Fic Exchange -- Written for weirdofromafar
Title: Pentimento
Rating: PG
Pairing: Angela Petrelli \ Linderman
Spoilers \ Warnings: No spoilers I'm aware of. AU.
Prompts: Betrayal \ Manipulation \ Revelation
Summary: Looking at him standing in front of the big window, the memory froze still, she’s seen that look before. Knows it much too well. The look of a hungry, wild bird tethered to the ground. Aching for the open blue sky. To breathe, to soar. It’s the same look she sees every morning in the mirror.
Pentimento |ˌpentəˈmentō|
noun ( pl. -menti |-ˈmentē|)
a visible trace of earlier painting beneath a layer or layers of paint on a canvas.
ORIGIN early 20th cent.: from Italian, literally ‘repentance.’
- American Oxford Dictionary
She’s seen that look before, when he gets lost in thought. Caught in the reflection on the glass, in a lens flare of bright, clean light from the sun. He misses it, like a wild creature tethered to the ground, he just wants to be flying high above it all. Hungry to be miles above this loud, dirty little planet with the wind washing over him, nothing but sunlight and clear blue sky.
Yes, she knows that look well, too well to deny the idea that her son can fly. It should sound ludicrous, even as she believes it. It should sound lubricious, but she knows better. Knows better than either of her precious boys would believe.
“Lost in thought?” she asks, walking up and taking the glass of scotch from his hand. Still standing by that big window.
He doesn’t say anything for a long moment, just continues looking out the window. A slight change in his practiced posture, his shoulder-blades shifting, tightening under the pressed shirt of pale blue. Lips pursing, his jaw working as he attempts to contain something under his tongue. She follows his gaze out the window, sees Heidi on the lawn with her two beautiful grand-babies, the light in her life. Heidi’s face glows with delight as Simon runs circles around them, while she has Monty in her arms. Swinging him back and forth, while he laughs wildly. She can’t hear it, but she knows the sound like the beating of her own heart. Full of life, love and hope. So like another little boy she once knew, flying around the room in a vibrant red cape, black hair falling over too-shy brown eyes.
Then, she sees what has so riveted Nathan’s attention. Tucked under his mother’s arm, Monty tugs it loose before escaping from his mother’s tickle torture to go chasing after his big brother. A bright red cape pinned to the shoulders of his shirt ... I’m Superman! The memory assaults her mind, nearly makes her drop the beautiful cut-glass tumbler to the expensive carpet. Until Nathan’s hands, broad and all all-encompassing, wrap around hers.
“Not lost in thought, Mom,” his voice is low, containing all he will not say, “it’s just a memory.”
He says nothing else, holding her gaze, his dark brown eyes a mirror to her own, before he walks towards the kitchen. The remaining scotch swirling in the glass, as his hand swings at his side. She’s left standing there. Looking out the window at a memory.
She wakes up in a half-empty bed, though she knows she should’ve left long before this. With a hand, she reaches out for him but finds only cool bed-sheets in his wake. The big house is too quiet as she pulls his wrinkled white shirt around her - once so crisply pressed - and tiptoes out of the room.
Standing at the top of the long staircase, she can hear the rippling sound of Peter’s laughter. Like the twinkling sound a piano makes, his laughter swirls around her head, makes her dizzy with joy and grief. Because this cannot last, it never does. The sound of Austin’s low chuckle follows, making the butterflies in her belly flitter madly, under her skin. She loves him, and the man she pledged to honor and cherish until death did them part, is still on a business trip to California. He’ll be here with them soon, at the hotel where she should’ve stayed. Instead of slipping into another man’s bed.
I chose the wrong one, she tells herself, not for the first time. But she was nineteen when she met Austin with those soft blue eyes and charming accent, how could she have known it would lead to this? It should’ve stopped years ago, the minute Nathan Sr. asked for her hand. But by then it was years too late, her heart had been Austin Linderman’s long before Nathan Petrelli sent his smile her way. And it wasn’t something she could simply undo.
Pressing her hands to the lush carpet on the stairs, she stands and steps softly down them. Her bare feet sticking to the cool marble floor of the entrance as she creeps toward one of the sitting rooms, curls herself around the doorway. Watching but not wishing to break the moment.
