Fic: Mad World 7/8
Chapter 7
Gabriel Gray woke to a cool breeze and the sense that he was alone. He’d been holding Peter tight against him as they fell asleep and the absence dug into him like an aching tooth. Abruptly sitting up, he scanned the room seeing the items taken by the nurse when he’d left. The dark grey pants that needed a belt or they’d sink sinfully low on sleek hips, black shoes, a cream wool sweater that would be too warm during the day for the hot-blooded Italians in the house and…
While dressing, a glance at the open window showed Gabriel it was well into the morning and Peter wasn’t in the room. Wasn’t with Gabriel where he could see him.
Long legs eating the stairs near three at a time had the killer striding into Nathan’s den projecting aggression that concealed something that was close to panic.
“Where’s Peter?” he asked the room at large. Several shocked expressions showed that those were the last words their owner’s had expected to hear after the fight on the tennis court. Gabriel ignored them for the sightless white orbs turned to him in worry.
“He was with you.” Angela pointed out in the coldest voice he had ever heard. Knowing that he’d likely never be forgiven for his heated words Gabriel forced away his emotional response to the loss of that relationship and continued to look at Parkman. Hiro moved into his eye line.
“Peter Petrelli is gone? When I went to his room to see if he was okay, I…” A glare that was all Sylar caused the smaller man’s explanation to trail off.
“I told them he was alright,” Parkman explained, still looking far into the distance. “Not in any danger and that you’d probably kill anyone who tried to open the door….or Peter might just collapse the house on us I wasn’t certain.”
Gabriel decided that he never, ever, wanted to discuss the act of nailing the youngest Petrelli heir with Angela in the room and grabbed a handful of Parkman’s shirt. “Where. Is. He?”
The hackles in the room rose to a ridiculous level.
“I’m looking now,” Parkman answered with a worried frown, completely ignoring Gabriel’s menacing presence. “He’s not in the house, or even New York. Molly…?”
His daughter stood up and glided to her father’s side. “Yes?”
“Please get your atlas dear,” Angela asked with a smattering of warmth.
“And the red folder of drawings, I think he’s in them.” Parkman added.
For the tenth time that week, Gabriel forced down the urge to tear open their heads and take what he needed. Relying on others was so…slow. But he released Parkman’s clothing and directed a sneer at the various people who visibly relaxed. Like they could have stopped him anyway.
The red folder flew into his hands the moment Molly returned. The young woman took this in stride, quickly sitting with a map of the US in her lap and a drawing pin held in her delicate fingers.
“If he sees Molly…” Mohinder warned. Everyone knew to whom he was referring.
“I’ll rip his eyes out.” Rifling through the images, Gabriel noticed one coherent thing. They were all drawings of Peter. The moment the man had walked through their front door, the fight yesterday afternoon and god help them, an unfamiliar place where Peter stood barefoot, a chain at one slim ankle, surrounded by dark figures that exuded lust and fear. Relegating that image to be deciphered and avenged later, Gabriel’s eyes fell on something so familiar he knew it had to be what Parkman was looking for.
“This one.” He dropped the sketch into the blind man’s hands and waited for confirmation, eyes on the girl.
“How do you know?” Nathan asked voice tight with worry. “That could be anytime…anywhere.”
Parkman ran his fingertips over the Braille embedded at the corner. “This is the one, he’s here.”
The sketch showed Peter, bleeding and injured, standing in a luxurious hotel room. To his left were the crumpled forms of men in paramilitary clothes, to his right a dozen more all with laser sights targeting the slender man. Directly in front of the nurse a shadowy, monstrous figure lurked, eight long arms seeming to reach forward intent on smothering Peter.
“That could be ten years from now. “ Nathan argued. Peter’s face wasn’t clear, only the hair and body giving away his unmistakable appearance.
“It’s happening today, soon.” Parkman promised.
“It’s now.” Gabriel agreed, staring a line of fire through the girl’s head. For once he didn’t care if his rage and terror began to show.
Nathan was still unconvinced. “But how can…”
“That…” Gabriel looked again at the sketch and drew one long finger lovingly down the beautiful man it depicted. “…is my coat.”
The one he had left draped across the chair in Peter’s bedroom.
No one said a word until the young woman stabbed sharply into the paper and sighed.
“He’s in Washington. The Clarion Hotel, Presidential Suite. 1654 Longreach. The Spider saw me and knows but he’s busy fighting…”
Gabriel’s fingers would leave marks on Hiro’s shoulder that would last for days.
“Can you?”
Hiro wouldn’t mind the bruise.
“Yes, as many as you want my friend.”
*****
Peter took a deep shuddering breath and forced open the door. All the damage his body had taken was starting to take a toll on him. Unlike his niece, Peter could still feel the pain of every wound inflicted upon him and the constant healing was exhausting. Not to mention the multiple use of his powers that up until now he hadn’t thought possible.
