Heroes: Runaways (Part 3/4)
Title: Heroes: Runaways (Part 3/4)
Disclaimer: Heroes owned by NBC, Runaways concept owned by Marvel.
Summary: Kidnapping and running away seems a reasonable reaction if one discovers one’s parents are supervillains, in any universe.
Characters: Nathan Petrelli, Peter Petrelli, Angela Petrelli, Kaito Nakamura, Hiro Nakamura, Charles Deveaux, Simone Deveaux, Mr. Linderman, Niki Sanders.
Rating: PG
Thanks to: wychwood, for beta-reading.
Author’s note: This is what encouragement of insane plot bunnies results in. Also, despite appearances, this is not an AU. (You'll probably figure out why at the end of this part.)
Part I
Part II
III. The Art of Negotiation
Nathan was usually quite good at instant transitions to being awake, and life with the Navy had pushed “quite good” up to “excellent”. Still, basic training and pranks aside, he had never woken up with a gun pointed at him, and two smug bountyhunters, for that was what they looked like, about to abduct him. Somebody above him groaned as if just waking up. A female voice. He had a moment of confusion, as he didn’t remember having fallen asleep next to a woman. Let alone sex with her before sleep. And what was he doing on the floor in that case anyway? It couldn’t have been that bad.
Then realisation and memory kicked in. That was Niki on the bed, next to Claire. There were two goons with a gun in a room with his baby daughter.
Nathan got up, mind crystal clear now.
“Aaron,” he said to the man with the gun, ignoring Thompson, “do you think you’re adequately paid in your job?”
“What?” asked Aaron. Thompson’s superior smile slipped a little, then returned again, a bit more artificial this time.
“It just so happens,” Nathan said, “that I am in need of a bodyguard. I can offer instant payment as a start. There will be further installments, of course. Sadly, it is a one time offer. If I have to leave this room against my will, I won’t make it again.”
“Very funny,” Thompson said. “And half way original. I would love to let this play out a while longer, but unfortunately my employers are in somewhat of a hurry, so I’m afraid I really must insist. Tranquillizer or a dignified exit, Mr. Petrelli, your choice.”
Behind Nathan, he heard Niki murmur “shit, shit, shit” all over again. He remembered how she had punched the guard out, and wondered if she could do it again. Perhaps, but probably not before that gun was fired. Of course he didn’t believe a word of Peter’s insistence that Hiro had frozen time - that was Peter’s overactive imagination and inherent need for drama - but that, too, would have been very handy. Unfortunately, he had to deal with reality here. He raised his voice anyway, remembering how thin the walls were. If the children heard him, they might manage to get away. Peter, Hiro and Simone on their own wasn’t the safest thought, but he definitely liked it better than seeing them with this Thompson and his partner. Putting all the conviction he was able to muster in his face, focusing on Aaron, he plugged on, hopefully loud enough:
“I much prefer a dignified exit, but I’m afraid my definition of it is different from your partner’s, and completely inflexible. You look like a reasonable man, Aaron. As a captive, I’m worth a one-time bonus to you. As a long-term employer, I’m your meal ticket for the rest of your life. And I even offer tickets for the Yankees,” he ended, trying for a rueful smile. His actual expression probably looked more like a terribly fake grin. There was some doubt in Aaron’s face, and Nathan felt a twitch of hope. He had not really expected to succeed; if Thompson knew his name, he had to come from either his parents or Charles Deveaux or the lot of them, and had to know Nathan’s source of wealth had just stopped flowing, which meant Aaron probably knew, too. But maybe, just maybe, he didn’t. And Aaron was the one with the gun.
Thompson sighed. “Shoot him,” he ordered.
“Sorry,” Aaron said. “I’m a real Yankees fan, but what can you do?” He raised his gun just as someone behind them coughed.
“Um,” said Simone Deveaux. “I’m sorry. But I don’t think it’s a tranquillizer gun. The one I’m holding, not the one you’re holding. Dad wouldn’t hire security people with fake guns; he explained that to me. There are so many evil people in the world.”
Slowly, Thompson turned around and in so doing allowed Nathan to catch a glimpse of the thirteen-year-old girl who was standing there, a real, actual gun in her hand. She looked nervous and embarrassed at the same time, but her hand didn’t shake.
“What the hell?” said Niki.
“You better put that down, young lady,” Thompson commented, trying for avuncular and failing.
“Guns don’t kill people,” Simone said, talking faster and faster, the only outward sign of the fear she had to be feeling. “People kill people. And boys are stupid. I couldn’t let Peter and Hiro keep those guns they’d taken from the security guards, could I? They might be stupid enough to play with them if they got bored. Boys are like that. I kept them in my room. But I never fired a gun, and I really don’t think I’d be good at it. I could hit anything, sir. I wouldn’t mean to, but I would. People kill people. With guns.”
By now, Aaron had turned halfway towards her as well, and Nathan decided it was now or never. Unfortunately, Niki seemed to have decided the same thing at the same time. In a movie, Nathan thought later, their moves would have been beautifully coordinated, one of them going for Aaron, the other for Thompson. In reality, they both went for Aaron and collided, Nathan getting Niki’s ellbow in his face. As a consequence, Aaron had time to fire before he went down, the tranquillizer dart hitting Niki’s shoulder. Simultaneously, Thompson tried to take the gun away from Simone, and she pulled the trigger. Thompson cried out, Simone screamed, there was an instant smell of blood in the room, and Nathan wrestled the tranquillizer gun away from Aaron. He looked over to Simone. Thompson was on the floor, bleeding, but what she had hit seemed to be his right kneecap. The girl had backed away, standing in the middle of the floor, and the way she was screaming would bring everyone in the motel here soon.
“I don’t believe this,” Thompson swore, which was probably the first honest thing he had said today.
