(no subject)
Title: Chords Of What I've Left Behind.
Character/Pairing: gen with past Nathan/Niki(Jessica), Nathan/Meredith, Elle/Adam, Elle/Gabriel, one sided Elle/Peter annnd Peter/Claire hinted at. *phew*
Word count: ~10,000
Warnings: Entirely AU, but spoilers up to season three.
Rating: PG-13.
Summary: Nathan, not a Petrelli, but just as much of a mess. His father gripped his shoulders as Adam pressed his hand to the glass, smiled and Nathan tried to take a step back. He said, “You'll never be special, but with work, you can be successful.”
Disclaimer: Hi, not mine, thanks.
Author Notes: So, yeah, this is weird in every respect; weird AU, weird structure, and I fully blame twistdmentality for encouraging me to keep writing it. I've broken it into two posts just to make it less of a slog. I should really get back to RL now.
Elle
The wind howls around the parking lot as Elle climbs the side of a greyhound bus, fingers gripping the edge of a partially open window, rubber soles of her shoes squeaking against the side. Her hair is sticking to the corners of her mouth, blown sideways to obscure her vision, and she curses under her breath; this is the mission she's had since her 'psychotic break', and it's a big one. If she does this right, then Daddy's sure to start paying attention to her again.
As she's thinking about how much the lithium drip itched, and how she couldn't read her favourite magazines because the words kept bleeding together and turning into pictures, she feels herself being pushed up. She gains purchase on the edge of the roof and scrambles up, ducking low to avoid the worst of the wind.
“Thanks,” she whispers, though it almost has to be a yell to be heard, and her partner shushes her as he hoists himself up beside her.
“He's coming around the other side,” he breathes into her ear, pulling his gun from its holster and flicking the safety off. “Come on.”
He holds his hand out and she takes it, letting him pull her upright, standing with feet apart to withstand the gale that's whipping up. She wonders if it's natural or part of the mark's power.
It's completely dark now - it must be nearing midnight - and they've been tracking this guy for the better part of a week, but he always dances just out of their reach. You think he's there, you think he's just around that corner, but then he's disappeared.
Peter fucking Petrelli. Elle killed a whole flock of pigeons in Times Square out of irritation, when they lost him again the day before last. Every day they come back empty-handed is another black mark against her name.
Out of the corner of her eye she catches a faint glow, and she almost squeals - Daddy always said that Petrelli's downfall would be his powers. “There he is!” she exclaims and darts forward; if she's fast enough she can catch him before he gets too far from the bus. She'd like to give him a good frying - he deserves it after all the stress he's put her through - but Daddy wants him unharmed, so she has to use 'non-deadly force'. She hasn't taken two steps, however, before she's stopped by an arm around her waist. Peter's getting away and she lets out a burst of electricity in frustration, but her partner's used to that, of course. It hasn't got so much as a flinch out of him for the past fifteen years.
“Empathic mimicry, remember?” he says quietly. “You go anywhere near him and you're only going to make him stronger.”
“But-” she begins, quickly cut off as he lets go and runs the length of the bus. Petrelli's just rounding the corner between their bus and the one in front, and her breath catches in her throat as her partner doesn't break his stride at the far end, instead jumping off and disappearing between the vehicles.
The wind screams louder, and she drops to her knees, crawling as fast as she can to get to the edge. When she's there, though, she can barely bring herself to look; she peers over, eyes screwed up, heart pounding, half expecting to find a bloody mess that would thrill her if it weren't him, and and-
“Nathan!” she shrieks as he looks up at her, pulling a needle out of Petrelli's neck.
“What?” he asks, and grins. “Ellie, you should have more faith in your big brother.”
-
Daddy calls them into his office the moment they get back to the facility. Elle buzzes with excitement - he hasn't spoken to her in the last two months except to chide her about not taking her medication, and now she's finally managed to get back on track. He'll have to forget her past indiscretions now, won't he?
“Sit,” he says immediately upon their entrance. He's standing facing the window, his back to them, and Nathan rolls his eyes as he takes the couch. Elle settles beside him and folds her hands in her lap, crosses her ankles, like a proper lady. Like Nathan says their mom was.
“So, would you like to give me a brief run through of tonight's goings on, Nathan?” their father says, and turns slowly.
“We caught him, and he's not hurt or anything,” Elle supplies before Nathan can speak.
Their father hums; it turns into a sigh as his mouth twists into a frown. “Yes,” he says, “and it only took you seven days. Do you know how many extra powers he could have picked up in that time?”
“He was a slippery little bastard!” she cries as Nathan says, 'Dad,' and pats her arm. “I did my best.”
“Your best? Does your best include having your brother almost kill himself?”
“Hey, that's not fair,” Nathan says, leaning forward. “That was my decision, not Elle's. Like you said, who knows how many powers he's picked up - I didn't want Elle's to be another for his stash.”
Their father inclines his head. “My, my, forethought; I didn't know that you were capable of it, Nathan.”
The muscles in Nathan's jaw tense and jump, and she gets that thrill low in her belly that always comes before her brother gets really angry - Daddy should watch out; Nathan's never turned his fists on him, but Elle still remembers the day he found her and Adam having sex when she was sixteen. Adam's face was unrecognisable for several minutes, which, considering the circumstances, was quite the achievement.
“Nice. Thanks for your unwavering faith in me, Dad.” He stands, and she bounces up with him, glancing between the two men as they face off. Nathan breaks first, muttering a quiet 'fuck' and wrapping an arm around her. “Let's go get some ice cream, I bet we can find somewhere that's still open.”
He pulls her out of the room and she resists the urge to glance back at their father; she's wondering about the ban on her going outside and what Nathan's going to do when Dad reminds him, but he doesn't. He doesn't remind them, and he lets Nathan slam the door as they leave. Perhaps Daddy does know that he needs to be careful.
-
When she was younger (after the fire at Grandma's but before Mom died) she watched Cinderella for the first time. She was all on her own, and it sucked; Nathan had been away for weeks, and she had no one to play with, since Daddy said she could only show Nathan her power, that the local kids wouldn't like her if they knew.
She watched Cinderella every day for a week. Her mom made brownies, and they baked a carrot cake together, Nathan's favourite, and she was sure he'd have to come back now. Mom said he could never resist carrot cake.
If there's one thing she remembers about her mother it was that she was always right; if she said something, it would become the truth, and hours after Daddy sent her up to bed, she heard the faint click of the front door. Footsteps padded across the downstairs hall, creaked up the stairs hesitantly, and Elle rolled out of bed, opening her door a crack, pressing her eye to it.
“Nathan!” she squealed, streaking out of her room to collide with his middle, hugging him tight, intending never to let him go.
He carried her back to her room after they exchanged whispered hellos; the light had come on under their parents' door and Nathan said the last thing he needed was to talk to Daddy right now. While he was in the shower, though, she sneaked into his room, curling up under his covers, and when he tried to get her to go back to her own bed, she told him that she had to make sure he wouldn't run off again.
Nathan fell asleep first, midway through telling her about his trip and how the girl he met was nowhere near as pretty as her. She was a little jealous, honestly, and she almost wanted to shock him for being so callous as to go off in the first place and have fun without her, but that would wake him up, and he looked happy when he slept.
She was sure she'd get her own back somehow tomorrow.