Two hours ago he’d landed in Washington. The Spider was based in the capital city, hidden in some clandestine place that was far removed from what was left of America’s government. Knowing where to start, Peter kept the warmth of Gabriel’s arms close to his heart and accosted the first FedMarshal he’d seen. Telekinesis had frozen the woman in the act of opening a door, telepathy had forced its way into her brain and sorted through her memories to see who her superior was. He’d been lucky. Davina Rourke was a senior Marshal and had made several direct reports to Danko at an office that looked somewhat like a library. Putting her to sleep in a comfortable chair, Peter had found the nearest trash can and was violently ill.
Now he could add mind-rape to the growing list of his sins.
Wiping his mouth, Peter had teleported to the library/office and faked his way to the commander’s presence. Another mental attack showed that the FedMarshals were in disarray after Gabriel’s killing of Danko and there were a dozen meetings and crisis talks scheduled for the rest of the week. One of them was with a man the commander only knew as Roberts. Roberts’ office was in Fairfax, less than ten minutes from the library.
Peter walked there to try and clear his head a little.
It didn’t work.
The delicious, needed, lustful passion he had left behind contrasted horribly with what he was doing and what he was planning to do. It bothered Peter so much that he hesitated out the front of Robert’s office. An old campaign building that reminded him of Nathan’s with such instant clarity that it felt like a punch to the gut. Swallowing hard Peter thought of Claire and baby Noah and Ethan and Luke and Lyle and Monica and Micah and Molly and….
Peter quietly opened the door and attacked the people within.
Roberts had never seen or met the Spider. But he’d once been in a FedMarshal car that dropped Danko off to high level talks. The limousine had rolled to halt in front of a hotel named The Clarion on Longreach Drive.
With a sorrowful glance at the sleeping forms around him, Peter concentrated on the image he’d stolen and ‘ported himself to the front door.
*****
The doorman had shot him three times with a hand gun. Cursing his own idiocy at appearing visibly, Peter had tossed the gun into the head of the first FedMarshal to burst into the street and tossed the doorman at the head of the second.
It had gone downhill from there.
The real problem was, Peter thought as he healed a hand shattered by a shotgun round, was that he didn’t want to kill anyone. Well. He wanted to kill the Spider, but the people who worked for him were meant for an all-but destroyed justice system and besides, Peter had enough blood on his conscience to last a lifetime.
None of it really mattered.
Keeping the humans alive was one thing, it was the bloody ‘specials’ that were really fucking up his plan. Had the Spider collected everyone with an energy power for god’s sake? Dodging and throwing most of it back at its sender was very risky. Most weren’t immune to their own powers and the look on that man’s face as poison gas surrounded him made Peter want to find a respirator and do what he’d been trained for all those years.
Stupid really, but then Peter had never stopped wanting to save people.
The hardest part was keeping track of the new abilities he was gaining. The gas was revolting and made his mouth taste like rotten eggs, while the fire reminded him too much of Ted Sprague and dying explosively at two thousand feet in the air.
In the end, none of it mattered.
Peter reached the thirtieth floor surrounded by red alarm klaxons and a sputtering electrical system, the tingle of the hard jolt he received still pinching his nerves like a bitch. He didn’t have time to put his shoulder back into its socket, but the ligaments weren’t screaming at him anymore. There was blood in his eyes, his mouth and he’d lost his shoes to that crazy superglue floor.
It didn’t matter.
Pulling the warm black coat tighter around him, Peter smiled at the feel of the rich red satin lining and threw Gabriel’s power at the door.
It shattered into a hundred pieces.
*****
“Ahhh, I knew it was you Peter.”
The voice that originated from the skeletal figure on the throne-like armchair brought bile to Peter’s throat.
‘Oh you bastard Claude’, he thought with a sick smile. ‘You knew all along.’ Daddy fucking long-legs indeed.
“Never could surprise you, could I Dad?” Peter asked Arthur Petrelli as he dropped three guards to the floor with a wave of Gabriel’s power.
Four bullets ripped into his back and buttocks, ruining the fine coat even more and drawing an involuntary grunt of agony from Peter. It was like a fucking Greek tragedy, his father for heaven’s sake. It all clicked into place, the footsteps in the woods, the power to force Peter forward in time, stolen from Hiro all those years ago. One of only three people in the world with multiple abilities plus a penchant for tyranny and destruction of his own kind.
It was his father. Angela and Nathan had been battling Arthur for five years and never even knew it was their own flesh and blood.
God, what a messed up family he had.
“I’d ask why, but you’d probably say it was for our own good and that’s bullshit.” Peter observed, no longer really feeling anything. He was too drained by the battles, the pain and the absolute shock of this last, awful revelation. Arthur, aged beyond human by death and madness raised a gnarled hand as if asking for Peter’s in friendship.
Elle’s electricity ripped into Peter, drawing a scream and forcing him to his knees.
Or it would have, but for the strong arm at his waist and the scent of pine and almonds that surrounded him.