“Me neither,” Nathan agreed, and fired the tranquillizer gun first at Aaron, then at him. By the time Thompson fell back on the ground unconscious, Hiro and Peter had come running from their room. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Nathan knew that there was no way Simone could have gotten that gun unless she had told the literal truth, which meant that so had Peter, earlier, and the Japanese boy staring wide-eyed at him really could freeze time. Still, he couldn’t deal with this right now. He had to get them all out of here as fast as possible.
Claire was still on the bed, by now wide awake and, thanks to all the noise, joining in with her own crying. Niki lay on the floor, completely knocked out by the first tranquilizer dart. Shit, Nathan said with feeling. Simone’s screams stopped instantly.
“You shouldn’t swear in front of minors, Nathan,” she told him disapprovingly. “You are such a bad role model.” Then she looked down on the gun she was still holding, and her hands started shaking.
“Give me that,” Peter said gently. Peter picked the oddest moments to switch from high emotion to a serenity far too mature for his age, and this was one of them. Nathan’s heart stopped when Simone just stared at Peter uncomprehending, her shaking hand pointing the gun in his direction. His mouth felt dry, and he had never felt more helpless, seeing it all too clearly; Simone firing again, the bullet piercing one of Peter’s arteries. Of all the times Peter could have played the hero, this was the worst, Nathan thought with a mixture of fear and fury. But Simone actually calmed, stopped shaking and handed the gun over. Nathan dropped the tranquillizer weapon, knelt down and put his arms around Niki so he could carry her. “Hiro,” he said, looking at his daughter, “could you take Claire?”
Apparently, that needed no theme music; Hiro understood him anyway, stepped gingerly into the room, went to the bed and picked up the baby. Nathan found that carrying a tall blonde girl was far less easy than the movies made it look like, but those morning push-ups had to be good for something. “Okay,” he said, hoping that the adrenaline in him would allow him to keep avoiding the realization of how much worse things had just gotten for a while longer. “Okay, everyone. Let’s move.”
It wasn’t quite the worst morning in his life; there was still some competition from the day he had gotten the phonecall about Claire and Meredith, and then there was the time he had found Pop in the bathroom, after his father’s first “heart attack”. But it still came pretty close. Well, at least it would remain unique. Nathan fervently hoped so. Neither waking up next to a blonde he barely knew, only to get abducted by thugs presumably working for his parents or their dubious friends, nor watching a teenage girl waving a gun in a mixture of bravery and hysteria at his kid brother was something he ever cared to experience again.
***
“I don’t believe this,” Angela said, glaring at the rest of them. For the first time, she wondered whether it would really be such a bad thing if they all went their separate ways. She had felt such a development coming for a while now, and was trying her best to prevent it; if their group broke up, some of her current colleagues would inevitably end up working against her, interfering with her plans, and as oppposed to certain other people, she felt no need to prove herself in idiotic competitions if she could succeed more elegantly making everyone else do her bidding.
But her bidding should at least be done by people with a modicum of common sense.
“Should I have used smaller words to explain why sending someone after them was both superfluous and a bad idea?” she asked witheringly. “And if you absolutely had to, did it have to be someone who could be taken out by a little girl? What on earth are your hiring practices, Dan?”
“Thompson is usually very competent,” Linderman said defensively. “Not to mention effective.”
“Guess he never went up against little girls before,” Angela’s husband interjected sarcastically. “Who knew Charles was training her to be a sharp-shooter? He’s been holding out on us.”
Kaito Nakamura looked at them all contemptously. “This is it. I shall retrieve my son by myself before it is too late.”
“Look,” Charles, who was oddly calm for someone whose daughter had just revealed unsuspected talents of the non-superpower kind, said soothingly, “now that Dan’ team is, well, recovering, there is no actual threat to anyone, is there? Give them time, and all will develop as Angela has predicted.”
Dan Linderman’s eyes narrowed. “That’s not what you said earlier. As I recall, you were the one pushing for immediate action as soon as Angela was out of the room.”
“I simply made an observation about the press. Which doesn’t seem to be an issue anymore. I doubt young Nathan will want to incriminate himself by contacting reporters about shooting incidents.”
“I do not care,” Kaito said darkly. “He shall not remain anywhere near my son and put him into further danger.”
“Oh, for God’s sake,” Nathan’s father exploded. “From the way it sounded, the only danger your son was ever in was getting baby poo on his hands. My sons were the ones held at gunpoint, and by the way, Dan, if I were you, I wouldn’t let this Thompson do field work again. He sounds like the type who couldn’t disarm an exploding bomb without hastening the explosion. Bury him in paperwork, that’s my advice.”
“For the last time, he’s usually…”
“If he allows Charles’ daughter to carry guns,” Kaito returned, ignoring the aside to Linderman, “who knows what habits he is teaching Hiro at this very moment, eh?”
“The only bad habit your son could pick up from my son is a taste for waitresses in Texas,” Angela said cuttingly, “and how likely is that? Now could we please focus? I agree that given your collective idiotic behaviour, someone now needs to go after them and end this quickly and efficiently. But not you, Kaito. Luckily for the lot of you, I already have someone in mind.”
There were a few grumblings, but this time, everyone at least seemed to acknowledge that doing what she said was the only way to proceed. She waited a while until what passed for social conversation between them had set in, and then she pulled Charles Deveaux aside in a corner.
“What have you been doing, Charles?” she asked quietly.
At least he didn’t insult her by playing the innocent. Whether what he replied with was the truth was another matter altogether.
“Just a little improvisation, my dear,” he replied, patting her arm reassuringly. “Now, you can’t tell me that as soon as Dan said ‘one of us’ would rule the country after the…incident…, you didn’t immediately define “us” as meaning the family Petrelli. I don’t begrudge you your ambitions for your children, Angela. I simply think that anyone entrusted with such an enormous responsibility should be tested first.”