Nathan
Nathan's known about the Company for as long as he can remember - he doesn't think there's ever been a time in his life when there was a priority higher than Primatech and his father. When he was seven he was studying molecular evolution alongside the birds and the bees, and Dad said if he tried hard enough, he might make a halfway decent agent when he grew up.
“You'll never be special,” he said, the first time he took Nathan to Hartsdale, guiding him to one of the big cell windows. Inside, Adam stood up from his chair, crossed the room and scrutinised him. 'Hello, Nathan,' he said, though the glass muffled his voice.
His father gripped his shoulders as Adam pressed his hand to the glass, smiled and Nathan tried to take a step back. He said, “You'll never be special, but with work, you can be successful.”
The morning after bringing Petrelli in, Nathan comes to the facility early, before it's even fully light out. The place is buzzing with activity already, though, and as he passes his father's lit up office, he can't help but feel that he's being judged for going home at all.
“Nathan! Nathan!” Elle calls, running down the corridor towards him, feet bare, hair frizzled and staticky. “Are you going to talk to Petrelli today? Daddy said I couldn't but I'm not going to do anything. I just want to... see him up close.”
“You want to play with him,” he replies, reaching out and twisting an unruly strand of her hair around his fingers.
“Maybe. That's not so bad, is it?” She presses close to his chest, her fingers sparking blue, and he sighs, leaning down to kiss the top of her head.
“Depends how rough you are. He's on suppressants now - you don't want to roast him like a shish kebab, do you?”
She shrugs, bites her thumbnail. “Maybe,” she says, drawing out the syllables.
“Dad wouldn't like that,” he replies, and she giggles.
“Dad doesn't like anything, Nathan.”
“Well, that's true enough,” he agrees and idly combs out her hair. She looks up at him and smiles, and she really hasn't changed a bit since she was five years old, her eyes still glitter when she looks at him.
“I don't think that it's so wrong that I want someone to spend time with. I mean, you get that fancy apartment that I'm not allowed to visit any more, and Daddy gives you your solo missions, and what am I supposed to do all day?” She purses her lips and wrinkles her nose, her voice like a child's. “I mean, I could visit Adam, but since I've been forbidden...”
“Adam's just using you,” Nathan snaps. “That's what he does; he twists people to do what suits him. We're all just dolls in his great master plan for the universe, and I'm not having him abuse you too.”
She blinks a couple of times, and stops walking to stare speculatively at the elevator. “Daddy took away my Level Five swipe card.”
Nathan watches her for a second; she doesn't look at him or ask him outright, she just bites her lip and stares a hole through the elevator doors like it's suddenly going to open for her. He sucks in a breath, then sighs, and she spins on her heel, placing her hands on his chest. “Okay, fine. Maybe we can go down and talk to him for a couple of minutes.”
Her eyes light up and she squeezes him around the middle. “You're the best big brother ever, Nathan! Oh my God, I have to go do my hair!”
She streaks off down the hall without another word. He's pretty sure he's just been played.
-
Nathan was sixteen when Elle was born. He'd been isolated so long, just being him and his parents, that it was one hell of a shock to the system.
(He'd never managed to make friends, really. He was strange, and came out with odd things about men who healed and turned things to gold long after it was acceptable to believe such supposed fantasies. And he'd fight anyone who looked at him the wrong way. His peers were scared of him. His father was pleased.)
She was a tiny little thing, all delicate and blonde like their mother, and he stayed for days in that maternity unit in Utica, Ohio where they used to live, because his father was away on business and his mother was exhausted and he had nowhere else to go. Nathan was the first person to properly hold Elle; she didn't even meet her father until she was two weeks old.
“You have a little sister now. You have to look after her,” Mom said and gripped his hand tight. In the background, Elle screamed and wailed - she never, never slept for more than a couple of hours at a time.
“Sure,” he replied, half shrugging, grimacing slightly at the pitch of Elle's cries.
“No, no.” His mother gripped his hand even harder. “You have to look after her. Your father, he has his own agenda. She needs to be kept safe. When I'm not around, she has to be looked after. She'll always need looking after.”
“Why wouldn't you be around, Mom?” he asked softly. It felt like in between what she was saying, she was telling him something else, but he didn't know what.
She loosened her grip. “I don't know, sweetheart. I'm just tired.”
-
Weeks later, when they were all back at home, he asked his father if Elle was special.
“She will be,” he replied, and right there Nathan began to understand what his mother had meant.
And he's done a really poor job of looking after her so far.
-
Peter Petrelli is an oddity. That's all there is to it. No one person is supposed to have more than one power, the body can't cope with the strain. And Petrelli was running around New York about to explode, stubbornly refusing to get the help that he needed, because he had to save innocent lives. Because he, apparently, knew better than people who had worked on, researched, and had powers years before he was even born.
He really is an arrogant little shit.
“I have nothing to say to you,” he says, crossing his arms over his chest. Nathan stands by the door, one foot braced against the wall, while Elle explores, kneeling in front of Peter and sparking him every now and then.
“I don't think he likes that, Elle,” Nathan says as Peter jerks back, pulling his feet up onto his cot.
She turns to him. “I know,” she says, and smiles. Nathan smiles back.
“Peter, we only want to help you,” he says as Elle turns back. Peter sneers.
“Help me? What, by kidnapping me and drugging me.”
Nathan thinks for a second. “Yes? Look, you were about to go nuclear - you accept that much, right?” At Peter's almost imperceptible nod, he continues. “Well, we stopped that. You weren't going to be able to. You were going to make half of New York go boom. Have some gratitude, at least.”
Peter doesn't reply immediately; Elle's sitting on his bed now, and he leans as far back from her as he can. “Where am I? Who actually are you?”
“You're at Primatech Research - we have a... special interest in people such as yourself. I'm Nathan Bishop, and this is my sister Elle.”
“Hi,” she says softly, waving at him. Peter swallows.
“Claire said this would happen,” he murmurs. “She said I shouldn't trust Mom.”
“What's your mother got to do with this?” Nathan asks. Peter's file names Angela Petrelli as a housewife, hardly a major player.
“She said the Company wouldn't come after me. That me and Claire were 'protected'.” He looks down at his hands. “Fuck,” he mutters. “You don't have her too, do you?”
“I-” Nathan begins, then stops. Something just feels slightly off-kilter, and he has to take a second to sort through what Peter's said. “Why the hell would your mother be able to protect you?”
Peter frowns, and he glances to the side at Elle, who's seemingly oblivious to the conversation, picking at the end of Peter's sleeve. “She said she'd stop the Company from coming after us. She said Dad could control the rest of them.”
“What-” Nathan starts to say, but a sharp rapping cuts him off. He jumps, and Elle skitters up, turning to look up at the cell window.
“Oh shit,” she whispers, grabbing for Nathan's hand.
On the other side of the glass, their father stands with his hands clasped behind his back. He nods his head sharply to the side, and points to the door.
-
Elle manifested when she was four. Nathan had been away on his first mission with Claude - who honestly couldn't stand being saddled with the boss's twenty year old son for a whole week - and when Nathan got home, he'd stumbled upstairs and gone to bed, falling asleep to second his head hit the pillow.
Five hours later, he was woken by the worst pain he'd ever felt. He yelped and rolled out of bed, hitting the floor with a crash. His room was bathed in a dusky yellow as the day turned to night, and as he tried to sit up, he found his whole right arm was numb. “What the fuck?” he muttered, forcing the fingers of his right hand to move.