“I can fly!” Peter beams, suspended above the floor, arms out perfectly straight. That cape safety-pinned to the shoulders of his light blue, navy striped pajamas.
She can see him laying on the floor, on his back; wearing a well-fitting gray shirt, with some vintage European icon on it, and a pair of dark indigo jeans. His normally neat black hair, fluffed into a frenzy, as he smiles up at the little flying man. Shiny-eyed Peter laying on her lover’s bare feet, and shrieking the way only a joyous six year old boy could, as he’s lifted into the air. Flying. Austin’s broad hands holding her son’s, beaming up at him as though nothing better exists in his world, and she wonders if he knows the truth. If he questions it when he watches Peter’s hair fall over his eyes, recognizes that smile that could light up the world. Wonders if he lays there silently cataloguing the similarities. Forgets to worry as a smile takes over her mouth, as she catches the twinkle in those blue eyes she loves. Fingers curling into his shirt, at the catch of his mischievous wink. Like the first time I saw him. She watches the man she loves, smile at the baby she would give her soul to protect. Because Nathan Sr. doesn’t know, and Austin will never give him reason to doubt her.
As she watches the two of them together, she tries to tell herself that it’s all for Peter. That it has nothing to do with herself, or even her own betrayal to her husband. It’s all for Peter. Because she can’t keep a son away from his father. Even if he only knows him as “that nice man Daddy works for”. It’s the truth, or close enough.
But her lies catch up to her, as Nathan appears in the other doorway at the end of the sitting room. Dark eyes, straight mouth and strong jaw already so like his father’s. It’s in the way he stands, back straight with his fists at his sides; and she doesn’t have to ask if he knows the truth. If he can see the differences between them. He and Peter, because to her they’re as clear is as night and day.
“Nathan, Nathan,” Peter races circles around his big brother, making zooom! noises as the red cape flies behind him, “I’m Superman!”
Looking into Nathan’s eyes, seeing the truth behind all her lies contained in them, it feels as though time has stopped. For just a moment, she holds her breath as he holds her gaze. Austin and Peter trapped somewhere in the void between. She can see it like words written across his face, in the circles under his eyes and the stubble hinted on his young jaw, that all those silent kisses she shared with Austin in the hours before, are speaking volumes now.
“I’m Superman,” Peter continues to run around the room, oblivious to the tension within it. And then the moment shatters as Nathan breaks away, runs forward and swoops Peter into his arms with a shout.
“You can’t fly, Pete,” he smiles down at the face he cannot help but love, wants so much to protect, “you need more than a cape to do that.”
“Like what?” he asks, prepared to make a list in Crayola.
“You can’t just go to the grocery store and pick it up it up like a bag of Oreos, Peter.”
“Oh, Oreos! Mr. Linderman do you have any cookies?”
“Yes,” he smiles, taking Angela’s hand and getting up, “I believe I have some biscuits.”
“But, I wanted cookies,” Peter says, taking the elder man’s hand in his own.
“They are cookies, Peter-”
“But you just called them biscuits ...”
“I’ll explain on the way to the kitchen.”
Nathan can’t help but grin at his baby brother’s deep sense of all things literal, even his mother seems to be holding back laughter. They stand there together, watching Peter happily hopping after Daddy’s friend, on their way to the kitchen for milk and cookies after a tough afternoon of flying. He watches her, when he thinks she doesn’t notice. And he sees the light in her eyes, the warmth in her smile. The soft affection that seems to wrap itself around her like Austin Linderman’s white shirt, something he’d never quite seen at home. That other mother is just a colorless copy of the happy, loved woman standing before him now. Years later, when he has a wife and children of his own, he will look back on this moment - this memory - and wonder if infidelity is genetic too.
“You can’t let him do that, you know?”
Nathan’s voice breaks her thoughts and she turns to him, sweeping a strand of hair off his high forehead. Already wrinkled with too much worry for only sixteen. Too many secrets for one family to keep.
“Do what?”
