(no subject)
Title: Flesh and Blood
Author: missaliceblue
Pairing: Nathan/Claire.
Rating: R for sex, language.
Status: Completed One-Shot, somewhat canon.
Word Count: around 7700
Summary: Nathan Petrelli never wanted peace. Or a daughter.
Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.
-----
Meredith had sounded so tired on the phone. “Happy Father’s Day,” she’d said, with a weak voice.
“Yeah?” It was during finals week his last semester at Brown, pre-law. He was busy, and the very knowledge that there was now a living, breathing piece of his DNA on this planet made his stomach clench. He had the Kaplan pre-test in the morning. He didn’t need this extra stress.
There was a long pause, and then she sighed into the crackling phone, that blonde girl that he had dated while interning at the Texas senate. She was a bit older than him, sweet and sexy and trashy as hell. Two months of fun for the both of them, and a happy goodbye from either side when he went back to Rhode Island in the fall. And then the phone call…
“Did it go okay?” he asked.
“Right as rain,” she said, and her twang made him wince a bit. They had never even considered trying to make it work. She said that she was too Catholic for an abortion, but she’d be giving it up without even seeing it. She wasn’t even going to name Nathan as the father. It saved some paperwork.
Perfect as far as he was concerned. “Great, great,” he said into the phone distractedly.
“It was a girl. Just thought you might want to know.”
He didn’t.
-----
Everyone hated him in his law class. He bought tests from last year’s senior class members and paid them well not to sell to anyone else. He hid the most helpful books by misfiling them in the library. Not one of his peers clapped when he walked across the stage.
No one in the audience noticed, though. Everyone else was too busy applauding the bright young man who was smiling that charming smile. Nathan Petrelli was going places, everyone said it. He graduated from Yale Law at the top of his class. Editor of the review. He had a million friends - not one of them from the School of Law, but that just showed that he wasn’t an elitist, right?
You don’t make your way to the top by being a nice guy. Nathan Petrelli knew he wasn’t nice, and he was perfectly fucking fine with that.
-----
“Jesus Christ, Petrelli - you tryin’ to make partner before 25, or what?” Joe clapped a hand on Nathan’s back, and laughed as he lit Nathan’s cigar with the lighter from the back of the limo. They’d just won a giant settlement for a small teamster local in Jersey.
Joseph O’Callihan was one of the best labor attorneys in the country. His round stomach was always tucked into a designer suit, and a fresh flower in his lapel. Joe was a good mentor for Nathan, who kept his head down and drank it all in. Nathan learned a lot - how to talk to a steelworker like you understood what it was like not being able to afford a dentist. How a well-fitting suit was more impressive than any stupid speech. This job was his real internship, and nothing escaped his shrewd Petrelli eyes. His mother had always taught him to shut up and listen. You learn more that way.
Joe had let him handle the PR on this one, the reporters who were clamoring for a sound bite on the courtroom steps. Nathan gave them what they wanted. Joe said he was smooth like a good brandy.
“You’re only going up from here,” said Joe with a proud smile. Nathan smiled back and sucked deeply on his cigar. He didn’t want to make partner in Joe’s firm, though he was sure he could, and in just a couple more years. But where was the challenge in that?
Nathan exhaled, blew smoke through his nostrils and he looked at Joe. “I think I’m going up too, Joe. Straight up.” Nathan made his fingers into the shape of a gun and pointed at the smudge of sky they could see at the top of the limo.
-----
He wasn’t made of stone. He had a weak spot for his Ma and his little brother. His mother was probably the only person in the world who had an opinion that he wanted to hear. Maybe it was the Italian blood that flowed in his veins, but in his heart of hearts he was a Mama’s boy. He fought it on a daily basis though, and his will had always been stronger than his blood.
But still, he listened to her. She was a tough cookie and they understood each other. She understood his ambitions and his temperament; he understood her need to meddle in the lives of her children, and that the Petrelli name was sacred in her eyes.
Now, Peter…had always needed looking out for. By the time Pete rolled around, their Dad had pretty much checked out and Ma had always seemed to resent the lack of fire in Nathan’s younger brother. Peter wasn’t made for the dirty work, and Nathan found he preferred it that way.
“I’m blowing it, Nate. With my grades.” Peter looked like he was almost in tears. They were sitting in their mother’s kitchen on Christmas Day, Peter home from his first semester in college. Nathan’s new girlfriend, Heidi, was having tea with Mrs. Petrelli, who was still debating her stamp of approval. Peter had admitted that 15 credits had been a stupid move on his part, and now he had a D- in one of his classes.