“Nathan?” The voice was soft and lisped across the 'th' in his name. From the edge of the other side of the bed, Elle peered at him, her mouth a shaky line. “Did I hurt you?”
“Did you hurt me?” he repeated, getting to his knees and leaning against the bed. A spark of blue jumped from her hand, and his eyes widened. Elle closed her fist abruptly and backed off.
“I didn't mean to, I'm sorry,” she said quietly and looked to the door like she was about to bolt. Nathan climbed onto his bed, holding his arms out to her; she was quick to clamber up next to him with a dazzling smile.
“Ellie, when did this happen?” He squeezed her hands, and she couldn't help but give him a tiny shock. He turned his hand over and looked at the faint red mark on his palm.
“A few days ago,” she said, and shocked him again. He continued to stare at her little arcs of electricity and she giggled. “Daddy took me to New York and then I could do this. He's very happy.”
“I bet he is,” he murmured, and met her gaze, smiling. “This is really amazing, Elle.” He pressed his palm to hers, and shivered at the tingle. He was a little jealous, maybe. It was amazing, one of the most fantastic powers he'd seen. And it was an offensive power; Dad was likely thrilled. One of his kids had made good, at least.
“Are you jealous?” she asked.
“A bit,” he confessed. She giggled again and hugged him.
“I'll look after you, Nathan,” she said, voice muffled against his neck.
-
“At what point when I told you Elle was not allowed to talk our guests did you stop understanding me, Nathan?” Their father rests his fists on his hips, standing safely behind his desk, where he's always held all the cards. It's as if no one can touch him when he's there.
“At the point when you mistook me for your lapdog.” Nathan inclines his head, smiles. Elle sits on the arm of the couch and watches the argument. “Woof woof, Dad.”
He takes Nathan's attitude placidly, as always. “What you did was incredibly stupid. I specifically did not want anyone speaking to Petrelli, and you would have known that had you seen fit to speak to me before you went off half cocked. But, then, I suppose you've always known better, haven't you, Nathan?”
“Yes, I think I probably have. At least I care about something other than this fucking place.” Nathan gestures vaguely at the ceiling. “At least I don't treat people like rungs on a ladder.”
His father laughs, the sound deep and mocking; it sets Nathan's teeth on edge. “Oh, don't you? Why do you think I haven't promoted Bennet or Thompson's son? They're far more capable than you've ever been. And, of course, being paired with your sister is of great benefit to you.”
“What?” Nathan's volume drops and he takes a step forward, laying his hands flat on the desk, leaning in. “What?” he repeats.
“When has she ever not done what you've told her to do? You get to be the hero, you get to save her from everything that goes wrong in her life. She could easily kill you, and she probably would have if she weren't so reliant on you. If you hadn't made her so reliant.” His voice is perfectly level, the lilt of it amused, his eyes sparkling.
“You really wanna get into this?” Nathan asks, his fingers scraping across the wood of the desk as he balls his hand to fists. “Do you want to talk about how you pushed your daughter into having a nervous breakdown? Caused dozens of peoples' deaths? Do you want to talk about that?”
His father sighs expansively. “Nathan, my boy, you would never had become as important in this company as you are if it weren't for Elle's breakdown. You're the only one able to control your sister, and that makes you... special.”
Nathan's fist comes up fast - Elle sits up, her nails digging into the leather of the couch - but their father's faster, and he grips Nathan's wrist, twisting his arm down as gold radiates out across Nathan's sleeve.
“Dad!” Elle shrieks, but neither of them look at her, and Nathan attempts to pull his wrist free as she jumps up. “Let him go!” she shouts, letting loose a bolt of electricity into her father's chest. He stumbles back, and Nathan jumps away, reaching out to grab her shoulder and drag her to the door.
“Elle, go,” he says hurriedly. The solid gold cuff of his sleeve clinks against his watch, and he opens the door, all but shoving her out. “I'll be okay, promise. Just go.”
“I-” She stammers but he closes the door in her face, leaving her spluttering out in the hallway
His father is sitting in his chair when Nathan turns back, surveying his singed shirt. “This just makes my point for me, Nathan. You've got her quite under your spell.”
“She was scared that you were going to turn my arm to gold; so was I. It's not like you haven't done it to people before.”
“And you don't trust me.”
Nathan shakes his head, keeping his distance. “Not even a little bit.”
“Then neither will she,” he replies. “She always follows your lead, and you may want to blame me for her problems, but you know it's true.”
Nathan opens his mouth to speak, but nothing comes out. Maybe it is his fault, Elle did always want to be an agent like him, and when he was younger he didn't see anything wrong with that. It was the family business, it was what they were built to do, it was in their blood. Now he's not so sure.
He settles on, “I blame you for a lot of things.”
-
His first couple of missions were courtesies, really. Out in the field with Rains, driving for hours, capturing housewives who used time dilation powers to get their kids to school on time, gardeners who controlled the weather in order to get their flowers to grow; they weren't real missions, and Claude wasn't really his partner. The invisible man treated him like something found on the bottom of his shoe, made it clear that he was only doing this to keep the boss sweet. Thompson brushed him off, as well, and more often than not he was left to hang around the Hartsdale facility with nothing to do, feeling overwhelmed because he'd grown up in a village with a population of two thousand people. Now he was in the city that never slept, with a gun he knew how to handle, but was never allowed to.
His first real mission - the solo missions Elle was so jealous of - was in July 1989. His father gave him a fake name, Harrison Campbell, a description of a mark who could make his skin impenetrable, and a ticket to Annapolis.
He never did find that guy, but it was a success in every other way. Nathan had graduated high school but never gone to college - it hadn't even been a possibility - and his longest relationship had lasted all of two weeks. In a dive bar that he doubted he'd find his man in, he watched a girl with long curly blonde hair dance with every guy in the room before lighting on him.
“Hey there, pretty boy,” she drawled. “Do you not dance or somethin'? You've been sitting here all alone all night.”
“I'm just... soaking up the atmosphere,” he said, glancing around the dark, run down bar.
“There ain't no atmosphere here, baby. Buy me a drink and I'll show you atmosphere.” She smiled wide and extended her hand. “I'm Meredith.”
“I'm... Harrison,” he replied slowly, shaking her hand. It felt warm, and damp with sweat in his grip.
Nathan had never been drunk before, never had sex before, and that night Meredith's hands were all over him - under his shirt, down his pants and he touched her everywhere he could. In the morning, she said that he yelled so loud that her neighbours had come around to see if she was okay. He didn't remember a thing. Not the first time, anyway.
He was in love, plain and simple. Meredith said he was different; quieter, naiver - which she assured him was a good thing - and certainly better looking than the guys she normally went with. Best of all, he wasn't put off by her brother.
Flint, in fact, hadn't come over since Nathan had found him going through his wallet, and had then almost twisted his arm off as he pinned him to the ground and demanded his money back.
Two weeks in, living in her apartment, getting drunk and having sex every night, he decided he'd marry her. Proposal was just a formality - they'd get married, and his mom and Elle could live with them for a while, and he was sure he could find work doing something normal. After all, he wasn't special, and non-special people got to fall in love and have kids and pets, and maybe all that was better than having a power.
When his father called and told him to come back - mission over, work to do at home, your sister is missing you - he told Meredith he'd be back. He'd definitely be back.
She said 'sure' like she already knew what he didn't.
-
Three months later, adrenaline pumping as he escaped his grandmother's burning house carrying Elle minutes before the roof caved in, he could barely remember her name.