“Let him believe he’s Superman.” he shoves his hands in his jean pockets, “You encourage it, and he believes anything you tell him. He tried to fly off the stairs, I caught him ...”
“What, when -”
“He was supposed to be napping, when,” he trails off, gaze sliding down the hall. Austin long since disappeared into the kitchen. His tight expression says everything she doesn’t want to hear. “You just have to make him stop, before he hurts himself.”
“How can I?” she sighs, offering a smile as she cups his cheek. “He’s my Peter Pan. I don’t want him to grow up.”
“Does that make me Wendy, or Captain Hook?” he smirks.
She laughs, pulling him in for a hug. Loves him for leaning down because he’s been taller than her for three years now, and getting taller by the moment, but she still kisses the top of his head. “That makes you my super man.”
She didn’t know, twenty years ago, how prophetic those words would become. Though she should have; should’ve known that even Peter Pan had to grow up someday and Superman couldn’t always save everyone.
Especially not from themselves. She stands on the rooftop with Peter, he’s so close to the edge. Too close, and it makes her heart slam against her ribs under her heavy black coat.
“Peter, come back here,” slowly, she inches her steps closer.
“Tell me the truth.”
He steps backward and she follows suit. Terrified, because he’s just her little boy, and he’s asking questions she can’t answer. For the millionth time, she wishes Nathan was here. He’s always known how to settle his little brother down. How to bring him back to her. Because she’s grasping at nothing but air.
“I remember it, Mom,” his words strike like punches, “I remember being at that big house, flying on someone’s feet. Who was it Mom? Because I know - I know it wasn’t dad.”
“It wasn’t,” tears she doesn’t want to acknowledge build behind her eyes, “it wasn’t your father. He was out of town, we stayed with a friend ...”
“Who was it?” he’s standing on the ledge now, radiating hurt and anger.
“Peter, it’s just a memory,” the tears slip down her cheeks, “sometimes memories can lie.”
“It’s more than a memory!”
For months he’s known there’s something no one is saying. There’s something dark behind Nathan’s eyes, behind mom’s and even Heidi’s that no one wants him to see. Some secret they’re keeping. A memory he can’t ignore; he can never see the face, but he remembers flying with his favorite cape. Those strong hands holding his, feet lifting him into the sky.
“Who was it?”
The name is on the tip of her tongue, just behind her teeth, when Nathan swoops up. A streak of brilliant color against a gray sky. She watches, still and full of relief as Nathan pulls his brother into his arms. Holding tight. Her two boys; one who always wanted to fly, and other that wishes he couldn’t.
“It’s was me, Pete,” he kisses his temple, strokes his hair, “it’s me you remember.”
“But, how can it - I thought ...” Peter tries to fight, tries to fight Nathan’s arms and the way he’s memory bleeds. Like ink in the wash.
“We played Superman, and you wanted milk and cookies, remember?”
His eyes connect with hers, as Peter’s face remains hidden in his shoulder, and she knows what he’s not saying. He believes anything you tell him. Now she’s the one pulling the strings.
Standing there watching them, she silently begins to sweep the layer of black pigment over her youngest son’s thoughts. Erasing them one brush-stroke at a time, before slowly, painstakingly beginning to repaint. Priming over an old pictures, to start again. Hoping that the pentimento wouldn’t bleed through this time. The man with the blue eyes and deep laughter, was replaced by Nathan laying on the living-room floor, by his brown eyes and brilliant smile. Balancing Peter on his bare feet so he can fly. Running through the penthouse playing tag with mom; rescued by Nate scooping him up. Laughing, being carried away in his big brother’s arms, and holding on tight. His own personal superhero. Snuggling against mom and Nate on their fluffy bed with all the silly pillows, eating Oreos and watching Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on the biggest television he’s ever seen. Just the three of them, waiting for dad to come home.
“You can’t tell him the truth, Austin,”she stands on rooftop of his home, staring up into the cloudless night. Leaning her body against his, for the last time.
“Don’t you think he deserves to know who his father is Angela?” he wraps his arms around her. Drawing in the scent of lilacs as he leaves kisses along her nape of her neck. His fingers threading through her thick, dark hair.