***
As it turned out, the biggest crisis in the aftermath wasn’t getting rid of the guns, Simone having to deal with shooting a man in the kneecap, or ditching the car and finding another means of transportation. It wasn’t even Nathan deciding that they all needed new outfits, because thinking about how bedraggled they all looked, and the risk of arrest for vagabondage, was infinitely preferable to thinking about a world in which boys would freeze time. No, the biggest crisis was the discovery that a company of children and teenagers who had been on the run for a day and a night had only one thing on their minds, and it wasn’t the danger they were in.
“I’m hungry,” was the first thing Niki said when she came to, and a moment later, everyone else agreed. Loudly. They ended up in a diner that served pancakes. Thankfully, the only other guests present were a couple with a distinct Queens accent, who were too busy arguing with their son to pay attention to them. Well, the mother was, at any rate.
“Breakfast is the first meal of the day, Gabriel,” she said in a tone of exasparation that had to be universal for mothers everywhere. “The most important one. You need to eat yours, or you’ll come to a bad end.”
They didn’t hear the muttered protests of the son, who looked about Peter’s age and wore glasses like Hiro, because by then everyone was busy ordering and changing their minds by the second. Nathan started to wonder whether life as a hermit was on offer as an alternative to being court martialed and thrown into prison for a couple of felonies. It didn’t look like a career as someone else in Canada was, unless Charles Deveaux hadn’t been the one to send Thompson and would actually finance such an enterprise. And the only way to check whether or not Mr. Deveaux had been calling his bluff was to call him again, which meant risking another encounter of the bounty hunter kind.
“You need to shower,” Niki said to him. “You didn’t at the motel last night, right? You’re the only one who didn’t. You’re totally stinking up the place.”
“I should have left you there,” Nathan said curtly, and for a moment, she looked hurt, as if she believed he had meant it. He wasn’t quite sure whether he did, but decided he didn’t as she busied herself giving the orders for Hiro, who looked both curious and helpless when confronted with the menu card. As it turned out, her guess either suited him, or Hiro simply liked any variation of pancake. Either way, he ate up, and so did everyone else, though Simone looked suddenly sick and raced towards the restroom. Peter half rose.
“You’re not going into the girls’ restroom, Pete,” Nathan said, and turned to Niki.
“Great. Now you need me,” she muttered. “Listen, nobody wants to be watched when they throw up, Mr. Sensitive. Maybe she just wants a few minutes alone after everything, huh?”
There was a moment of uncomfortable silence in which they could hear the other guests again.
“See, Mom,” the boy from Queens said triumphantly, “that girl didn’t like the food here, either!”
His mother blanched and pressed her lips together.
“Well,” she said. “Well. Let that be a lesson to you. You can’t be too careful with what you put in your mouth, Gabriel.”
“But you said I should eat the…”
The father, an unassuming, stocky man who had been fiddling with his watch the entire time, caught Nathan’s eye, shrugged and gave him a rueful look.
“Family trips, eh?”
Nathan nodded and hastily started to eat himself, which he hadn’t done so far, having needed to feed Claire first. They really couldn’t afford to get involved with strangers right now. Except that strangers would probably be a far safer choice than friends of the family. Or indeed his family, present company excepted. If Charles Deveaux hadn’t sent Thompson, his parents had. They hadn’t even bothered to come themselves; they’d just sent some thugs, as if he was a client unwilling to pay.
“Na-than,” Hiro said to him, watching him with an expression of concern, the precision in his words making it clear he was quoting directly from one of the Star Wars comics he had been given, “when nine hundred years you reach, look as good, you will not.”
Peter turned towards him. “He’s right,” he said, worried. “I mean, you’re not really like Yoda on his death bed, but - Nathan, are you okay?”
“I told you you stink up the place,” Niki commented.
“I’m fine,” Nathan said tersely. “Is everybody else done? I want to pay the bill, and then we need to go.”
“We can’t go before we brush our teeth,” Simone said. She was back from the restroom, looking calm again, if distinctly unhappy. “Otherwise we will get cavities.”
They ended up going to Woolworth’s to acquire clothing Nathan otherwise would not have touched with his fingertips and some more supplies, including toothpaste and brushes. After all, he owed Simone. By then, Niki had come up with what sounded like a good suggestion, if another humiliating one.
“We shouldn’t rent a new car,” she said. “We should take a Greyhound bus. Betcha they won’t check those, not with how rich the rest of you are. I mean, did you ever take the bus in your life?”
“There was no need to,” Nathan said, which was his way of conceding she was right. Queing for the bus tickets with a bunch of down-on-their luck veterans, single mothers and teenagers who were probably runaways as well, he was more and more aware that he was kidding himself with this entire absurdity. The chances of Charles Deveaux coming through with the money were slim to none existent. He could try blackmailing his parents, along the lines of “either cash now or a headline about the Petrelli heir going to prison”, but for one thing, this would still mean crossing a line he couldn’t bring himself to cross yet, their behaviour regarding Claire notwithstanding, and for another, he suspected his mother would find a way to let such a scenario end with getting Peter back, promoting him to heir and trying to fit him into the mold while cutting off all ties with Nathan.
He might just as well go home now. At the very least, he should really bring Simone and Hiro back and give Niki some money so she could make it back to Las Vegas on her own. Moving yet another tiny step in the queue, he looked back to where they squatted with the others in a corner, happily eating chips and drinking Coke. Hiro waved his arms around enthusiastically and apparently tried to demonstrate something to the others.
You do have another potential source of income, something in Nathan whispered. Like it or not, that boy did something back in the Deveaux garage. Something extraordinary. Something a lot of people, from the government down to your average ambitious lab owner, would give a lot to investigate and explore. To market. And he likes you. He trusts you. He doesn’t speak English beyond a few Star Wars phrases. He could be your ticket to a good life.
“Hey, Mister,” the boy behind him said. “The queue just moved. Or can I have your place?”
“No,” Nathan said, a bit more loudly than necessary. “No.”
The boy raised both hands. “Hey, no need to shout.”