-
He didn't get another undercover mission for years; because the first had been a complete failure, he assumed. Perhaps his father had known what Nathan had been intending to do. He knew most everything else.
But 2006 came and there was new mission; Las Vegas, single mother with a split personality and enhanced strength. All he had to do was persuade her to stop resisting the Company; Linderman wanted her to do some work for him and he really didn't want to have to force the issue with her, but he was running out of options.
Niki was an anxious, distrustful woman. He bet and lost thousands of dollars night after night at the roulette table she worked at in the Corinthian, until she kindly suggested that maybe he needed help with his - she didn't addiction, that could get her fired, but she made her intention clear, and he smiled, said, “I'm rich. And it's not the gambling I'm really interested in.”
He introduced himself as Harrison, a financial advisor just moved from LA.
“If you've got any money troubles, maybe I could help you out sometime.”
It had been the right thing to say, apparently - he spent the night with her at the bar, got invited over to her house the next day, met her son, even became her sort-of boyfriend.
She was dull. Not because she had nothing to say, or because she had no talents - he knew just how talented she was - but because she forced herself to be. She was entirely unremarkable; normal, normal, normal.
She warned him that her husband might cause trouble; he'd escaped from jail, was on the run, was a dangerous criminal. The police often came by in the couple of months Nathan spent living mostly in her tiny house, they asked her if she'd heard from DL, if her son had, if there'd been any correspondence at all. Nathan would stand at the doorway as she was questioned, would hug her when it was over, would say, “It'll take a lot more than this to scare me away.”
Harrison Campbell was the perfect boyfriend for Niki. Too perfect, perhaps. He never asked her where she'd been when she came home in the early hours of the morning, clothes stained and ripped, didn't object to her sideline in internet pornography, and never wondered why sometimes she smashed all the mirrors in the house.
-
“Who are you?”
The question was growled against his ear late one night as he was sleeping and suddenly he was fully awake, arm up to block Niki's hand going for his throat. He was no match for her physically, but that knowledge gave him a split second advantage, letting him jerk his elbow sharply into her chin and flip her onto her back. She head butted him, kicked him in the stomach, and, before he could think, he was on the floor, blood pouring from his nose to stain his t-shirt, Niki (or, more accurately, Jessica) on top of him.
“I think you broke my nose,” he mumbled, spitting blood from his mouth. “Jessica.”
“I knew you were more than just a pretty face,” she said, pinning his arms over his head. “Tell me who you are. Now.”
He could only just see her in the light coming in from under the door, but suddenly she was the most beautiful woman he'd ever laid eyes on. Eyes bright with anger, lips red and full; he felt like he was twenty-three again and living in a bug-infested apartment in Maryland. “I'm Nathan. We work for the same men, or, at least, we will.”
“Linderman. You're one of his boys.”
“Something like that,” he replied. “There are people who want you - you and Niki - and there's not anything that'll stop them. I'm, like you said, the pretty face. Guess what comes next?”
She gripped his arms harder, he could already feel the bruises forming under her fingers. She sneered. “Think they'll be any more of a match for me than you are? I won't let Niki make another stupid mistake like this.”
“Maybe that's true.” He matched her smirk with his own. “But I wonder who'd be a match for Micah. Huh.”
On reflection, that was probably not the best way to go. Jessica snarled like a wild animal, and he soon found himself being dragged through the house by the collar of his t-shirt.
“Harrison has to be somewhere urgently,” Jessica said calmly when Micah came out into the hall and asked what was going on. She let Nathan regain his balance at the front door; smoothed down his hair, wiped the worst of the blood from his face. Kissed him hard.
“If I ever see you again, I'll break your neck,” she whispered when she broke the kiss. He panted and blinked rapidly, smiling at a confused Micah over Jessica's shoulder. “And that goes for all your friends.”
Without further discussion, she shoved him out the door and slammed it shut.
-
On the helicopter ride home, Bennet watched him out of the corner of his eye, a smile ghosting the corners of his mouth.
“That looks painful,” he said, looking ahead at the receding lights of Las Vegas. “Can I take it that you didn't make the sale?”
“Fuck off, Bennet,” Nathan replied, though it came out more as 'fug off' with his swollen nose. “I don't need your running fucking commentary, okay?”
Bennet snorted and looked down to his right, easing on the controls to bring the helicopter higher. “Yes, sir.”
At Primatech's hospital, the nurse set his nose with cold, rough hands and jabbed him with a needle full of Adam's blood. Within minutes he could breathe easily again, enough to attempt to flirt with the nurse, who arched an eyebrow in response and wiped dried blood from his face with rough professionalism.
“You're supposed to be nice to me, you know,” he pointed out. “I am the boss's son.”
“Hm,” she replied, dropping a red-soaked ball of cotton into the tray beside her. Over head, the lights flicked, then flicked again and died.
Then the screaming started.
“What the hell?” he murmured, pushing past the nurse and out into the hall.
Even though the whole building had been plunged into darkness - he could see the pinpricks of light from flashlights sweeping across the walls - the corridor was bathed in an unnatural blue.
“Elle?” he said, then louder, “Elle?!”
She was lit up like a Christmas tree, veins of blue zigzagging across her skin, and she was yelling almost unintelligibly at a scared group of doctors. One of them seemed to make the move to step forward, a needle held in his hand; Nathan caught the movement a half second before Elle did, and then the man went down, near crumpled in on himself.
“Elle!” he yelled, and she hit another doctor with a bolt of electricity, shrieked that she'd do the same to every one of them if they came anywhere near her. He shouted for her again, even louder, but it seemed she couldn't hear him at all; whatever was going on inside her head far outdid any background noise. He advanced on her from behind, all the eyes of the doctors on him, and as he drew closer, he could feel the thrum of her power making the air around him crackle.
“Elle, it's me,” he said, and grabbed her around the waist. She thrashed in his arms, scorching his chest and bending her head to bite him. “It's me,” he repeated, swinging her into his arms, “it's me, it's me.”
Her light only died when she was safely curled up on the front passenger seat of his car.
-
“He wanted to be good,” she said later, barely above a whisper. She was lying on his bed, knees drawn to her chest, and he mirrored her, holding her hand loosely. “He didn't want to hurt people any more. He wanted it to stop.”
Gabriel Gray. They'd been watching him for the past couple of months, alerted through Suresh's research, before he'd killed, and after. His power was fascinating, one borne out of control and logic, not chaos, like most powers. It went without saying that their father had to add it to his collection, no matter the cost.
But he'd wanted to stop, had stopped, and had let his guard down just long enough to be taken advantage of. Or, at least, that was how Elle told it.
“I made him a killer. He would have stopped, I know he would have.” Her hands twisted and turned in his grip as she speaks. “Next time he kills someone, it'll be my fault.”
“Ellie, no.” He smoothed back her hair and pulled her in, letting her tuck her head against his chest. “That man he killed, anyone else he kills - that's not your fault. It's the job, it always is. We do what we're told, when we're told. If it's anyone's fault, it's Dad's.” He paused. “It's mine.”
“You weren't here,” she mumbled in agreement, pressing in closer. “I'm so tired, Nathan.”
“I know.” He reached over and got hold of the edge of his quilt, pulling it over her. “Just go to sleep. I promise I'll still be here in the morning.”
As usual, Nathan fell asleep first, and by the time he woke up, his father had already sent agents to bring Elle back to Primatech. He never got the chance to keep his promise. To Elle or to his mother.