“He does know. My husband.”
She pulls away from his warm, familiar embrace. From the comforting strength of his frame, the smell of expensive cigars and after-shave on his skin. Because it has to end tonight, it was a mistake to ever let him meet Peter at all. Should’ve just kept them apart, like she’d planned.
“Do you really think a paternity test won’t disprove that?”
“You wouldn’t.”
“How do you know that for certain?” his blue eyes narrow, one arm tightening just so around her waist.
“You won’t do that to your best-friend. Not to him.”
After a long moment, he sighs. His shoulders falling as he slides his hands in his pants pockets. Feels his heart sink as she gives him one last, tender smile. Can’t help but return it, sadly. Leaning forward to press her lips, like a whispered goodbye, to his cheek. Then she’s gone, rising into the night with nothing to mark her presence but a streak of white cloud across the sky.
This time she’s the one lost in thought, watching Nathan chase the boys around the yard, while Heidi sits in the chair and reaches out for Simon. She’s the spot harbor in the game, where big bad Dad can’t reach them. Smiling, tears pool in her eyes, as Nathan breaks the rules. Leans down to tenderly kiss his wife. Gently stroking the hair off her forehead and giving her a loving smile. Not one of the pre-formatted displays of emotion that he reserves for the media. But the real thing, his eyes shinning with happiness and love. A look she’d once seen in another man’s gaze.
Looking at him standing in front of the big window, the memory frozen still, she’s seen that look before. Knows it much too well. The look of a hungry, wild bird tethered to the ground. Aching for the open blue sky. To breathe, to soar. It’s the same look she sees every morning in the mirror.
Folding the cloth she’s been holding tenderly, she leaves the vibrant red cape on top of the black piano. Nathan will understand. Always has, her flying man ...
She slips outside before they can even notice she’s gone. No one sees her as she rises off the grass in her bare feet, her expensive black ballet flats left on the ground. Going higher than the trees, faster than any bird could dream. Miles above this loud, dirty little planet. With all its secrets and lies she can no longer keep. Into into nothing but sunlight and clear blue sky.
Rating: PG
Pairing: Angela Petrelli \ Linderman
Spoilers \ Warnings: No spoilers I'm aware of. AU.
Prompts: Betrayal \ Manipulation \ Revelation
Summary: Looking at him standing in front of the big window, the memory froze still, she’s seen that look before. Knows it much too well. The look of a hungry, wild bird tethered to the ground. Aching for the open blue sky. To breathe, to soar. It’s the same look she sees every morning in the mirror.
Pentimento |ˌpentəˈmentō|
noun ( pl. -menti |-ˈmentē|)
a visible trace of earlier painting beneath a layer or layers of paint on a canvas.
ORIGIN early 20th cent.: from Italian, literally ‘repentance.’
- American Oxford Dictionary
She’s seen that look before, when he gets lost in thought. Caught in the reflection on the glass, in a lens flare of bright, clean light from the sun. He misses it, like a wild creature tethered to the ground, he just wants to be flying high above it all. Hungry to be miles above this loud, dirty little planet with the wind washing over him, nothing but sunlight and clear blue sky.
Yes, she knows that look well, too well to deny the idea that her son can fly. It should sound ludicrous, even as she believes it. It should sound lubricious, but she knows better. Knows better than either of her precious boys would believe.
“Lost in thought?” she asks, walking up and taking the glass of scotch from his hand. Still standing by that big window.
He doesn’t say anything for a long moment, just continues looking out the window. A slight change in his practiced posture, his shoulder-blades shifting, tightening under the pressed shirt of pale blue. Lips pursing, his jaw working as he attempts to contain something under his tongue. She follows his gaze out the window, sees Heidi on the lawn with her two beautiful grand-babies, the light in her life. Heidi’s face glows with delight as Simon runs circles around them, while she has Monty in her arms. Swinging him back and forth, while he laughs wildly. She can’t hear it, but she knows the sound like the beating of her own heart. Full of life, love and hope. So like another little boy she once knew, flying around the room in a vibrant red cape, black hair falling over too-shy brown eyes.