The wave of self loathing Nathan felt was intense, but the idea, though momentarily repelled, refused to go away entirely. To distract himself, he started a conversation with the boy behind him, who was on his way back to New York. Normally, Nathan didn’t bother with small talk if the people weren’t potential useful or very attractive; it wasn’t the way he had been raised. But now he showed intense interest to the point where the boy, whose name was Isaac Mendez, told him all about his hopes for a life as an artist and pulled out a block of paper to make an impromptu sketch of Nathan to prove his talent. Nathan couldn’t hide some scepticism in his expression as he studied his likeness, which made him look at least twenty years older and put far too much weight on his chin.
“…Interesting,” he said.
“Hey, that’s not how you look now, it’s your future face,” Isaac said. “Trust me, man. We artists can see these things.”
Inspiration struck.
“Are you interested in patronage?” Nathan asked. Isaac couldn’t disguise the eagerness in his voice when replying ever so casually that yes, he might be.
“Can I borrow your pen and some of the paper?”
Isaac nodded, and Nathan hastily scribbled a note, folded it, and wrote a name and address on it. After some consideration, he repeated the procedure.
“When you get back to New York,” he said, “give one of these to Charles Deveaux secretary, and the other to Dan Linderman’s. Don’t try to hand them over in person, that would take an eternity. They’re both collectors and interested in encouraging young artists; if either of them responds, you might end up as the next Andy Warhol.”
“You’re kidding me,” Isaac said, but he took the notes. Curiously, he asked: “You get that I’ll read them, right? I mean, if this is just a joke and you’re setting me up.”
“Go ahead,” Nathan said, and Isaac did. Looking up, he said, awe and gratitude in his face: “Thanks, man.”
“You can also have my place in the queue. I’ll take yours,” Nathan said modestly.
“I’m so voting for you as man of the year,” Isaac exclaimed, and moved ahead. The notes really were nothing but recommendations of one Isaac Mendez, praising his talent and know-how, and mentioning that “your esteemed collegue, Mr. Linderman/Deveaux” had received a similar letter as this young man should be heard of by as many people as possible. With any luck, Charles Deveaux would believe Isaac knew all about his little set-up at the Petrelli mansion, and Linderman would assume that something was up with Nathan, Mendez and Deveaux, but neither would know for sure. They’d cultivate Isaac, they’d grill him for revelations about Nathan and the others; if Nathan was lucky, they’d waste time, and if he wasn’t, they’d at least have their minds played with for a little while. Feeling bad about himself always put Nathan in a vindictive mood.
He didn’t worry about Isaac telling them where they were headed to. That was why he let Isaac have his place; Isaac duly paid for his ticket to New York and after another enthusiastic “thank you” hastened away, and Nathan asked for the tickets to Bangor, Maine in a low pitched voice after the crowds had already swallowed the wannnabe artist.
Once he had the tickets, he returned to the group, and gave everyone theirs. They still had about three-quarters of an hour, but Nathan felt a desperate urge to be alone right now, so he took Claire from Niki and said he’d take her to catch some fresh air, since they’d be locked in the bus for hours, and could she please look after the others a while longer.
“I’m not your babysitter! Fuck it, you’re supposed to be mine!” Niki said indignantly, but Nathan had already turned his back and gone outside the station. He walked around, walked away until there really were no other people anywhere near him.
“I’m not a good person, Claire,” he whispered to the toddler, supporting her head. Her hands snuck out and fingered what passed for his collar on a horrible Woolsworth aquired shirt. “You were better off without me. I’m just not sure you’ll be better off without me with whomever they want to give you to, you know.”
Everyone exploited everybody else. That was the way of the world, wasn’t it? And you didn’t owe any loyalty to strangers. Just your family. Except that his parents had a really weird definition of loyalty, and he knew exactly what Peter would say to the whole Hiro idea, and…..
The image of the boy trying to hand over his video game stuck with him. I can’t, Nathan thought. I just -
“I wish I could give you something,” he said to Claire. “Something really good. Something nobody has to pay for. Something just for you.”
It was a clear night. He could recognize the configurations, as he had been trained to. Nathan imagined himself up there, a night flight. Not that he would ever make it into a cockpit again, not even a training simulation, the way things were going right now, but that would be something truly good. Taking Claire with him, on a flight. Show her the sky.
The longing in him grew and grew, fired by the wish to leave it all behind, all his screw ups, every temptation and mistake, and suddenly it was so intense that it burned away everything else. There was nothing but night and sky around him, and Claire, in his arms, made that giggling, laughing sound again.
That was when Nathan realized he wasn’t standing on an empty street anymore. He wasn’t standing on anything.
There was a moment of pure joy mixed with complete horror. Then the horror took over, and he could feel his weight pulling him down again. When he fell on the ground, he hit his knees, painfully, but not hard enough to break anything, and he let himself fall backwards so Claire wouldn’t get hurt. For a while, he remained on the ground, catching his breath.
It must have been a hallucination. Somehow, someone must have slipped him some LSD. There was no other explanation. None. There couldn’t be.
“Nathan?” said a quiet voice. “Flying Man? The force is with you?”
Nathan looked up, and saw Hiro standing on his side, looking concerned and awed.
Of course it was.
He knew, then and there, that he would never be able to do anything that qualified as harm to Hiro Nakamura, and even the slightest form of exploitation would certainly fit the term. The realisation carried with it an amazing amount of relief.
“Yeah,” Nathan said. “Yeah, I am. I mean. It is. Always.”
With some effort, since it wasn’t easy with a child lying on top of you, he got up and walked back to the station with Hiro, who apparently had been sent to fetch him. Hiro hummed something, which wasn’t sci fi, and after a while Nathan recognized Ennio Morricone’s theme for The Magnificent Seven. As it turned out, the others had made a friend who had asked whether he could come with them.
“This is Jean-Pierre,” Peter said, pointing towards a black boy who looked as if he was around fourteen. “He’s from Haiti.”