Part two.
Character/Pairing: gen with past Nathan/Niki(Jessica), Nathan/Meredith, Elle/Adam, Elle/Gabriel, one sided Elle/Peter annnd Peter/Claire hinted at. *phew*
Word count: ~10,000
Warnings: Entirely AU, but spoilers up to season three.
Rating: PG-13.
Summary: Nathan, not a Petrelli, but just as much of a mess. His father gripped his shoulders as Adam pressed his hand to the glass, smiled and Nathan tried to take a step back. He said, “You'll never be special, but with work, you can be successful.”
Disclaimer: Hi, not mine, thanks.
Author Notes: So, yeah, this is weird in every respect; weird AU, weird structure, and I fully blame twistdmentality for encouraging me to keep writing it. I've broken it into two posts just to make it less of a slog. I should really get back to RL now.
Elle
The wind howls around the parking lot as Elle climbs the side of a greyhound bus, fingers gripping the edge of a partially open window, rubber soles of her shoes squeaking against the side. Her hair is sticking to the corners of her mouth, blown sideways to obscure her vision, and she curses under her breath; this is the mission she's had since her 'psychotic break', and it's a big one. If she does this right, then Daddy's sure to start paying attention to her again.
As she's thinking about how much the lithium drip itched, and how she couldn't read her favourite magazines because the words kept bleeding together and turning into pictures, she feels herself being pushed up. She gains purchase on the edge of the roof and scrambles up, ducking low to avoid the worst of the wind.
“Thanks,” she whispers, though it almost has to be a yell to be heard, and her partner shushes her as he hoists himself up beside her.
“He's coming around the other side,” he breathes into her ear, pulling his gun from its holster and flicking the safety off. “Come on.”
He holds his hand out and she takes it, letting him pull her upright, standing with feet apart to withstand the gale that's whipping up. She wonders if it's natural or part of the mark's power.
It's completely dark now - it must be nearing midnight - and they've been tracking this guy for the better part of a week, but he always dances just out of their reach. You think he's there, you think he's just around that corner, but then he's disappeared.
Peter fucking Petrelli. Elle killed a whole flock of pigeons in Times Square out of irritation, when they lost him again the day before last. Every day they come back empty-handed is another black mark against her name.
Out of the corner of her eye she catches a faint glow, and she almost squeals - Daddy always said that Petrelli's downfall would be his powers. “There he is!” she exclaims and darts forward; if she's fast enough she can catch him before he gets too far from the bus. She'd like to give him a good frying - he deserves it after all the stress he's put her through - but Daddy wants him unharmed, so she has to use 'non-deadly force'. She hasn't taken two steps, however, before she's stopped by an arm around her waist. Peter's getting away and she lets out a burst of electricity in frustration, but her partner's used to that, of course. It hasn't got so much as a flinch out of him for the past fifteen years.
“Empathic mimicry, remember?” he says quietly. “You go anywhere near him and you're only going to make him stronger.”
“But-” she begins, quickly cut off as he lets go and runs the length of the bus. Petrelli's just rounding the corner between their bus and the one in front, and her breath catches in her throat as her partner doesn't break his stride at the far end, instead jumping off and disappearing between the vehicles.
The wind screams louder, and she drops to her knees, crawling as fast as she can to get to the edge. When she's there, though, she can barely bring herself to look; she peers over, eyes screwed up, heart pounding, half expecting to find a bloody mess that would thrill her if it weren't him, and and-
“Nathan!” she shrieks as he looks up at her, pulling a needle out of Petrelli's neck.
“What?” he asks, and grins. “Ellie, you should have more faith in your big brother.”
-
Daddy calls them into his office the moment they get back to the facility. Elle buzzes with excitement - he hasn't spoken to her in the last two months except to chide her about not taking her medication, and now she's finally managed to get back on track. He'll have to forget her past indiscretions now, won't he?
“Sit,” he says immediately upon their entrance. He's standing facing the window, his back to them, and Nathan rolls his eyes as he takes the couch. Elle settles beside him and folds her hands in her lap, crosses her ankles, like a proper lady. Like Nathan says their mom was.
“So, would you like to give me a brief run through of tonight's goings on, Nathan?” their father says, and turns slowly.
“We caught him, and he's not hurt or anything,” Elle supplies before Nathan can speak.
Their father hums; it turns into a sigh as his mouth twists into a frown. “Yes,” he says, “and it only took you seven days. Do you know how many extra powers he could have picked up in that time?”
“He was a slippery little bastard!” she cries as Nathan says, 'Dad,' and pats her arm. “I did my best.”
“Your best? Does your best include having your brother almost kill himself?”
“Hey, that's not fair,” Nathan says, leaning forward. “That was my decision, not Elle's. Like you said, who knows how many powers he's picked up - I didn't want Elle's to be another for his stash.”
Their father inclines his head. “My, my, forethought; I didn't know that you were capable of it, Nathan.”
The muscles in Nathan's jaw tense and jump, and she gets that thrill low in her belly that always comes before her brother gets really angry - Daddy should watch out; Nathan's never turned his fists on him, but Elle still remembers the day he found her and Adam having sex when she was sixteen. Adam's face was unrecognisable for several minutes, which, considering the circumstances, was quite the achievement.
“Nice. Thanks for your unwavering faith in me, Dad.” He stands, and she bounces up with him, glancing between the two men as they face off. Nathan breaks first, muttering a quiet 'fuck' and wrapping an arm around her. “Let's go get some ice cream, I bet we can find somewhere that's still open.”
He pulls her out of the room and she resists the urge to glance back at their father; she's wondering about the ban on her going outside and what Nathan's going to do when Dad reminds him, but he doesn't. He doesn't remind them, and he lets Nathan slam the door as they leave. Perhaps Daddy does know that he needs to be careful.
-
When she was younger (after the fire at Grandma's but before Mom died) she watched Cinderella for the first time. She was all on her own, and it sucked; Nathan had been away for weeks, and she had no one to play with, since Daddy said she could only show Nathan her power, that the local kids wouldn't like her if they knew.
She watched Cinderella every day for a week. Her mom made brownies, and they baked a carrot cake together, Nathan's favourite, and she was sure he'd have to come back now. Mom said he could never resist carrot cake.
If there's one thing she remembers about her mother it was that she was always right; if she said something, it would become the truth, and hours after Daddy sent her up to bed, she heard the faint click of the front door. Footsteps padded across the downstairs hall, creaked up the stairs hesitantly, and Elle rolled out of bed, opening her door a crack, pressing her eye to it.
“Nathan!” she squealed, streaking out of her room to collide with his middle, hugging him tight, intending never to let him go.
He carried her back to her room after they exchanged whispered hellos; the light had come on under their parents' door and Nathan said the last thing he needed was to talk to Daddy right now. While he was in the shower, though, she sneaked into his room, curling up under his covers, and when he tried to get her to go back to her own bed, she told him that she had to make sure he wouldn't run off again.
Nathan fell asleep first, midway through telling her about his trip and how the girl he met was nowhere near as pretty as her. She was a little jealous, honestly, and she almost wanted to shock him for being so callous as to go off in the first place and have fun without her, but that would wake him up, and he looked happy when he slept.
She was sure she'd get her own back somehow tomorrow.
Nathan
Nathan's known about the Company for as long as he can remember - he doesn't think there's ever been a time in his life when there was a priority higher than Primatech and his father. When he was seven he was studying molecular evolution alongside the birds and the bees, and Dad said if he tried hard enough, he might make a halfway decent agent when he grew up.