Then, she sees what has so riveted Nathan’s attention. Tucked under his mother’s arm, Monty tugs it loose before escaping from his mother’s tickle torture to go chasing after his big brother. A bright red cape pinned to the shoulders of his shirt ... I’m Superman! The memory assaults her mind, nearly makes her drop the beautiful cut-glass tumbler to the expensive carpet. Until Nathan’s hands, broad and all all-encompassing, wrap around hers.
“Not lost in thought, Mom,” his voice is low, containing all he will not say, “it’s just a memory.”
He says nothing else, holding her gaze, his dark brown eyes a mirror to her own, before he walks towards the kitchen. The remaining scotch swirling in the glass, as his hand swings at his side. She’s left standing there. Looking out the window at a memory.
She wakes up in a half-empty bed, though she knows she should’ve left long before this. With a hand, she reaches out for him but finds only cool bed-sheets in his wake. The big house is too quiet as she pulls his wrinkled white shirt around her - once so crisply pressed - and tiptoes out of the room.
Standing at the top of the long staircase, she can hear the rippling sound of Peter’s laughter. Like the twinkling sound a piano makes, his laughter swirls around her head, makes her dizzy with joy and grief. Because this cannot last, it never does. The sound of Austin’s low chuckle follows, making the butterflies in her belly flitter madly, under her skin. She loves him, and the man she pledged to honor and cherish until death did them part, is still on a business trip to California. He’ll be here with them soon, at the hotel where she should’ve stayed. Instead of slipping into another man’s bed.
I chose the wrong one, she tells herself, not for the first time. But she was nineteen when she met Austin with those soft blue eyes and charming accent, how could she have known it would lead to this? It should’ve stopped years ago, the minute Nathan Sr. asked for her hand. But by then it was years too late, her heart had been Austin Linderman’s long before Nathan Petrelli sent his smile her way. And it wasn’t something she could simply undo.
Pressing her hands to the lush carpet on the stairs, she stands and steps softly down them. Her bare feet sticking to the cool marble floor of the entrance as she creeps toward one of the sitting rooms, curls herself around the doorway. Watching but not wishing to break the moment.
“I can fly!” Peter beams, suspended above the floor, arms out perfectly straight. That cape safety-pinned to the shoulders of his light blue, navy striped pajamas.
She can see him laying on the floor, on his back; wearing a well-fitting gray shirt, with some vintage European icon on it, and a pair of dark indigo jeans. His normally neat black hair, fluffed into a frenzy, as he smiles up at the little flying man. Shiny-eyed Peter laying on her lover’s bare feet, and shrieking the way only a joyous six year old boy could, as he’s lifted into the air. Flying. Austin’s broad hands holding her son’s, beaming up at him as though nothing better exists in his world, and she wonders if he knows the truth. If he questions it when he watches Peter’s hair fall over his eyes, recognizes that smile that could light up the world. Wonders if he lays there silently cataloguing the similarities. Forgets to worry as a smile takes over her mouth, as she catches the twinkle in those blue eyes she loves. Fingers curling into his shirt, at the catch of his mischievous wink. Like the first time I saw him. She watches the man she loves, smile at the baby she would give her soul to protect. Because Nathan Sr. doesn’t know, and Austin will never give him reason to doubt her.
As she watches the two of them together, she tries to tell herself that it’s all for Peter. That it has nothing to do with herself, or even her own betrayal to her husband. It’s all for Peter. Because she can’t keep a son away from his father. Even if he only knows him as “that nice man Daddy works for”. It’s the truth, or close enough.
But her lies catch up to her, as Nathan appears in the other doorway at the end of the sitting room. Dark eyes, straight mouth and strong jaw already so like his father’s. It’s in the way he stands, back straight with his fists at his sides; and she doesn’t have to ask if he knows the truth. If he can see the differences between them. He and Peter, because to her they’re as clear is as night and day.
“Nathan, Nathan,” Peter races circles around his big brother, making zooom! noises as the red cape flies behind him, “I’m Superman!”