Part IV
Disclaimer: Heroes owned by NBC, Runaways concept owned by Marvel.
Summary: Kidnapping and running away seems a reasonable reaction if one discovers one’s parents are supervillains, in any universe.
Characters: Nathan Petrelli, Peter Petrelli, Angela Petrelli, Kaito Nakamura, Hiro Nakamura, Charles Deveaux, Simone Deveaux, Mr. Linderman, Niki Sanders.
Rating: PG
Thanks to: wychwood, for beta-reading.
Author’s note: This is what encouragement of insane plot bunnies results in. Also, despite appearances, this is not an AU. (You'll probably figure out why at the end of this part.)
Part I
Part II
III. The Art of Negotiation
Nathan was usually quite good at instant transitions to being awake, and life with the Navy had pushed “quite good” up to “excellent”. Still, basic training and pranks aside, he had never woken up with a gun pointed at him, and two smug bountyhunters, for that was what they looked like, about to abduct him. Somebody above him groaned as if just waking up. A female voice. He had a moment of confusion, as he didn’t remember having fallen asleep next to a woman. Let alone sex with her before sleep. And what was he doing on the floor in that case anyway? It couldn’t have been that bad.
Then realisation and memory kicked in. That was Niki on the bed, next to Claire. There were two goons with a gun in a room with his baby daughter.
Nathan got up, mind crystal clear now.
“Aaron,” he said to the man with the gun, ignoring Thompson, “do you think you’re adequately paid in your job?”
“What?” asked Aaron. Thompson’s superior smile slipped a little, then returned again, a bit more artificial this time.
“It just so happens,” Nathan said, “that I am in need of a bodyguard. I can offer instant payment as a start. There will be further installments, of course. Sadly, it is a one time offer. If I have to leave this room against my will, I won’t make it again.”
“Very funny,” Thompson said. “And half way original. I would love to let this play out a while longer, but unfortunately my employers are in somewhat of a hurry, so I’m afraid I really must insist. Tranquillizer or a dignified exit, Mr. Petrelli, your choice.”
Behind Nathan, he heard Niki murmur “shit, shit, shit” all over again. He remembered how she had punched the guard out, and wondered if she could do it again. Perhaps, but probably not before that gun was fired. Of course he didn’t believe a word of Peter’s insistence that Hiro had frozen time - that was Peter’s overactive imagination and inherent need for drama - but that, too, would have been very handy. Unfortunately, he had to deal with reality here. He raised his voice anyway, remembering how thin the walls were. If the children heard him, they might manage to get away. Peter, Hiro and Simone on their own wasn’t the safest thought, but he definitely liked it better than seeing them with this Thompson and his partner. Putting all the conviction he was able to muster in his face, focusing on Aaron, he plugged on, hopefully loud enough:
“I much prefer a dignified exit, but I’m afraid my definition of it is different from your partner’s, and completely inflexible. You look like a reasonable man, Aaron. As a captive, I’m worth a one-time bonus to you. As a long-term employer, I’m your meal ticket for the rest of your life. And I even offer tickets for the Yankees,” he ended, trying for a rueful smile. His actual expression probably looked more like a terribly fake grin. There was some doubt in Aaron’s face, and Nathan felt a twitch of hope. He had not really expected to succeed; if Thompson knew his name, he had to come from either his parents or Charles Deveaux or the lot of them, and had to know Nathan’s source of wealth had just stopped flowing, which meant Aaron probably knew, too. But maybe, just maybe, he didn’t. And Aaron was the one with the gun.
Thompson sighed. “Shoot him,” he ordered.
“Sorry,” Aaron said. “I’m a real Yankees fan, but what can you do?” He raised his gun just as someone behind them coughed.
“Um,” said Simone Deveaux. “I’m sorry. But I don’t think it’s a tranquillizer gun. The one I’m holding, not the one you’re holding. Dad wouldn’t hire security people with fake guns; he explained that to me. There are so many evil people in the world.”
Slowly, Thompson turned around and in so doing allowed Nathan to catch a glimpse of the thirteen-year-old girl who was standing there, a real, actual gun in her hand. She looked nervous and embarrassed at the same time, but her hand didn’t shake.
“What the hell?” said Niki.
“You better put that down, young lady,” Thompson commented, trying for avuncular and failing.
“Guns don’t kill people,” Simone said, talking faster and faster, the only outward sign of the fear she had to be feeling. “People kill people. And boys are stupid. I couldn’t let Peter and Hiro keep those guns they’d taken from the security guards, could I? They might be stupid enough to play with them if they got bored. Boys are like that. I kept them in my room. But I never fired a gun, and I really don’t think I’d be good at it. I could hit anything, sir. I wouldn’t mean to, but I would. People kill people. With guns.”
By now, Aaron had turned halfway towards her as well, and Nathan decided it was now or never. Unfortunately, Niki seemed to have decided the same thing at the same time. In a movie, Nathan thought later, their moves would have been beautifully coordinated, one of them going for Aaron, the other for Thompson. In reality, they both went for Aaron and collided, Nathan getting Niki’s ellbow in his face. As a consequence, Aaron had time to fire before he went down, the tranquillizer dart hitting Niki’s shoulder. Simultaneously, Thompson tried to take the gun away from Simone, and she pulled the trigger. Thompson cried out, Simone screamed, there was an instant smell of blood in the room, and Nathan wrestled the tranquillizer gun away from Aaron. He looked over to Simone. Thompson was on the floor, bleeding, but what she had hit seemed to be his right kneecap. The girl had backed away, standing in the middle of the floor, and the way she was screaming would bring everyone in the motel here soon.
“I don’t believe this,” Thompson swore, which was probably the first honest thing he had said today.
