Application for Claire Bennet (Heroes)
((Done with permission from the Heroes-muns. Spoilers for the whole first season.))
( I want to wake up kicking and screaming/I want to live like I know what I'm leaving/I want to know that my heart's still beating,/Is beating, Is beating, It's beating, I'm bleeding/Here we are now with the falling sky and the rain,/We're awakening/Here we are now with the desperate youth in pain,/We're awakening/Maybe it's called ambition, but you've been talk, talking in your sleep/About a dream, We're awakening )
( I want to wake up kicking and screaming/I want to live like I know what I'm leaving/I want to know that my heart's still beating,/Is beating, Is beating, It's beating, I'm bleeding/Here we are now with the falling sky and the rain,/We're awakening/Here we are now with the desperate youth in pain,/We're awakening/Maybe it's called ambition, but you've been talk, talking in your sleep/About a dream, We're awakening )
Her eyes followed Peter's to Nathan and the girl frowned. Actually, bio-dad Jerkface could just stay over there for now. Her feelings about Nathan were a scattered jumble. There was the longing to know her family, where she'd come from, who she was. But then there was the anger and disappointment over who her father had turned out to be. What he'd been almost willing to do. The fact that he'd shown up redeemed him slightly, but that someone could even consider doing what he had been... Claire didn't know if she wanted to hug the man or hit him. So distance was okay, right at the moment.
"To learn how to be a hero," she replied, wrinkling her nose at how juvenile that sounded. "I want to help people. Like you. I want to follow my destiny." The last word was said with a grin of an inside joke. She believed everything Peter had said about destiny, of course, but she was also well aware how precocious saying it out loud was. "Why are you here?" Then she laughed, shaking her head, grin growing. "Never mind, I'm just happy you're anywhere." She reached up and squeezed his upper arm. "I still can't believe you're alive. It's like a miracle."
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And he was trying! If opening and shutting his mouth like some kind of drowned guppy was any resemblance of something resembling 'trying'. Just... what did he say right now? 'So what have you been up to for the last sixteen years of your life'? 'How's the adopted parents, you know, since I kind of thought you were dead'? 'Sorry for trying to send you away to Paris because I was kind of ashamed of having an illegitimate daughter'? Oh, yes, it would all end so well. Hallmark moments here, people.
Peter got a look right back, as Nathan shifted from foot to foot and let his eyes flicker back to Claire. Clearing his throat and... letting them gossip or... what the hell ever they were doing.
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Still. Serious words were coming Nathan's way, as soon as they were alone.
He almost went to protest that he hadn't actually saved New York - it had been Nathan - but Peter stopped the words just in time. Claire sounded happy to believe that, even though she was finding heroic qualities in the wrong person. At the news that Claire wanted to learn how to be a hero, Peter's smile faltered slightly. God, she was just a teenager.
"Sorry about Nathan," Peter apologized, "I think he has a sore throat, been really hard for him to talk." Lamest excuse ever, but Peter had to try. "And I ended up here when I... ah, blew up." He looked off to the side, temporarily embarrassed. "But it's a great place, you'll really love it here."
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Stepping back from Peter with a frown, she gave him a crooked, rueful smile. "Yeah, I'm hoping." Rubbing her hands on the sides of her jeans, she looked back and forth between the brothers.
"Wow, we're really bad at this, huh?"
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At least Claire could manage to be straightforward about things. His own eyes riveted right to her own once she spoke again, and, yes, that was it exactly, thank you for somebody getting out in the open. ...Christ, Ma was right, Claire did get her mouth. "'Bad at this' is... a bit of an understatement," Nathan finally managed to get out, and throwing Peter a bit of a glare, as if to see, 'see, there is no sore throat, and you are a dumbass'.
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"We're all kind of bad at this," Peter shrugged, trying to get the tension out of the air. "But hey, that's understandable. You both found out about this at a really bad time." He smiled crookedly at both of them, looking far too excited. "And Claire, I know you have a family that you love, but I really think we could learn to be a family, too. More family is always good, right, Nathan?"
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"You were just going to let New York blow up! You were going to let Peter kill all those people!" Those weeks of thinking they were dead had simply compounded the frustration and disappointment and anger she'd felt at the time. "Ever since I found out I was adopted, I've been trying to imagine what my parents must have been like. Who they were. So I'd know who I was. But I don't want to be like you." Glowering, Claire set her jaw and met Nathan's eyes defiantly. "You could have done something, so people didn't get hurt. So they didn't die. You could have been brave. Why weren't you?" There was something so little-girl lost in her voice, in the tears that were threatening, even as the world-weary grief made her looks far too old for her years. That Nathan had come at the last minute wasn't enough. Not for Claire. "You're supposed to be a hero."
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Nathan squared his jaw for a few long seconds, teeth gritting against each other as he conjured the right words in his head. He was a politician. He was a lawyer. It was his freaking job to come up with bullshit on the spot. But in light of situations like this? When what he said actually mattered? Nathan was total shit at this kind of stuff. Always saying the wrong things and everyone ended up pissed off. They could make a party out of it.
"Look," Nathan replied in a low voice, hand branching out to grasp at Claire's shoulder, as if to achieve some kind of familiarity with the girl. "I get it, all right? I'm a sucky dad. Maybe not for Simon, or Monty, but you..." Nathan screwed up his face, opening and shutting his mouth for a minute, and scratching at his forehead. "You, just, what do I do with that? Sixteen years later, and I have a daughter. What do I know about daughters? How do I work with that? And I'm sorry. Because none of this crap was supposed to happen, and it did, and for that... I apologize."