“Aw, that’s crap and you know it. You’re a smart guy,” said Nathan fondly.
“Not like you,” said Peter, and he shook his head.
Nathan thought about telling him to go into the department secretary’s office. Flirt it up and bring her some chocolates. Go into the professor’s office once a week. Get to know the guy and turn on the charm. Buy some of the A papers from last semester’s smart students - rewrite them and add a couple new sources.
But that wasn’t Peter, and he didn’t have the teeth that were made for blood, like Nathan did. So Nathan told him to get a tutor, work hard, and if worse came to worse, drop the class and take it again next semester.
Peter nodded. “I know, Nathan. Thanks for listening.” He sighed. “You always know the right way to do things. I’m just worried.”
Nathan leaned back into the kitchen chair. “Hard work, Pete. That’s how you play the game. Now lets hit that rhubarb pie before anyone else does.”
Peter smiled and hugged his brother when they got up. “You make me feel better, Nathan.”
Later that afternoon, Nathan made a couple calls to the right people at Peter’s college. His secretary cut a check. Nathan filled out a tax-deduction form, and Peter would pass his Chem lab with flying colors.
This was his role in Peter’s life. He was always saving him, and he was happy to do it.
-----
With time comes softness, and when Nathan entered his 30’s he felt certain parts of himself relax a bit. He didn't feel peace, and he didn’t long for it either. He never had wanted peace. It just wasn’t his way.
But he’d done things the right way and now he treated himself to a small amount of…normalcy. His wife was working out as he’d hoped. Heidi was beautiful and well-bred, took care of herself and handled the children’s business smoothly. The boys were amusing distractions after dinner for an hour or two, before the nanny took them to bed.
He was gaining a name for himself in New York City. He’d done his time as a pissy public servant, working for shit wages and even shittier cases. But people liked him and his name looked great on his office in city hall. They thought he fought for the little people, and he did. He did right by those weaker than him. That is the true mark of the strong, in the eye of the public.
Nathan was nothing if not a planner. It was what he’d been taught. Preparation. Think ahead. Know what you’re about, and you’ll never get caught with your pants down.
Oh, Nathan Petrelli had plans. Big ones.
-----
He hugged her that day in his office because it was what his mother told him to do, and it seemed like the appropriate thing at the time. “Go in there and tell her that she can’t ruin your image. Hug her and tell her you’re sorry.”
“For what?” Nathan’s eyes were dark and brooding.
“For having to send her away.”
“Yeah, why would something like that bother a little girl?” Nathan spoke with sarcasm.
Mrs. Petrelli walked to stand in front of him with a withering gaze. For a moment, Nathan thought she might slap his mouth like he was twelve again. “She’s your daughter, Nathan. Don’t pretend you never knew. Haven’t you thought about this moment? Didn’t you know it was coming?”
Of course he knew about her, in the way that he knew he had a cousin somewhere in Kansas. She was his daughter, but he didn’t let himself think about that. She would never go into the same category as Monty and Simon, his sons that he loved but never had much time to pay attention to.
And frankly no, he hadn’t expected this day to come. Why should it? Nathan felt like he’d been betrayed, but there was no one to blame.
He’d enfolded the small blonde girl into his arms, pulled her up against his chest and made her promises that he knew he wasn’t going to keep. That’s also something that he’d always done, too. Nathan was better with words than he was with actions.
He watched her get into a yellow cab, watched her profile stare up at the mansion where he lived. He jumped when his mother trailed her hand on his shoulder.
“Are you angry, son?”
“Why would I be?” More sarcasm.
“Stop it.” His mother removed her hand. “You know it had to be this way.”
He had no reply. It was the first day he had met her, and already he had told her lies. He couldn’t figure out why that bothered him so much.
“Besides, she’s a Petrelli. Blood and water and all that. She understands.” His mother’s shoes clicked along the marble hallway, then faded.
That was the thing. She was his daughter, but she hadn’t smelled like his flesh, or felt like it either.
-----
Peter knew her, so well. It just seemed wrong and for the first time, Nathan was a bit jealous of his little brother. It was an odd feeling, one that baffled him the first time he recognized it.
“She’s great, Nathan.” Peter smiled that crooked smile of his and he stared at the little blonde girl that was sitting in their mother’s sunroom.