Looking into Nathan’s eyes, seeing the truth behind all her lies contained in them, it feels as though time has stopped. For just a moment, she holds her breath as he holds her gaze. Austin and Peter trapped somewhere in the void between. She can see it like words written across his face, in the circles under his eyes and the stubble hinted on his young jaw, that all those silent kisses she shared with Austin in the hours before, are speaking volumes now.
“I’m Superman,” Peter continues to run around the room, oblivious to the tension within it. And then the moment shatters as Nathan breaks away, runs forward and swoops Peter into his arms with a shout.
“You can’t fly, Pete,” he smiles down at the face he cannot help but love, wants so much to protect, “you need more than a cape to do that.”
“Like what?” he asks, prepared to make a list in Crayola.
“You can’t just go to the grocery store and pick it up it up like a bag of Oreos, Peter.”
“Oh, Oreos! Mr. Linderman do you have any cookies?”
“Yes,” he smiles, taking Angela’s hand and getting up, “I believe I have some biscuits.”
“But, I wanted cookies,” Peter says, taking the elder man’s hand in his own.
“They are cookies, Peter-”
“But you just called them biscuits ...”
“I’ll explain on the way to the kitchen.”
Nathan can’t help but grin at his baby brother’s deep sense of all things literal, even his mother seems to be holding back laughter. They stand there together, watching Peter happily hopping after Daddy’s friend, on their way to the kitchen for milk and cookies after a tough afternoon of flying. He watches her, when he thinks she doesn’t notice. And he sees the light in her eyes, the warmth in her smile. The soft affection that seems to wrap itself around her like Austin Linderman’s white shirt, something he’d never quite seen at home. That other mother is just a colorless copy of the happy, loved woman standing before him now. Years later, when he has a wife and children of his own, he will look back on this moment - this memory - and wonder if infidelity is genetic too.
“You can’t let him do that, you know?”
Nathan’s voice breaks her thoughts and she turns to him, sweeping a strand of hair off his high forehead. Already wrinkled with too much worry for only sixteen. Too many secrets for one family to keep.
“Do what?”
“Let him believe he’s Superman.” he shoves his hands in his jean pockets, “You encourage it, and he believes anything you tell him. He tried to fly off the stairs, I caught him ...”
“What, when -”
“He was supposed to be napping, when,” he trails off, gaze sliding down the hall. Austin long since disappeared into the kitchen. His tight expression says everything she doesn’t want to hear. “You just have to make him stop, before he hurts himself.”
“How can I?” she sighs, offering a smile as she cups his cheek. “He’s my Peter Pan. I don’t want him to grow up.”
“Does that make me Wendy, or Captain Hook?” he smirks.
She laughs, pulling him in for a hug. Loves him for leaning down because he’s been taller than her for three years now, and getting taller by the moment, but she still kisses the top of his head. “That makes you my super man.”
She didn’t know, twenty years ago, how prophetic those words would become. Though she should have; should’ve known that even Peter Pan had to grow up someday and Superman couldn’t always save everyone.
Especially not from themselves. She stands on the rooftop with Peter, he’s so close to the edge. Too close, and it makes her heart slam against her ribs under her heavy black coat.
“Peter, come back here,” slowly, she inches her steps closer.
“Tell me the truth.”
He steps backward and she follows suit. Terrified, because he’s just her little boy, and he’s asking questions she can’t answer. For the millionth time, she wishes Nathan was here. He’s always known how to settle his little brother down. How to bring him back to her. Because she’s grasping at nothing but air.
“I remember it, Mom,” his words strike like punches, “I remember being at that big house, flying on someone’s feet. Who was it Mom? Because I know - I know it wasn’t dad.”
“It wasn’t,” tears she doesn’t want to acknowledge build behind her eyes, “it wasn’t your father. He was out of town, we stayed with a friend ...”
“Who was it?” he’s standing on the ledge now, radiating hurt and anger.
“Peter, it’s just a memory,” the tears slip down her cheeks, “sometimes memories can lie.”
“It’s more than a memory!”
For months he’s known there’s something no one is saying. There’s something dark behind Nathan’s eyes, behind mom’s and even Heidi’s that no one wants him to see. Some secret they’re keeping. A memory he can’t ignore; he can never see the face, but he remembers flying with his favorite cape. Those strong hands holding his, feet lifting him into the sky.