There. He'd talked. ...He could practically feel Peter breaking down into puppy tears as he spoke.
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"He is a hero, Claire," Peter followed up, tucking his hands in his pockets and smiling at them both. Oh, he knew that Nathan had been prepared to let him explode and let half of New York get killed, but Nathan had also changed his mind and done the right thing, in the end. That was all that mattered to Peter. "He saved New York, when I couldn't do anything. Nathan risked his own life to save millions of people."
Okay, maybe he didn't need to give Nathan a Talking To.
"Claire, Nathan only did what he did out of love. He wanted to protect you," Peter said softly, willing Claire to understand. "He's a better man than I am." Nathan had tried to protect Claire while Peter had tried to make her shoot him in the head; in Peter's view, Nathan was much more of a hero than he would ever be.
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"This is about New York," she hissed, gesturing to emphasize her points. "This is about you being willing to sacrifice all those people. You weren't protecting anyone but yourself."
She rounded on Peter. "He is not a good guy, Peter! He lied to you! He lied to me. He doesn't care about anyone but himself. And if he had done something sooner, then maybe things would have been better." She pointed at him. "He didn't save New York. You fought Sylar, you're the reason Hiro could kill him. I saw it, Peter. He just showed up because he can't even commit to being a murderer. He got cold feet, that's all. He couldn't live with himself. That's not a hero." She was all but crying, now, out of frustration and anger.
"You don't love me," she shot at Nathan. "If you loved me, you wouldn't have treated me like some pawn or something to be shoved in a closet and trotted out at the right time. You don't love anyone but yourself."
Then she glared at Peter. "And you're a hundred times better than he could ever be." Claire's eyes slid to Nathan. "And he knows it."
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Because, truth was, he did try. With Claire? God, he wasn't making up all that he'd told her, about wanting to be a good father for her, about wanting to... do better. Claire hadn't been around Nathan long enough to know just how rarely he tended to be genuine around the people around him, if the politician smile flashing all six hundred and eight seven of his teeth wasn't enough indication. And here he was, and what he'd told her was... severely not lying, but how did you make that up to somebody you'd fucked over so very royally?
Nathan automatically held up a finger of warning, towards Peter, and he could practically smell the kid coming up with various excuses right now, for why Nathan was such an ass. "Nah, she's right," he automatically commented, lightly, in a low sort of voice. He slid his hands back into his slacks, gritting his teeth together and fixing Claire with a long, knowing sort of look. "I did lie." Screw the purpose behind it. That he was trying to protect everyone around him.
"I lied, and I brushed you out of the way until it was convenient for me, and," he continued, frown tugging down the corners of his mouth, "yeah, I know Peter's a better man than me." Looking decidedly very much not at Peter when he was saying this, naturally. Because Peter was not a complete asshole. A brat at times, yet a much better man than Nathan, yes. But a better man couldn't have done what Nathan nearly did. There was a reason they picked the cold, distancing brother for all of this, rather than the hospice nurse.
What do you say to something like that? Especially words coming out of the one person in the world who can absolute terrify you - your own kids. So... he left it. Forcing another blunt sort of smile, another one of those politician ones that didn't quite reach his eyes, Nathan just took a few steps back, nodding once. "Nice seeing you again, Claire. Good luck with your sorting."
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And now he was walking away. Again.
"I threw a stone at your car," she said, loudly, standing with feet braced, with hand curled into fists. "I was outside of Meredith's window and I heard you. You could have seen me. You could have met me! Why didn't you?" Her voice cracked, then, and she scrubbed angrily at the tears falling down her cheeks. "Why didn't you want me? Why did you walk away?"
Then, choking back a sob, she drew back. "Never mind," she hissed, glaring. "I don't care. I don't need you. And you made it pretty obvious you don't need me. But you're not going to leave me again, okay? This time, I'm walking away from you."
Turning, Claire did just that, heading off into the crowd of the Sorting Room, trying to stop herself from crying.
It wasn't supposed to be like this.
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Not that Peter didn't know about the various bad qualities of Nathan. He knew them just as well as he knew Nathan's good qualities, but he was willing to overlook them. For all that Nathan lied to him, manipulated him and hurt him, it was okay, because Peter had faith that Nathan still loved him. That all of that was, if not for Peter's protection, then for the greater good. And if was for selfish reasons, then that was okay too, because it was Nathan, and Peter understood.
Claire was still fighting against that, and Peter hadn't really expected her to change her view of Nathan, anyway. She was upset, he got that, and that wasn't going to change without action on Nathan's part. Peter dithered on the spot, looking between Claire and Nathan, torn between who to stay with. Claire's crying broke his heart, and all he wanted to do was hug her and tell her it was okay, that Nathan was trying - but she was already leaving, and he didn't know if another Petrelli brother was really what Claire wanted to see right now.
And if he followed after Nathan to have serious words, Peter knew that nothing productive would get talked about until Nathan had had a chance to wrap his head around Claire's appearance. So that would wait until later.
For now, Peter was going stay here and watch over Claire to make sure that she was safe, and okay. Going invisible with a thought, he retreated to the back of the room and lurked, already going over what he was going to say to Nathan later. Peter had faith that they could be family if they tried.
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