Unwilling to join in Nathan's rumbling chuckle and add to Peter's obvious humiliation, she clucked her tongue and admonished her husband. "Honestly, Nathan, it's perfectly natural for a young man…"
Peter whimpered pathetically and hid his head between his knees, the temptation to disappear growing harder to deny with every awkward moment. Heidi threw her hands in the air, reconciled to not progressing the discussion any further with regards to 'distractions'. "Alright, I get it. Immediate cease fire on all discussion of 'special feelings'," another long-suffering moan from the shriveling boy, "but Peter, we need you to be more careful."
"Why?" Peter asked wearily. "First Nathan, now you. When are you guys gonna realize that, hey, I can heal. It doesn't matter."
This time Heidi was unable to prevent a peal of laughter from escaping. She tucked a finger beneath his stubbornly set chin, gently forcing his head up from its hiding place. "And when are you going to realize," she asked earnestly, "that you could be made of impenetrable steel and we'll still do everything in our power to prevent you from being hurt?" She pulled him into a sisterly hug. "I know you want to be the one to do the saving, in any way possible, but you have to understand that there are times when you have to let people take care of you too." She held the boy at a distance. "Okay?"
"Okay," Peter smiled crookedly, though the expression didn't quite make it to his guarded eyes.
"Good," Heidi sighed. "Now, I really need to soak in the tub for about two hours." She was almost to the door when she turned abruptly and asked, "Should we be expecting a call from the police department anytime soon?"
The two Petrellis shrugged. "I don't think so."
"I never gave anyone any information," Peter offered. "There weren't any authorities hanging around."
"No one tried to intervene or help at all?" Heidi, a small town girl from Maine, was often appalled by certain facets of big city life.
Peter cocked his head slightly, thinking back to the earlier events. "Well, there was a crowd around when I came to, but when a strange kid suddenly jumps up from a pool of blood not many people tend to run towards him. Kinda the opposite really."
She pursed her lips, a suppressed sigh vibrating in her throat. She turned with a curt not, calling over her shoulder, "Just…don't tell Angela. Dear Lord, she'd never let me forget it…" her voice trailed off as she made her way up to the sanctuary of her waiting tub.
The brother's eyed each other warily. Peter knew what to expect, but he was still taken off guard when Nathan's arm shot out and pulled the slighter figure into a playful but tight headlock. "Couldn't take a second to look in a damn mirror, could you?" The garbled string of sounds escaping the captured boy was something between laughter and protest.
"What'd you say?" Nathan laughed, releasing his hold enough that Peter could form actual coherent sentences.
"I said lemme go!" Peter demanded forcefully.
"Make me, little brother." Nathan had been engaging his kid brother in impromptu grappling sessions from the boy's earliest years, much to their mother's never ending chagrin, and while he was always considerably gentle enough, the Neanderthal lurking within his subconscious reveled in the knowledge that he could always overpower the smaller boy. He was, therefore, understandably astonished when instead of receiving a generous but easily withstand-able push at his side he was inexplicably thrown across the room to thud solidly against the far wall.
"Oww," he muttered darkly between curses, groping the back of his head as he sat crumpled at the juncture of floor and wall. A moment later his colorless brat of a sibling was kneeling beside him, calling his name apologetically.
"I dunno what happened, Nate. Oh man, are you okay? Should I call someone? I am so sorry."
His brother's incessant guilt driven yapping was doing nothing toward relieving the throbbing pain in his head and shoulders. "Do me a favor, Peter," he growled as the kid helped him to his feet.
"Sure, Nate, anything."
"Shut up for five seconds, will ya?"
"Sorry," he replied quietly, allowing his hand to linger at Nathan's elbow, lest the unstable man fall. A sharp glare from the wounded man drove the offending appendage away. Clearly not the time for a show of fraternal concern.
"What the hell was that, anyway?" Nathan asked as he walked toward the kitchen, hoping to find an icepack for his vibrating skull.
Peter trailed after him at a safe distance, fully aware that an irate Nathan was quick to lash out. "I really have no idea. That's never happened before, I swear."
Nathan pulled the thin sack out of a drawer and filled it with ice. He turned to face his wide-eyed younger brother as he applied the cold back to the tender area of his abused head, grimacing as the two made contact. "What's going on with all the new abilities Peter? Where did this one come from?"
Peter shook his head slowly, holding up his deceptively weedy hands. "I don't know anyone who can do something like that."