Eyes and hair, that’s all she was to him, all he could remember. Long, golden locks, and big blue eyes that looked at Nathan for answers.
“I’m sure she is,” said Nathan indulgently. He thought that Peter was probably infatuated with her, in the same way that Peter used to fall in love with the latest gadgets when he was a teen.
“She’s special. Like us, you know. You can’t hurt her. That’s her power.”
“Mm. Convenient.” Nathan never talked about…that, if he could help it. ‘That’ was not part of the plan, and had already caused him enough trouble, thanks. “What is she doing here?”
“Long story,” said Peter. “She needs a place to stay.”
He’d never offer her a place at his home. She had looked at him, briefly, when they had been discussing it in his mother’s foyer. She had expected him to say something. Oh, she can stay with me. Give us a chance to get to know each other.
Sorry. A daughter wasn’t in his plans.
-----
She wasn’t a little girl anymore. He was amazed that she could have grown so much in a just over a year.
“Hi.”
He nodded at her.
“Did my father call?”
“He did.” Nathan knew he should be more welcoming, but it was like he couldn’t force his hands and face into the masks of happiness he knew they should be. It was like she was his kryptonite. Nothing functioned whenever she was around.
“Look, I know you hate me, but this is where my father sent me, so here I am.” The rebellious tone with which she said ‘father’ didn’t go unnoticed.
“Do you do every thing people tell you to?” The words shocked him just as much as they shocked her. They came out of his mouth before he even thought them.
It was a shitty thing to say, and he didn’t blame her for dropping her mouth in pain. She was on the doorstep of his small brownstone in the Upper West Side with a backpack over her shoulder.
“What happened?” He didn’t want her to answer his last question.
“Can I come in?” She looked up at him. She was so small. Why?
He didn’t answer her, but stepped back from the door.
He watched her nose wrinkle as she walked in. His place was clean, because he paid someone to keep it so, but it was without a finer touch. The walls were bare, still covered with the peeling wallpaper that had been there when he bought the place.
“Nice.” Claire spoke with her back facing him.
For a short moment he wanted to slap her, and the ferocity that grabbed him was stunning. But, the feeling soon passed and Nathan only spoke when his voice was back to being calm. “It must be nice, to be so young and have everything figured out.”
“You sound like your mother.” Her words weren’t half as bitter as the look in her eyes. This was going all wrong, so fast. Like a train that jumped the rails.
She made him angry very easily. She’d done that from the beginning. Like when she jumped out that window. He’d rushed to her, scared until he saw her get off of the pavement and run away. Anger was not a common emotion in Nathan’s life. It implied a lack of control and he hated the way it made him feel.
“Mom’s not such a bad thing to be,” said Nathan easily. “You sure you wouldn’t rather stay with her?”
“Gee, thanks,” she said. She tossed her backpack onto the floor. “No, my dad said I needed to stay with you. He was very specific. He thinks you’re the only one who can keep me safe.” Her speech had changed. Less ‘likes’ and ‘duhs’. A quieter tone. Sadder.
“Oh, really? Not Peter?” Claire and Peter were still quite close, as far as he knew. He’d been surprised when Bennet had asked Nathan to keep his beloved daughter safe while engaged in some shady business that went unnamed and undefined. Nathan preferred things that way.
Her brow wrinkled in confusion. “He’s gone all the time, I thought?”
Nathan nodded. “He is. But you’re young. Don’t you want to see the world?”
“My dad wants me to…go to school.” She took a deep breath and gulped. Before Nathan was even aware of what had happened, her fists were rubbing at her eyes, and there were droplets on her sweater. She was crying.
“Hey-“ He took a step toward her.
“Don’t!” She looked at him angrily, with a raised hand. “Just…don’t. Don’t act like you give a shit about me because I know you don’t.”
“Claire-“
“Stop it!”
Any other day he would have let her have it, but her tears bought his pity and some patience so he let it go. “You’re on the third floor. It’s nice. Stairway to the roof. I know how much you enjoy jumping, so feel free.”
Her tears stopped and her eyes narrowed on his face. “You asshole.”
He gave her one of his best politician smiles in return. “I don’t hate you, by the way.” He smiled for real when he saw her bottom lip turn upward at one corner.
Nathan wanted to tell her that he was glad she was there. That he was glad that he could do something for her, finally, after all these years. That she was wear she belonged. But Nathan always figured the less lies told, the better.