“You'll never be special,” he said, the first time he took Nathan to Hartsdale, guiding him to one of the big cell windows. Inside, Adam stood up from his chair, crossed the room and scrutinised him. 'Hello, Nathan,' he said, though the glass muffled his voice.
His father gripped his shoulders as Adam pressed his hand to the glass, smiled and Nathan tried to take a step back. He said, “You'll never be special, but with work, you can be successful.”
The morning after bringing Petrelli in, Nathan comes to the facility early, before it's even fully light out. The place is buzzing with activity already, though, and as he passes his father's lit up office, he can't help but feel that he's being judged for going home at all.
“Nathan! Nathan!” Elle calls, running down the corridor towards him, feet bare, hair frizzled and staticky. “Are you going to talk to Petrelli today? Daddy said I couldn't but I'm not going to do anything. I just want to... see him up close.”
“You want to play with him,” he replies, reaching out and twisting an unruly strand of her hair around his fingers.
“Maybe. That's not so bad, is it?” She presses close to his chest, her fingers sparking blue, and he sighs, leaning down to kiss the top of her head.
“Depends how rough you are. He's on suppressants now - you don't want to roast him like a shish kebab, do you?”
She shrugs, bites her thumbnail. “Maybe,” she says, drawing out the syllables.
“Dad wouldn't like that,” he replies, and she giggles.
“Dad doesn't like anything, Nathan.”
“Well, that's true enough,” he agrees and idly combs out her hair. She looks up at him and smiles, and she really hasn't changed a bit since she was five years old, her eyes still glitter when she looks at him.
“I don't think that it's so wrong that I want someone to spend time with. I mean, you get that fancy apartment that I'm not allowed to visit any more, and Daddy gives you your solo missions, and what am I supposed to do all day?” She purses her lips and wrinkles her nose, her voice like a child's. “I mean, I could visit Adam, but since I've been forbidden...”
“Adam's just using you,” Nathan snaps. “That's what he does; he twists people to do what suits him. We're all just dolls in his great master plan for the universe, and I'm not having him abuse you too.”
She blinks a couple of times, and stops walking to stare speculatively at the elevator. “Daddy took away my Level Five swipe card.”
Nathan watches her for a second; she doesn't look at him or ask him outright, she just bites her lip and stares a hole through the elevator doors like it's suddenly going to open for her. He sucks in a breath, then sighs, and she spins on her heel, placing her hands on his chest. “Okay, fine. Maybe we can go down and talk to him for a couple of minutes.”
Her eyes light up and she squeezes him around the middle. “You're the best big brother ever, Nathan! Oh my God, I have to go do my hair!”
She streaks off down the hall without another word. He's pretty sure he's just been played.
-
Nathan was sixteen when Elle was born. He'd been isolated so long, just being him and his parents, that it was one hell of a shock to the system.
(He'd never managed to make friends, really. He was strange, and came out with odd things about men who healed and turned things to gold long after it was acceptable to believe such supposed fantasies. And he'd fight anyone who looked at him the wrong way. His peers were scared of him. His father was pleased.)
She was a tiny little thing, all delicate and blonde like their mother, and he stayed for days in that maternity unit in Utica, Ohio where they used to live, because his father was away on business and his mother was exhausted and he had nowhere else to go. Nathan was the first person to properly hold Elle; she didn't even meet her father until she was two weeks old.
“You have a little sister now. You have to look after her,” Mom said and gripped his hand tight. In the background, Elle screamed and wailed - she never, never slept for more than a couple of hours at a time.
“Sure,” he replied, half shrugging, grimacing slightly at the pitch of Elle's cries.
“No, no.” His mother gripped his hand even harder. “You have to look after her. Your father, he has his own agenda. She needs to be kept safe. When I'm not around, she has to be looked after. She'll always need looking after.”
“Why wouldn't you be around, Mom?” he asked softly. It felt like in between what she was saying, she was telling him something else, but he didn't know what.
She loosened her grip. “I don't know, sweetheart. I'm just tired.”
-
Weeks later, when they were all back at home, he asked his father if Elle was special.
“She will be,” he replied, and right there Nathan began to understand what his mother had meant.
And he's done a really poor job of looking after her so far.
-
Peter Petrelli is an oddity. That's all there is to it. No one person is supposed to have more than one power, the body can't cope with the strain. And Petrelli was running around New York about to explode, stubbornly refusing to get the help that he needed, because he had to save innocent lives. Because he, apparently, knew better than people who had worked on, researched, and had powers years before he was even born.
He really is an arrogant little shit.
“I have nothing to say to you,” he says, crossing his arms over his chest. Nathan stands by the door, one foot braced against the wall, while Elle explores, kneeling in front of Peter and sparking him every now and then.
“I don't think he likes that, Elle,” Nathan says as Peter jerks back, pulling his feet up onto his cot.
She turns to him. “I know,” she says, and smiles. Nathan smiles back.
“Peter, we only want to help you,” he says as Elle turns back. Peter sneers.
“Help me? What, by kidnapping me and drugging me.”
Nathan thinks for a second. “Yes? Look, you were about to go nuclear - you accept that much, right?” At Peter's almost imperceptible nod, he continues. “Well, we stopped that. You weren't going to be able to. You were going to make half of New York go boom. Have some gratitude, at least.”
Peter doesn't reply immediately; Elle's sitting on his bed now, and he leans as far back from her as he can. “Where am I? Who actually are you?”
“You're at Primatech Research - we have a... special interest in people such as yourself. I'm Nathan Bishop, and this is my sister Elle.”
“Hi,” she says softly, waving at him. Peter swallows.
“Claire said this would happen,” he murmurs. “She said I shouldn't trust Mom.”
“What's your mother got to do with this?” Nathan asks. Peter's file names Angela Petrelli as a housewife, hardly a major player.
“She said the Company wouldn't come after me. That me and Claire were 'protected'.” He looks down at his hands. “Fuck,” he mutters. “You don't have her too, do you?”
“I-” Nathan begins, then stops. Something just feels slightly off-kilter, and he has to take a second to sort through what Peter's said. “Why the hell would your mother be able to protect you?”
Peter frowns, and he glances to the side at Elle, who's seemingly oblivious to the conversation, picking at the end of Peter's sleeve. “She said she'd stop the Company from coming after us. She said Dad could control the rest of them.”
“What-” Nathan starts to say, but a sharp rapping cuts him off. He jumps, and Elle skitters up, turning to look up at the cell window.
“Oh shit,” she whispers, grabbing for Nathan's hand.
On the other side of the glass, their father stands with his hands clasped behind his back. He nods his head sharply to the side, and points to the door.
-
Elle manifested when she was four. Nathan had been away on his first mission with Claude - who honestly couldn't stand being saddled with the boss's twenty year old son for a whole week - and when Nathan got home, he'd stumbled upstairs and gone to bed, falling asleep to second his head hit the pillow.
Five hours later, he was woken by the worst pain he'd ever felt. He yelped and rolled out of bed, hitting the floor with a crash. His room was bathed in a dusky yellow as the day turned to night, and as he tried to sit up, he found his whole right arm was numb. “What the fuck?” he muttered, forcing the fingers of his right hand to move.
“Nathan?” The voice was soft and lisped across the 'th' in his name. From the edge of the other side of the bed, Elle peered at him, her mouth a shaky line. “Did I hurt you?”