“Me neither,” Nathan agreed, and fired the tranquillizer gun first at Aaron, then at him. By the time Thompson fell back on the ground unconscious, Hiro and Peter had come running from their room. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Nathan knew that there was no way Simone could have gotten that gun unless she had told the literal truth, which meant that so had Peter, earlier, and the Japanese boy staring wide-eyed at him really could freeze time. Still, he couldn’t deal with this right now. He had to get them all out of here as fast as possible.
Claire was still on the bed, by now wide awake and, thanks to all the noise, joining in with her own crying. Niki lay on the floor, completely knocked out by the first tranquilizer dart. Shit, Nathan said with feeling. Simone’s screams stopped instantly.
“You shouldn’t swear in front of minors, Nathan,” she told him disapprovingly. “You are such a bad role model.” Then she looked down on the gun she was still holding, and her hands started shaking.
“Give me that,” Peter said gently. Peter picked the oddest moments to switch from high emotion to a serenity far too mature for his age, and this was one of them. Nathan’s heart stopped when Simone just stared at Peter uncomprehending, her shaking hand pointing the gun in his direction. His mouth felt dry, and he had never felt more helpless, seeing it all too clearly; Simone firing again, the bullet piercing one of Peter’s arteries. Of all the times Peter could have played the hero, this was the worst, Nathan thought with a mixture of fear and fury. But Simone actually calmed, stopped shaking and handed the gun over. Nathan dropped the tranquillizer weapon, knelt down and put his arms around Niki so he could carry her. “Hiro,” he said, looking at his daughter, “could you take Claire?”
Apparently, that needed no theme music; Hiro understood him anyway, stepped gingerly into the room, went to the bed and picked up the baby. Nathan found that carrying a tall blonde girl was far less easy than the movies made it look like, but those morning push-ups had to be good for something. “Okay,” he said, hoping that the adrenaline in him would allow him to keep avoiding the realization of how much worse things had just gotten for a while longer. “Okay, everyone. Let’s move.”
It wasn’t quite the worst morning in his life; there was still some competition from the day he had gotten the phonecall about Claire and Meredith, and then there was the time he had found Pop in the bathroom, after his father’s first “heart attack”. But it still came pretty close. Well, at least it would remain unique. Nathan fervently hoped so. Neither waking up next to a blonde he barely knew, only to get abducted by thugs presumably working for his parents or their dubious friends, nor watching a teenage girl waving a gun in a mixture of bravery and hysteria at his kid brother was something he ever cared to experience again.
***
“I don’t believe this,” Angela said, glaring at the rest of them. For the first time, she wondered whether it would really be such a bad thing if they all went their separate ways. She had felt such a development coming for a while now, and was trying her best to prevent it; if their group broke up, some of her current colleagues would inevitably end up working against her, interfering with her plans, and as oppposed to certain other people, she felt no need to prove herself in idiotic competitions if she could succeed more elegantly making everyone else do her bidding.
But her bidding should at least be done by people with a modicum of common sense.
“Should I have used smaller words to explain why sending someone after them was both superfluous and a bad idea?” she asked witheringly. “And if you absolutely had to, did it have to be someone who could be taken out by a little girl? What on earth are your hiring practices, Dan?”
“Thompson is usually very competent,” Linderman said defensively. “Not to mention effective.”
“Guess he never went up against little girls before,” Angela’s husband interjected sarcastically. “Who knew Charles was training her to be a sharp-shooter? He’s been holding out on us.”
Kaito Nakamura looked at them all contemptously. “This is it. I shall retrieve my son by myself before it is too late.”
“Look,” Charles, who was oddly calm for someone whose daughter had just revealed unsuspected talents of the non-superpower kind, said soothingly, “now that Dan’ team is, well, recovering, there is no actual threat to anyone, is there? Give them time, and all will develop as Angela has predicted.”
Dan Linderman’s eyes narrowed. “That’s not what you said earlier. As I recall, you were the one pushing for immediate action as soon as Angela was out of the room.”
“I simply made an observation about the press. Which doesn’t seem to be an issue anymore. I doubt young Nathan will want to incriminate himself by contacting reporters about shooting incidents.”
“I do not care,” Kaito said darkly. “He shall not remain anywhere near my son and put him into further danger.”
“Oh, for God’s sake,” Nathan’s father exploded. “From the way it sounded, the only danger your son was ever in was getting baby poo on his hands. My sons were the ones held at gunpoint, and by the way, Dan, if I were you, I wouldn’t let this Thompson do field work again. He sounds like the type who couldn’t disarm an exploding bomb without hastening the explosion. Bury him in paperwork, that’s my advice.”
“For the last time, he’s usually…”
“If he allows Charles’ daughter to carry guns,” Kaito returned, ignoring the aside to Linderman, “who knows what habits he is teaching Hiro at this very moment, eh?”
“The only bad habit your son could pick up from my son is a taste for waitresses in Texas,” Angela said cuttingly, “and how likely is that? Now could we please focus? I agree that given your collective idiotic behaviour, someone now needs to go after them and end this quickly and efficiently. But not you, Kaito. Luckily for the lot of you, I already have someone in mind.”
There were a few grumblings, but this time, everyone at least seemed to acknowledge that doing what she said was the only way to proceed. She waited a while until what passed for social conversation between them had set in, and then she pulled Charles Deveaux aside in a corner.
“What have you been doing, Charles?” she asked quietly.
At least he didn’t insult her by playing the innocent. Whether what he replied with was the truth was another matter altogether.
“Just a little improvisation, my dear,” he replied, patting her arm reassuringly. “Now, you can’t tell me that as soon as Dan said ‘one of us’ would rule the country after the…incident…, you didn’t immediately define “us” as meaning the family Petrelli. I don’t begrudge you your ambitions for your children, Angela. I simply think that anyone entrusted with such an enormous responsibility should be tested first.”