-----
She went to school - not a public school though, god no. Nathan enrolled her at a nice girl’s-only prep so close that she could walk.
“Uniforms are stupid.”
“Better than wearing chain mail, which is what you would have needed at the public school with hair like that.” He looked derisively at her head.
Claire rolled her eyes and tossed her long locks off of her shoulders.
Bennet sent her letters sporadically. Never more than one a week, sometimes just once a month. Her mother and brother were hiding someplace else. Claire sent letters thorough her father - the only one who knew where everyone was. Nathan never asked about them. He suspected that Claire kept her pain close to her, which was smart.
Instead of being a parent or even a friend, Nathan fulfilled the only role he knew was necessary. He kept her safe.Nathan was Claire’s safe haven because he was too much in the public eye to be a target. They’d tried to take him out once, and it had only increased scrutiny in places that certain people wanted kept dark.
So he continued his work, quietly, providing a front for whatever nefarious business that Parkman and Peter and Bennet and all the rest were up to. Nathan was the shine that brought them all respectability, and Claire, his young blonde daughter, was a part of the patina these days.
She brought home good grades, but she had no friends. Nathan never pushed her to make them. It was her choice and he understood that it was easier this way. For awhile she just read books for most of the evening, until she got bored of that and he grew irritated by her loud sighs that he could hear even from his office on the second floor. Finally, it was annoying enough to make him push away from his desk and stomp up the stairs.
“Must I entertain you?” He leaned an arm on her doorway.
Claire was laying face up on her bed. “No. And go away.”
He walked into her room. “I was thinking…I know you think my place is a little rough.”
“It’s hideous here.”
“Right, well…”
“It’s out of the 70’s, and not in a cool way.” Claire looked at him without blinking.
He stared back.
“It’s like a prison. I’ve seen nicer places in UNICEF ads.”
“Fine. How about you fix it then?” He dropped a phone book on her bed. “Feel like a little remodeling?”
Claire rolled onto her stomach. “You want me to…remodel your house?”
“Within reason. And no pink. I hate it.”
Claire’s face twisted. “Please. Me too.”
Nathan nodded. “That keep you busy enough?”
Claire sighed loudly and faced away from him. “Whatever.” But he saw that her cheeks had pinkened and her eyes were brighter.
-----
Claire’s room was smallish, but with two windows and a tiny balcony. She painted the walls a bright color of teal, like the Tiffany boxes he would bring home for Heidi on their anniversary. His living room was a coffee brown, the refinished floors shining and covered with beautiful dark red rugs. She had a knack for color. He didn’t tell her that, though.
There was two months of sawdust in the creases of Nathan’s shoes, but he didn’t mind too much. He had given up the some of the vain focus on his personal appearance of his youth. People were impressed by power suits, yes, and he still wore them. But not every day. He realized now how important it was to show your vulnerabilities, especially if others were frightened of power. People like flawed heroes. Superman lived, ate, and slept alone. Got very boring, surely, and no one trusted loners.
She ate Pop Tarts for breakfast every morning, which made him want to vomit just by looking at the crusty corners. He took coffee for breakfast and nothing else; black. They’d taken to leaning on the kitchen counter as they ate. It was a beautiful kitchen now, too, with soft yellow walls and black granite counters. Claire had nice taste. Nothing was very feminine though. He wondered if she did that on purpose.
“Almost done with the living room,” he said. “Are we done after that?”
“Nope. Have to do your room,” said Claire, as she squeezed the bright pink filling out of her breakfast and licked it off her finger. “I wasn’t sure what you wanted.”
Nathan drained his coffee cup. “We can talk about it when I get home.”
“I was thinking blue and white. Sky colors.”
He rolled his eyes a bit, and she smiled at him. She’d taken to gently teasing him occasionally. They weren’t friends, but at least they were speaking.
“Then you’ll need gray too. The sky is mostly gray the higher up you get.”
“Yeah?” she asked, and leaned her head to one side.
He watched her hair slip off of her shoulder. “Yep, from that high up, the clouds kind of blend…especially if you happen to be going fast.”
She smiled at him now, for real this time. Not one of those carefully-conscious ones that she gave when it was expected. “It sounds awesome. I love flying…”
Peter. And that idiot boy that she never named but Bennet had briefed him on. Nathan shrugged into his suit coat. “Yeah, well. I don’t do that anymore.”