“Did you hurt me?” he repeated, getting to his knees and leaning against the bed. A spark of blue jumped from her hand, and his eyes widened. Elle closed her fist abruptly and backed off.
“I didn't mean to, I'm sorry,” she said quietly and looked to the door like she was about to bolt. Nathan climbed onto his bed, holding his arms out to her; she was quick to clamber up next to him with a dazzling smile.
“Ellie, when did this happen?” He squeezed her hands, and she couldn't help but give him a tiny shock. He turned his hand over and looked at the faint red mark on his palm.
“A few days ago,” she said, and shocked him again. He continued to stare at her little arcs of electricity and she giggled. “Daddy took me to New York and then I could do this. He's very happy.”
“I bet he is,” he murmured, and met her gaze, smiling. “This is really amazing, Elle.” He pressed his palm to hers, and shivered at the tingle. He was a little jealous, maybe. It was amazing, one of the most fantastic powers he'd seen. And it was an offensive power; Dad was likely thrilled. One of his kids had made good, at least.
“Are you jealous?” she asked.
“A bit,” he confessed. She giggled again and hugged him.
“I'll look after you, Nathan,” she said, voice muffled against his neck.
-
“At what point when I told you Elle was not allowed to talk our guests did you stop understanding me, Nathan?” Their father rests his fists on his hips, standing safely behind his desk, where he's always held all the cards. It's as if no one can touch him when he's there.
“At the point when you mistook me for your lapdog.” Nathan inclines his head, smiles. Elle sits on the arm of the couch and watches the argument. “Woof woof, Dad.”
He takes Nathan's attitude placidly, as always. “What you did was incredibly stupid. I specifically did not want anyone speaking to Petrelli, and you would have known that had you seen fit to speak to me before you went off half cocked. But, then, I suppose you've always known better, haven't you, Nathan?”
“Yes, I think I probably have. At least I care about something other than this fucking place.” Nathan gestures vaguely at the ceiling. “At least I don't treat people like rungs on a ladder.”
His father laughs, the sound deep and mocking; it sets Nathan's teeth on edge. “Oh, don't you? Why do you think I haven't promoted Bennet or Thompson's son? They're far more capable than you've ever been. And, of course, being paired with your sister is of great benefit to you.”
“What?” Nathan's volume drops and he takes a step forward, laying his hands flat on the desk, leaning in. “What?” he repeats.
“When has she ever not done what you've told her to do? You get to be the hero, you get to save her from everything that goes wrong in her life. She could easily kill you, and she probably would have if she weren't so reliant on you. If you hadn't made her so reliant.” His voice is perfectly level, the lilt of it amused, his eyes sparkling.
“You really wanna get into this?” Nathan asks, his fingers scraping across the wood of the desk as he balls his hand to fists. “Do you want to talk about how you pushed your daughter into having a nervous breakdown? Caused dozens of peoples' deaths? Do you want to talk about that?”
His father sighs expansively. “Nathan, my boy, you would never had become as important in this company as you are if it weren't for Elle's breakdown. You're the only one able to control your sister, and that makes you... special.”
Nathan's fist comes up fast - Elle sits up, her nails digging into the leather of the couch - but their father's faster, and he grips Nathan's wrist, twisting his arm down as gold radiates out across Nathan's sleeve.
“Dad!” Elle shrieks, but neither of them look at her, and Nathan attempts to pull his wrist free as she jumps up. “Let him go!” she shouts, letting loose a bolt of electricity into her father's chest. He stumbles back, and Nathan jumps away, reaching out to grab her shoulder and drag her to the door.
“Elle, go,” he says hurriedly. The solid gold cuff of his sleeve clinks against his watch, and he opens the door, all but shoving her out. “I'll be okay, promise. Just go.”
“I-” She stammers but he closes the door in her face, leaving her spluttering out in the hallway
His father is sitting in his chair when Nathan turns back, surveying his singed shirt. “This just makes my point for me, Nathan. You've got her quite under your spell.”
“She was scared that you were going to turn my arm to gold; so was I. It's not like you haven't done it to people before.”
“And you don't trust me.”
Nathan shakes his head, keeping his distance. “Not even a little bit.”
“Then neither will she,” he replies. “She always follows your lead, and you may want to blame me for her problems, but you know it's true.”
Nathan opens his mouth to speak, but nothing comes out. Maybe it is his fault, Elle did always want to be an agent like him, and when he was younger he didn't see anything wrong with that. It was the family business, it was what they were built to do, it was in their blood. Now he's not so sure.
He settles on, “I blame you for a lot of things.”
-
His first couple of missions were courtesies, really. Out in the field with Rains, driving for hours, capturing housewives who used time dilation powers to get their kids to school on time, gardeners who controlled the weather in order to get their flowers to grow; they weren't real missions, and Claude wasn't really his partner. The invisible man treated him like something found on the bottom of his shoe, made it clear that he was only doing this to keep the boss sweet. Thompson brushed him off, as well, and more often than not he was left to hang around the Hartsdale facility with nothing to do, feeling overwhelmed because he'd grown up in a village with a population of two thousand people. Now he was in the city that never slept, with a gun he knew how to handle, but was never allowed to.
His first real mission - the solo missions Elle was so jealous of - was in July 1989. His father gave him a fake name, Harrison Campbell, a description of a mark who could make his skin impenetrable, and a ticket to Annapolis.
He never did find that guy, but it was a success in every other way. Nathan had graduated high school but never gone to college - it hadn't even been a possibility - and his longest relationship had lasted all of two weeks. In a dive bar that he doubted he'd find his man in, he watched a girl with long curly blonde hair dance with every guy in the room before lighting on him.
“Hey there, pretty boy,” she drawled. “Do you not dance or somethin'? You've been sitting here all alone all night.”
“I'm just... soaking up the atmosphere,” he said, glancing around the dark, run down bar.
“There ain't no atmosphere here, baby. Buy me a drink and I'll show you atmosphere.” She smiled wide and extended her hand. “I'm Meredith.”
“I'm... Harrison,” he replied slowly, shaking her hand. It felt warm, and damp with sweat in his grip.
Nathan had never been drunk before, never had sex before, and that night Meredith's hands were all over him - under his shirt, down his pants and he touched her everywhere he could. In the morning, she said that he yelled so loud that her neighbours had come around to see if she was okay. He didn't remember a thing. Not the first time, anyway.
He was in love, plain and simple. Meredith said he was different; quieter, naiver - which she assured him was a good thing - and certainly better looking than the guys she normally went with. Best of all, he wasn't put off by her brother.
Flint, in fact, hadn't come over since Nathan had found him going through his wallet, and had then almost twisted his arm off as he pinned him to the ground and demanded his money back.
Two weeks in, living in her apartment, getting drunk and having sex every night, he decided he'd marry her. Proposal was just a formality - they'd get married, and his mom and Elle could live with them for a while, and he was sure he could find work doing something normal. After all, he wasn't special, and non-special people got to fall in love and have kids and pets, and maybe all that was better than having a power.
When his father called and told him to come back - mission over, work to do at home, your sister is missing you - he told Meredith he'd be back. He'd definitely be back.
She said 'sure' like she already knew what he didn't.
-
Three months later, adrenaline pumping as he escaped his grandmother's burning house carrying Elle minutes before the roof caved in, he could barely remember her name.