"Maybe Heidi was right," Nathan replied coolly, brushing past Peter with a sharp clip to his shoulder. "Maybe you can't handle the Academy."
"That isn't fair," Peter protested, following hot on his brother's heels. "You're just pissed because I'm stronger than you now."
"No," he hissed, the unhappy ghost of his wounded pride spinning maddeningly in the pit of his stomach, "I'm not."
"Yeah, right."
"I'll always be your big brother, and I'll always be able to take you, little man," he promised menacingly. "Excuse me for being concerned that my kid brother is picking up random abilities from God knows where. First that DL guy…"
Peter's hazel eyes lit up with sudden inspiration. "Nikki!"
"Geeze, Pete, you really do have a one track mind."
"No, no, I mean, remember what DL said? He said "We're advanced" as in him and Nikki. What if she's super strong?"
"Huh," Nathan grunted. "That's a thought. Looks certainly can be deceiving. Do you remember feeling any strange sensations around…" Cue the significant smirks from both brothers. "You know what I mean."
"Well," Peter wrapped his right arm around his torso, drawing himself back into his memories. "I know that when I regained consciousness she was holding my hand. Do you think my body absorbed it while I was coming to?"
"It's plausible, you can ask Claude about it," the lawyer conceded, "but I guess we'll never know for sure."
"However it happened, you have to admit," Peter grinned widely, "It's pretty cool."
"Don't go around getting into fights all the time just because you're not a scrawny weakling anymore."
"I promise, not unless someone really deserves it."
"You, kid," Nathan took the smirking teen by the nape of his neck," are a pain in my ass."
"But you're still crazy about me."
Nathan rolled his eyes and not so gently pushed the younger boy away from him. "Didn't you have someplace to go?"
Peter jumped at the unexpected reminder, shouting "Oh crap, I'm late," as he rushed to collect his things.
"Where are you going, again?" Nathan asked as he fondly watched his energetic brother quickly wolf down one last bite of his forgotten dinner.
"To work on a project for class," Peter said thickly, refusing to meet his brother's gaze.
Nathan squinted suspiciously at his brother. "With who?"
Peter hesitated before evasively answering, "A friend."
"Which friend?" Nathan followed his equivocal brother, watching as he pulled on a well-worn hoodie.
Peter remained silent.
"Peter…"
The teenage sighed unenthusiastically, sliding the zipper to his chin. "Gabe, okay?"
"Man, Pete…" Nathan shook his head, regretting the action instantly as pain flared behind his eyes. "Why do you insist on hanging out with that kid?"
"Huh, I dunno, maybe because I'm his only friend. Everyone at school is too much like you to give him a chance when in reality he's a really cool guy."
"He's shifty and secretive. I can see it in his eyes, Peter, there's something about him that's off. I don't trust him around my way too gullible little brother."
Peter shrugged off the arm that Nathan had tried to snake around his shoulders. "What's the real reason you don't like him, Nathan?" He stonily glared directly into his brother's wary eyes. "What bothers you more? Is it that his dads a convicted serial killer or that his mom's our maid?"
"Come on, Pete," Nathan scoffed, hands holstered in his high priced suit pockets.
"God, you're such a snob Nathan," he laughed humorlessly, shaking his head in disbelief. "I'm outta here."
Nathan caught his arm as he moved toward the door, an action far too reminiscent of their father for Peter's tastes. "He has the same ability as his father."
"I trust him, Nathan," Peter replied sincerely.
"I don't."
"Then trust me," Peter threw his arms around his older brother. "I know you guys care about me, but let me take care of myself."
Nathan had never before desired to have a more substantial power than flight, but as he watched his brother walking briskly down the sidewalk to meet with the son of a ruthless murderer, he would have given anything in the world for the ability to stop time; to prevent his brother from growing up and widening the yawning cavern between them. Life had been much simpler when Peter was five, when all that was necessary to protect him from the frightening things in life was to pick him up and hold him close.
Ever the realist, Nathan knew this was impossible. Peter would grow up and make his own decisions; good and bad; right and wrong, probably more good and right than bad and wrong, knowing Pete. One thing would never change, Nathan would be there to protect him whether he wanted him to or not and God help anyone who would get in his way.
Meh…let me know what you thought. Writing Claire was…ugh. I don't like Claire. Least favorite character. Darn her for being so closely related to my two favorite guys.
Anyone know the word for brother in Russian? Brat. No foolin'. I think its very apt.
Please review! This was a very rough chapter for me…::sob::…