Claire scowled at his bad mood, immediately sensing the change in the air between them. “Right, like you can just turn it off.”
“I can.”
“No, you can’t,” said Claire petulantly. “It’s a part of you. You can’t just turn a part of you off, like you don’t need it anymore.”
Nathan took a step toward her, and she flinched. He leaned down to her face.
“Mind over matter, Claire. Watch me.”
Two weeks later, there was a large, steel-gray bed in his room. Glass topped tables, and a dusty blue rug. The walls were painted the softest color of blue gray, and the new curtains were a dazzling shade of white. She’d left his window open, and the breeze ruffled Nathan’s hair as he stood in front of it.
They never talked about anything that mattered. Sometimes he wanted to scream at her for no reason at all.
-----
“You’re never going to catch a husband if you don’t learn how to cook.”
She rolled her eyes at him but continued to tear leafs of lettuce into a bowl. “This is called cooking.”
He thought of the food his Nana used to make, his father’s mother from the old country. Creamy polenta and ossobuco with fresh gremolata. Pears poached in red wine with cream. Claire exceeded at putting things together, but she was no cook.
But she could boil a chicken breast and chops some tomatoes and a cucumber for a salad. He couldn’t remember when she started making enough for him to eat too, but she had and he was grateful for it. Usually he forgot to eat unless she thumped on his door and handed him a bowl of whatever.
The ate out a lot. He took them to restaurants. You could eat every night at a different place in the City, till the day you died. They ate at Pomaire a lot - Claire loved spicy foods and so did Nathan. The didn’t speak when they ate, kept their eyes on their plates and their mouths full of food, just in case.
It wasn’t a life. Claire was in stasis and Nathan knew he was a wildly inadequate companion for a young girl. But she was 17, practically grown, and there was nothing, nothing that he could teach her, even if he’d wanted to.
-----
The brownstone renovation was completed, and Claire looked like she belonged in the rooms painted bright and tasteful. The secret to keeping women happy? Let them paint the rooms they live in. Spending money didn’t hurt either. And Nathan knew women.
He wasn’t a monk. He had a girl named Masako over twice a month - to a room in a discreet hotel. She was nice. All business. He paid her well to be all business.
Heidi had moved on, was seeing some idiot daytrader who wanted to marry her and adopt the boys. His sons. Nathan recoiled from the idea of letting any child of his belong to another man, but at this point? It might be better to stop the Petrelli name in its tracks. He saw the boys every other weekend. They were sweet but so quiet, on their best company behavior when he took them on trips to the Met and Coney Island. Claire was never invited. He knew it hurt her, but it was easier this way. Nathan kept his pain close to him.
-----
“You said I had to catch a husband,” said Claire with faux innocence, when Nathan walked into his house and found her sitting directly on top of some boy’s crotch. But there was something in her eye that felt like she was challenging him. Dare you, she said to him silently. Dare you.
“What the fuck,” said Nathan.
She climbed off of the kid, who was bright red and already inching toward the door. Nathan didn’t see him leave. It was like his eyes were glued on Claire.
She was fully clothed, but her hair was messy and her lips looked red and a bit swollen. He knew that look. Godammit, he knew what that look meant.
“What the fuck,” he said again, at a louder tenor this time.
She rolled her eyes. “Oh please. It was a tiny make out session.”
“Who the fuck was that?”
“His name is Spencer Jolley”
“Who the fuck is Spencer Jolley?” He couldn’t believe this.
“Could you try a sentence without the f-word, please?”
“Jesus, Claire!” Nathan dumped his coat and briefcase on the floor, and headed straight for the kitchen.
“What? I’m 17! I can’t kiss a boy if I feel like it?”
He had no good answer, so he gulped down a glass of water instead. And then another. She hadn’t left the room. “Are you still here?” he asked with annoyance.
“Yes!”
He looked over his shoulder at her, just one dark eye on her. He looked for a long time, watched the anger drain out of her eyes and shoulders. And what was left was something…else. He couldn’t identify it. He didn’t want to identify it.
He went upstairs to his room and locked the door, where he laid, fully clothed, until the sun peeked through the windows in his room.
They never talked about that night again, and that was the last he ever saw of Spencer Jolley. But Nathan made the solemn promise that if Spencer Jolley ever came back to Nathan’s house, he’d invite him in for tea and then tear the kid’s arms off.