-
He didn't get another undercover mission for years; because the first had been a complete failure, he assumed. Perhaps his father had known what Nathan had been intending to do. He knew most everything else.
But 2006 came and there was new mission; Las Vegas, single mother with a split personality and enhanced strength. All he had to do was persuade her to stop resisting the Company; Linderman wanted her to do some work for him and he really didn't want to have to force the issue with her, but he was running out of options.
Niki was an anxious, distrustful woman. He bet and lost thousands of dollars night after night at the roulette table she worked at in the Corinthian, until she kindly suggested that maybe he needed help with his - she didn't addiction, that could get her fired, but she made her intention clear, and he smiled, said, “I'm rich. And it's not the gambling I'm really interested in.”
He introduced himself as Harrison, a financial advisor just moved from LA.
“If you've got any money troubles, maybe I could help you out sometime.”
It had been the right thing to say, apparently - he spent the night with her at the bar, got invited over to her house the next day, met her son, even became her sort-of boyfriend.
She was dull. Not because she had nothing to say, or because she had no talents - he knew just how talented she was - but because she forced herself to be. She was entirely unremarkable; normal, normal, normal.
She warned him that her husband might cause trouble; he'd escaped from jail, was on the run, was a dangerous criminal. The police often came by in the couple of months Nathan spent living mostly in her tiny house, they asked her if she'd heard from DL, if her son had, if there'd been any correspondence at all. Nathan would stand at the doorway as she was questioned, would hug her when it was over, would say, “It'll take a lot more than this to scare me away.”
Harrison Campbell was the perfect boyfriend for Niki. Too perfect, perhaps. He never asked her where she'd been when she came home in the early hours of the morning, clothes stained and ripped, didn't object to her sideline in internet pornography, and never wondered why sometimes she smashed all the mirrors in the house.
-
“Who are you?”
The question was growled against his ear late one night as he was sleeping and suddenly he was fully awake, arm up to block Niki's hand going for his throat. He was no match for her physically, but that knowledge gave him a split second advantage, letting him jerk his elbow sharply into her chin and flip her onto her back. She head butted him, kicked him in the stomach, and, before he could think, he was on the floor, blood pouring from his nose to stain his t-shirt, Niki (or, more accurately, Jessica) on top of him.
“I think you broke my nose,” he mumbled, spitting blood from his mouth. “Jessica.”
“I knew you were more than just a pretty face,” she said, pinning his arms over his head. “Tell me who you are. Now.”
He could only just see her in the light coming in from under the door, but suddenly she was the most beautiful woman he'd ever laid eyes on. Eyes bright with anger, lips red and full; he felt like he was twenty-three again and living in a bug-infested apartment in Maryland. “I'm Nathan. We work for the same men, or, at least, we will.”
“Linderman. You're one of his boys.”
“Something like that,” he replied. “There are people who want you - you and Niki - and there's not anything that'll stop them. I'm, like you said, the pretty face. Guess what comes next?”
She gripped his arms harder, he could already feel the bruises forming under her fingers. She sneered. “Think they'll be any more of a match for me than you are? I won't let Niki make another stupid mistake like this.”
“Maybe that's true.” He matched her smirk with his own. “But I wonder who'd be a match for Micah. Huh.”
On reflection, that was probably not the best way to go. Jessica snarled like a wild animal, and he soon found himself being dragged through the house by the collar of his t-shirt.
“Harrison has to be somewhere urgently,” Jessica said calmly when Micah came out into the hall and asked what was going on. She let Nathan regain his balance at the front door; smoothed down his hair, wiped the worst of the blood from his face. Kissed him hard.
“If I ever see you again, I'll break your neck,” she whispered when she broke the kiss. He panted and blinked rapidly, smiling at a confused Micah over Jessica's shoulder. “And that goes for all your friends.”
Without further discussion, she shoved him out the door and slammed it shut.
-
On the helicopter ride home, Bennet watched him out of the corner of his eye, a smile ghosting the corners of his mouth.
“That looks painful,” he said, looking ahead at the receding lights of Las Vegas. “Can I take it that you didn't make the sale?”
“Fuck off, Bennet,” Nathan replied, though it came out more as 'fug off' with his swollen nose. “I don't need your running fucking commentary, okay?”
Bennet snorted and looked down to his right, easing on the controls to bring the helicopter higher. “Yes, sir.”
At Primatech's hospital, the nurse set his nose with cold, rough hands and jabbed him with a needle full of Adam's blood. Within minutes he could breathe easily again, enough to attempt to flirt with the nurse, who arched an eyebrow in response and wiped dried blood from his face with rough professionalism.
“You're supposed to be nice to me, you know,” he pointed out. “I am the boss's son.”
“Hm,” she replied, dropping a red-soaked ball of cotton into the tray beside her. Over head, the lights flicked, then flicked again and died.
Then the screaming started.
“What the hell?” he murmured, pushing past the nurse and out into the hall.
Even though the whole building had been plunged into darkness - he could see the pinpricks of light from flashlights sweeping across the walls - the corridor was bathed in an unnatural blue.
“Elle?” he said, then louder, “Elle?!”
She was lit up like a Christmas tree, veins of blue zigzagging across her skin, and she was yelling almost unintelligibly at a scared group of doctors. One of them seemed to make the move to step forward, a needle held in his hand; Nathan caught the movement a half second before Elle did, and then the man went down, near crumpled in on himself.
“Elle!” he yelled, and she hit another doctor with a bolt of electricity, shrieked that she'd do the same to every one of them if they came anywhere near her. He shouted for her again, even louder, but it seemed she couldn't hear him at all; whatever was going on inside her head far outdid any background noise. He advanced on her from behind, all the eyes of the doctors on him, and as he drew closer, he could feel the thrum of her power making the air around him crackle.
“Elle, it's me,” he said, and grabbed her around the waist. She thrashed in his arms, scorching his chest and bending her head to bite him. “It's me,” he repeated, swinging her into his arms, “it's me, it's me.”
Her light only died when she was safely curled up on the front passenger seat of his car.
-
“He wanted to be good,” she said later, barely above a whisper. She was lying on his bed, knees drawn to her chest, and he mirrored her, holding her hand loosely. “He didn't want to hurt people any more. He wanted it to stop.”
Gabriel Gray. They'd been watching him for the past couple of months, alerted through Suresh's research, before he'd killed, and after. His power was fascinating, one borne out of control and logic, not chaos, like most powers. It went without saying that their father had to add it to his collection, no matter the cost.
But he'd wanted to stop, had stopped, and had let his guard down just long enough to be taken advantage of. Or, at least, that was how Elle told it.
“I made him a killer. He would have stopped, I know he would have.” Her hands twisted and turned in his grip as she speaks. “Next time he kills someone, it'll be my fault.”
“Ellie, no.” He smoothed back her hair and pulled her in, letting her tuck her head against his chest. “That man he killed, anyone else he kills - that's not your fault. It's the job, it always is. We do what we're told, when we're told. If it's anyone's fault, it's Dad's.” He paused. “It's mine.”
“You weren't here,” she mumbled in agreement, pressing in closer. “I'm so tired, Nathan.”
“I know.” He reached over and got hold of the edge of his quilt, pulling it over her. “Just go to sleep. I promise I'll still be here in the morning.”
As usual, Nathan fell asleep first, and by the time he woke up, his father had already sent agents to bring Elle back to Primatech. He never got the chance to keep his promise. To Elle or to his mother.
Part two.