***
As it turned out, the biggest crisis in the aftermath wasn’t getting rid of the guns, Simone having to deal with shooting a man in the kneecap, or ditching the car and finding another means of transportation. It wasn’t even Nathan deciding that they all needed new outfits, because thinking about how bedraggled they all looked, and the risk of arrest for vagabondage, was infinitely preferable to thinking about a world in which boys would freeze time. No, the biggest crisis was the discovery that a company of children and teenagers who had been on the run for a day and a night had only one thing on their minds, and it wasn’t the danger they were in.
“I’m hungry,” was the first thing Niki said when she came to, and a moment later, everyone else agreed. Loudly. They ended up in a diner that served pancakes. Thankfully, the only other guests present were a couple with a distinct Queens accent, who were too busy arguing with their son to pay attention to them. Well, the mother was, at any rate.
“Breakfast is the first meal of the day, Gabriel,” she said in a tone of exasparation that had to be universal for mothers everywhere. “The most important one. You need to eat yours, or you’ll come to a bad end.”
They didn’t hear the muttered protests of the son, who looked about Peter’s age and wore glasses like Hiro, because by then everyone was busy ordering and changing their minds by the second. Nathan started to wonder whether life as a hermit was on offer as an alternative to being court martialed and thrown into prison for a couple of felonies. It didn’t look like a career as someone else in Canada was, unless Charles Deveaux hadn’t been the one to send Thompson and would actually finance such an enterprise. And the only way to check whether or not Mr. Deveaux had been calling his bluff was to call him again, which meant risking another encounter of the bounty hunter kind.
“You need to shower,” Niki said to him. “You didn’t at the motel last night, right? You’re the only one who didn’t. You’re totally stinking up the place.”
“I should have left you there,” Nathan said curtly, and for a moment, she looked hurt, as if she believed he had meant it. He wasn’t quite sure whether he did, but decided he didn’t as she busied herself giving the orders for Hiro, who looked both curious and helpless when confronted with the menu card. As it turned out, her guess either suited him, or Hiro simply liked any variation of pancake. Either way, he ate up, and so did everyone else, though Simone looked suddenly sick and raced towards the restroom. Peter half rose.
“You’re not going into the girls’ restroom, Pete,” Nathan said, and turned to Niki.
“Great. Now you need me,” she muttered. “Listen, nobody wants to be watched when they throw up, Mr. Sensitive. Maybe she just wants a few minutes alone after everything, huh?”
There was a moment of uncomfortable silence in which they could hear the other guests again.
“See, Mom,” the boy from Queens said triumphantly, “that girl didn’t like the food here, either!”
His mother blanched and pressed her lips together.
“Well,” she said. “Well. Let that be a lesson to you. You can’t be too careful with what you put in your mouth, Gabriel.”
“But you said I should eat the…”
The father, an unassuming, stocky man who had been fiddling with his watch the entire time, caught Nathan’s eye, shrugged and gave him a rueful look.
“Family trips, eh?”
Nathan nodded and hastily started to eat himself, which he hadn’t done so far, having needed to feed Claire first. They really couldn’t afford to get involved with strangers right now. Except that strangers would probably be a far safer choice than friends of the family. Or indeed his family, present company excepted. If Charles Deveaux hadn’t sent Thompson, his parents had. They hadn’t even bothered to come themselves; they’d just sent some thugs, as if he was a client unwilling to pay.
“Na-than,” Hiro said to him, watching him with an expression of concern, the precision in his words making it clear he was quoting directly from one of the Star Wars comics he had been given, “when nine hundred years you reach, look as good, you will not.”
Peter turned towards him. “He’s right,” he said, worried. “I mean, you’re not really like Yoda on his death bed, but - Nathan, are you okay?”
“I told you you stink up the place,” Niki commented.
“I’m fine,” Nathan said tersely. “Is everybody else done? I want to pay the bill, and then we need to go.”
“We can’t go before we brush our teeth,” Simone said. She was back from the restroom, looking calm again, if distinctly unhappy. “Otherwise we will get cavities.”
They ended up going to Woolworth’s to acquire clothing Nathan otherwise would not have touched with his fingertips and some more supplies, including toothpaste and brushes. After all, he owed Simone. By then, Niki had come up with what sounded like a good suggestion, if another humiliating one.
“We shouldn’t rent a new car,” she said. “We should take a Greyhound bus. Betcha they won’t check those, not with how rich the rest of you are. I mean, did you ever take the bus in your life?”
“There was no need to,” Nathan said, which was his way of conceding she was right. Queing for the bus tickets with a bunch of down-on-their luck veterans, single mothers and teenagers who were probably runaways as well, he was more and more aware that he was kidding himself with this entire absurdity. The chances of Charles Deveaux coming through with the money were slim to none existent. He could try blackmailing his parents, along the lines of “either cash now or a headline about the Petrelli heir going to prison”, but for one thing, this would still mean crossing a line he couldn’t bring himself to cross yet, their behaviour regarding Claire notwithstanding, and for another, he suspected his mother would find a way to let such a scenario end with getting Peter back, promoting him to heir and trying to fit him into the mold while cutting off all ties with Nathan.
He might just as well go home now. At the very least, he should really bring Simone and Hiro back and give Niki some money so she could make it back to Las Vegas on her own. Moving yet another tiny step in the queue, he looked back to where they squatted with the others in a corner, happily eating chips and drinking Coke. Hiro waved his arms around enthusiastically and apparently tried to demonstrate something to the others.
You do have another potential source of income, something in Nathan whispered. Like it or not, that boy did something back in the Deveaux garage. Something extraordinary. Something a lot of people, from the government down to your average ambitious lab owner, would give a lot to investigate and explore. To market. And he likes you. He trusts you. He doesn’t speak English beyond a few Star Wars phrases. He could be your ticket to a good life.
“Hey, Mister,” the boy behind him said. “The queue just moved. Or can I have your place?”
“No,” Nathan said, a bit more loudly than necessary. “No.”
The boy raised both hands. “Hey, no need to shout.”