“Who was it?”
The name is on the tip of her tongue, just behind her teeth, when Nathan swoops up. A streak of brilliant color against a gray sky. She watches, still and full of relief as Nathan pulls his brother into his arms. Holding tight. Her two boys; one who always wanted to fly, and other that wishes he couldn’t.
“It’s was me, Pete,” he kisses his temple, strokes his hair, “it’s me you remember.”
“But, how can it - I thought ...” Peter tries to fight, tries to fight Nathan’s arms and the way he’s memory bleeds. Like ink in the wash.
“We played Superman, and you wanted milk and cookies, remember?”
His eyes connect with hers, as Peter’s face remains hidden in his shoulder, and she knows what he’s not saying. He believes anything you tell him. Now she’s the one pulling the strings.
Standing there watching them, she silently begins to sweep the layer of black pigment over her youngest son’s thoughts. Erasing them one brush-stroke at a time, before slowly, painstakingly beginning to repaint. Priming over an old pictures, to start again. Hoping that the pentimento wouldn’t bleed through this time. The man with the blue eyes and deep laughter, was replaced by Nathan laying on the living-room floor, by his brown eyes and brilliant smile. Balancing Peter on his bare feet so he can fly. Running through the penthouse playing tag with mom; rescued by Nate scooping him up. Laughing, being carried away in his big brother’s arms, and holding on tight. His own personal superhero. Snuggling against mom and Nate on their fluffy bed with all the silly pillows, eating Oreos and watching Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on the biggest television he’s ever seen. Just the three of them, waiting for dad to come home.
“You can’t tell him the truth, Austin,”she stands on rooftop of his home, staring up into the cloudless night. Leaning her body against his, for the last time.
“Don’t you think he deserves to know who his father is Angela?” he wraps his arms around her. Drawing in the scent of lilacs as he leaves kisses along her nape of her neck. His fingers threading through her thick, dark hair.
“He does know. My husband.”
She pulls away from his warm, familiar embrace. From the comforting strength of his frame, the smell of expensive cigars and after-shave on his skin. Because it has to end tonight, it was a mistake to ever let him meet Peter at all. Should’ve just kept them apart, like she’d planned.
“Do you really think a paternity test won’t disprove that?”
“You wouldn’t.”
“How do you know that for certain?” his blue eyes narrow, one arm tightening just so around her waist.
“You won’t do that to your best-friend. Not to him.”
After a long moment, he sighs. His shoulders falling as he slides his hands in his pants pockets. Feels his heart sink as she gives him one last, tender smile. Can’t help but return it, sadly. Leaning forward to press her lips, like a whispered goodbye, to his cheek. Then she’s gone, rising into the night with nothing to mark her presence but a streak of white cloud across the sky.
This time she’s the one lost in thought, watching Nathan chase the boys around the yard, while Heidi sits in the chair and reaches out for Simon. She’s the spot harbor in the game, where big bad Dad can’t reach them. Smiling, tears pool in her eyes, as Nathan breaks the rules. Leans down to tenderly kiss his wife. Gently stroking the hair off her forehead and giving her a loving smile. Not one of the pre-formatted displays of emotion that he reserves for the media. But the real thing, his eyes shinning with happiness and love. A look she’d once seen in another man’s gaze.
Looking at him standing in front of the big window, the memory frozen still, she’s seen that look before. Knows it much too well. The look of a hungry, wild bird tethered to the ground. Aching for the open blue sky. To breathe, to soar. It’s the same look she sees every morning in the mirror.
Folding the cloth she’s been holding tenderly, she leaves the vibrant red cape on top of the black piano. Nathan will understand. Always has, her flying man ...
She slips outside before they can even notice she’s gone. No one sees her as she rises off the grass in her bare feet, her expensive black ballet flats left on the ground. Going higher than the trees, faster than any bird could dream. Miles above this loud, dirty little planet. With all its secrets and lies she can no longer keep. Into into nothing but sunlight and clear blue sky.