“Gabriel.” Peter gasped into the warm skin at his lover’s neck.
“This is like the final battle in Star Wars.” Hiro Nakamura commented before vanishing to reappear with Monica and Mohinder at his side.
“Didn’t I kill you?” Gabriel accused. Bolts of raw energy spiralling towards the Spider as a telekinetic shield protected the couple from retaliation.
Peter could hear his friends engaging the rest of the FedMarshals in the room and as Hiro brought more and more heroes in, spectacular collisions began in the hallway between the renewed attacks of Arthur’s powered up followers.
“Yes, you did my traitorous Archangel. Fortunately Monroe’s power allowed me to heal the moment the bullet was removed.” The deep voice hadn’t changed at all, nor the spectacular control of abilities that Mohinder had likely only dreamed existed. It was taking everything in Gabriel and Peter combined to keep him at bay.
“God! Arthur.” Angela’s voice was stripped bare. Peter wondered at Hiro’s sanity for bringing her here, her power was to dream for fuck’s sake. But then the reason became obvious, the person who could affect his father the most, could throw him off his attacks for a critical moment was the small beautiful lady now walking towards the far end of the room.
“Ahh my love, you have come to join me at last.” The voice was that of a young suitor, not the undead dictator they all wanted destroyed. Peter glanced away from a sunburst of power, his eyes coming to rest on a slumped figure near Arthur’s chair.
“I thought my father was insane.” Gabriel muttered as he tossed a door at the mountain of a man who was trying to pound Monica into the floor.
“Get me closer,” Peter whispered into the warm skin at Gabriel’s throat. He was almost completely healed, the respite his friends had granted doing wonders. But the overtaxing of his powers was a wrenching drain that wouldn’t stop. Keeping a shield before Angela and throwing an occasional bolt to protect Claire as she bodily threw herself between gunfire and her grandmother was pulling at his dwindling reserves.
Drawing Peter closer to his lean, gorgeous form, Gabriel carefully walked them towards the armchair via the doorway to the now obliterated bathroom. Keeping his eyes on the body near the wall, Peter listened to his mother, listened to the battle and most of all listened to the pulse of the man at his side.
“You’ll have to let me go.” He instructed as they inched forward, hellfire and glory raging around them. Gabriel looked like he would object, but Peter cut him off. “Trust me?”
Long seconds as they reached the fallen ‘special’ Peter sought.
“Yeah.” It was a grudging sigh, but Peter would take what he could get.
“I love you.” He murmured into that magnificent hair, lips brushing against the stubbled skin.
Fingers grabbed at him, but for once, Peter was quicker, dropping sharply to press his hand to cooling dark skin. A power that wasn’t one flooded into him and he turned to look at the monster that had once been someone he loved.
Every single power that Arthur Petrelli had stolen over the years ceased to function.
Shock blossomed across the broken face before determination set in.
“Hurry,” Peter gasped. Oh yeah, the man at his feet had been dead on.
Arthur fought the Haitian’s ability like a shark pulling on a fishing line.
Gabriel had his hand raised but the pained expression he wore needed no explanation.
“Take it Gabriel,” Peter pleaded even though he knew it might kill off a little of his lover’s newly acquired soul. “Use it to free people from their powers, use it to make the world right. Please.”
But Gabriel Gray had stopped being a killer at a high price and this would dash all he had accomplished to dust,
Seeing the impasse, Hiro’s sword was drawn and Mohinder had broken off his current conflict to turn to the frozen tableau at the head of the room.
Arthur slipped the hook.
Three sharp shots rang out, taking Arthur through the forehead, throat and heart. Like pausing a film, everything in the room and hallway beyond came to a sudden standstill.
Pulling the trigger again, unloading the entire magazine, Nathan Petrelli obliterated his father’s face before he pulled a second clip from his pocket and reloaded.
“As next of kin and executor of his estate, I authorise you to harvest whatever parts of his body you require.” Nathan said to Gabriel in his senator’s voice. “For the greater good.”
Peter heart warmed to see his lover hesitate before giving a single nod.
Angela’s hands covered her mouth, Claire’s arm supporting her trembling shoulders.
“Stand down, stand down and you’ll be allowed to live!” Noah Bennet’s voice rang out in the shocked silence. The occasional rebellion instantly quashed. Arthur was dead and currently getting his brain adjusted. It made an impact on his followers.
Peter watched it all through a kind of haze. Nathan came to replace Gabriel in holding him upright and Peter rested his head on a shoulder at a now convenient height.
“Ma tried to kill him and you tried to kill him.” That unforgettable voice told him solemnly as they watched the world change around them. “I thought the third time would be the charm.”
Peter looked at Gabriel as the man wiped the faintest traces of red off his long fingers.
Finally it was all done, the reason he’d been brought here made plain and accomplished.
Now, finally, Peter could rest.
His brother’s sharp voice and the worry that crossed Gabriel’s face were the last things Peter saw as he succumbed to the warm embrace of darkness.