The wave of self loathing Nathan felt was intense, but the idea, though momentarily repelled, refused to go away entirely. To distract himself, he started a conversation with the boy behind him, who was on his way back to New York. Normally, Nathan didn’t bother with small talk if the people weren’t potential useful or very attractive; it wasn’t the way he had been raised. But now he showed intense interest to the point where the boy, whose name was Isaac Mendez, told him all about his hopes for a life as an artist and pulled out a block of paper to make an impromptu sketch of Nathan to prove his talent. Nathan couldn’t hide some scepticism in his expression as he studied his likeness, which made him look at least twenty years older and put far too much weight on his chin.
“…Interesting,” he said.
“Hey, that’s not how you look now, it’s your future face,” Isaac said. “Trust me, man. We artists can see these things.”
Inspiration struck.
“Are you interested in patronage?” Nathan asked. Isaac couldn’t disguise the eagerness in his voice when replying ever so casually that yes, he might be.
“Can I borrow your pen and some of the paper?”
Isaac nodded, and Nathan hastily scribbled a note, folded it, and wrote a name and address on it. After some consideration, he repeated the procedure.
“When you get back to New York,” he said, “give one of these to Charles Deveaux secretary, and the other to Dan Linderman’s. Don’t try to hand them over in person, that would take an eternity. They’re both collectors and interested in encouraging young artists; if either of them responds, you might end up as the next Andy Warhol.”
“You’re kidding me,” Isaac said, but he took the notes. Curiously, he asked: “You get that I’ll read them, right? I mean, if this is just a joke and you’re setting me up.”
“Go ahead,” Nathan said, and Isaac did. Looking up, he said, awe and gratitude in his face: “Thanks, man.”
“You can also have my place in the queue. I’ll take yours,” Nathan said modestly.
“I’m so voting for you as man of the year,” Isaac exclaimed, and moved ahead. The notes really were nothing but recommendations of one Isaac Mendez, praising his talent and know-how, and mentioning that “your esteemed collegue, Mr. Linderman/Deveaux” had received a similar letter as this young man should be heard of by as many people as possible. With any luck, Charles Deveaux would believe Isaac knew all about his little set-up at the Petrelli mansion, and Linderman would assume that something was up with Nathan, Mendez and Deveaux, but neither would know for sure. They’d cultivate Isaac, they’d grill him for revelations about Nathan and the others; if Nathan was lucky, they’d waste time, and if he wasn’t, they’d at least have their minds played with for a little while. Feeling bad about himself always put Nathan in a vindictive mood.
He didn’t worry about Isaac telling them where they were headed to. That was why he let Isaac have his place; Isaac duly paid for his ticket to New York and after another enthusiastic “thank you” hastened away, and Nathan asked for the tickets to Bangor, Maine in a low pitched voice after the crowds had already swallowed the wannnabe artist.
Once he had the tickets, he returned to the group, and gave everyone theirs. They still had about three-quarters of an hour, but Nathan felt a desperate urge to be alone right now, so he took Claire from Niki and said he’d take her to catch some fresh air, since they’d be locked in the bus for hours, and could she please look after the others a while longer.
“I’m not your babysitter! Fuck it, you’re supposed to be mine!” Niki said indignantly, but Nathan had already turned his back and gone outside the station. He walked around, walked away until there really were no other people anywhere near him.
“I’m not a good person, Claire,” he whispered to the toddler, supporting her head. Her hands snuck out and fingered what passed for his collar on a horrible Woolsworth aquired shirt. “You were better off without me. I’m just not sure you’ll be better off without me with whomever they want to give you to, you know.”
Everyone exploited everybody else. That was the way of the world, wasn’t it? And you didn’t owe any loyalty to strangers. Just your family. Except that his parents had a really weird definition of loyalty, and he knew exactly what Peter would say to the whole Hiro idea, and…..
The image of the boy trying to hand over his video game stuck with him. I can’t, Nathan thought. I just -
“I wish I could give you something,” he said to Claire. “Something really good. Something nobody has to pay for. Something just for you.”
It was a clear night. He could recognize the configurations, as he had been trained to. Nathan imagined himself up there, a night flight. Not that he would ever make it into a cockpit again, not even a training simulation, the way things were going right now, but that would be something truly good. Taking Claire with him, on a flight. Show her the sky.
The longing in him grew and grew, fired by the wish to leave it all behind, all his screw ups, every temptation and mistake, and suddenly it was so intense that it burned away everything else. There was nothing but night and sky around him, and Claire, in his arms, made that giggling, laughing sound again.
That was when Nathan realized he wasn’t standing on an empty street anymore. He wasn’t standing on anything.
There was a moment of pure joy mixed with complete horror. Then the horror took over, and he could feel his weight pulling him down again. When he fell on the ground, he hit his knees, painfully, but not hard enough to break anything, and he let himself fall backwards so Claire wouldn’t get hurt. For a while, he remained on the ground, catching his breath.
It must have been a hallucination. Somehow, someone must have slipped him some LSD. There was no other explanation. None. There couldn’t be.
“Nathan?” said a quiet voice. “Flying Man? The force is with you?”
Nathan looked up, and saw Hiro standing on his side, looking concerned and awed.
Of course it was.
He knew, then and there, that he would never be able to do anything that qualified as harm to Hiro Nakamura, and even the slightest form of exploitation would certainly fit the term. The realisation carried with it an amazing amount of relief.
“Yeah,” Nathan said. “Yeah, I am. I mean. It is. Always.”
With some effort, since it wasn’t easy with a child lying on top of you, he got up and walked back to the station with Hiro, who apparently had been sent to fetch him. Hiro hummed something, which wasn’t sci fi, and after a while Nathan recognized Ennio Morricone’s theme for The Magnificent Seven. As it turned out, the others had made a friend who had asked whether he could come with them.
“This is Jean-Pierre,” Peter said, pointing towards a black boy who looked as if he was around fourteen. “He’s from Haiti.”
Part IV