-----
Time flies when you’re having fun. Nathan could fly, but he couldn’t make time go faster, no matter how much fun he had with Masako, Tracee (a new one, blonde this time), or anyone else for that matter.
He barely spoke to Claire, but they kept on going out to dinner together, more out of a hunger necessity than by choice. He rarely set foot on the third floor, gave the entire thing up to her usage. He knew she sometimes went out late at night on the weekend. He wasn’t able to sleep until she came back safe. A stupid fact that he couldn’t change, no matter what.
They argued over everything. Dumb arguments that never went anywhere. She didn’t water the plants. He was supposed to call the plumber. Claire’s music was too loud in the mornings. Sometimes he thought that this was the only way they even knew how to interact.
He wanted it to be different between them, but he didn’t know how to start. She made him not know what he wanted. She made him want different things. She made him want to blow his life up in a tin crate, a nuclear bomb in exchange for thirty-plus years of hard work, planning, and sacrifice. She made him want the world to be a different way. She made him feel reckless and vulnerable, and very, very alone. He hated the way she made him feel and some days he hated her too.
Time crept by slowly for Nathan Petrelli.
-----
He was the only one that came to her graduation. If it was possible, his mother had only become less interested in Claire since she moved to New York City. Peter was in another city, state, time period, astral plane. Who knew with Peter, these days?
But there was a nice little write up of the graduation in the next day’s paper, and there was Claire’s piquant face peeking out of row two of the graduates. There was a little flurry of phone calls from friends, one from Bennet even, which started out nice but ended with Claire screaming into the phone.
After Nathan heard her hang up, she came stomping down onto the first floor, where he was eating a granola bar and a glass of orange juice by the counter while he read the paper. Her eyes were red and her hair wild.
“Everything okay?” He knew it wasn’t, but he had to ask. It came out sounding sarcastic, even though he didn’t want it to.
“Sure as shit. My life’s perfect, Nathan.” Her voice trembled with enough anger that her shoulders shook, and tears were flowing freely down her face.
“Good to hear,” he said, and turned back to his paper. He didn’t read a word, though. Those tears were on his mind. He couldn’t believe that she’d let him see her cry.
“You really care about me, don’t you? God, you’re an animal.” Claire practically snarled at him.
Nathan set his paper down. “Was there something you wanted me to take care of?”
“No. You’ve made it very clear that you’re not the one that takes care of me.”
“Did you need taking care of?” said Nathan. “I thought you were a grown up.”
Claire wiped her face, but her cheeks seemed just as red as before. “No. I’m perfectly happy being your prisoner here.”
He rolled his eyes at her, but his fingers were gripping tightly into the paper. “You are being ridiculous.”
“I bet you love keeping me here. I bet you love knowing you’ve got someone in your jail that can’t get out. Who won’t leave you like everyone else did!” Claire was out of control now.
Nathan slammed down his paper. “You’re welcome to get the hell out any time you’d like.”
“Right, so I can get killed and then everyone will blame me for it?”
Nathan laughed cruelly at her exasperated, tear-covered face. “Well, my dear daughter, if I’m not keeping you here, you can hardly call me your warden! I’m not forcing you to stay. Sorry if I’m not a stimulating parent. Sorry if I’m not Peter, but apparently it’s not bad enough for you to leave. I think the princess likes her gilded cage.”
Claire’s eyes narrowed. “Damn you.”
“Or are you just afraid? Because you can leave, you know. No one’s keeping you here.”
“No one’s keeping me here, but I can’t leave! I can’t stay and I can’t go! I don’t know what I want, but it’s not this! It’s not right. I don’t feel right.” The desperate tone in her voice silenced his sarcastic reply, but when she stared at him he had nothing to offer by way of comfort. She kept looking at him like she wanted him to say something.
He knew what she wanted, and he knew what she was feeling, but he couldn’t tell her that. She was looking at him desperately, pleading at him for…something. Instead he said “What?” exasperatedly.
Her throat gave a little choking gasp and then she was gone, out the front door of his house with a slam.
-----
She didn’t come back for three days.
Nathan wanted to call people - the police, the media, his P.A. and the mayor. He wanted to call Parkman and Peter and he almost did. He wanted to plaster the city with papers bearing her face. But he didn’t, because she was a grown girl and what’s more, she couldn’t be hurt. He remembered how much that fact had pleased Peter, and he longed for his brother to be handy so he could punch the living daylights out of something.
He wasn’t a physical man, but that’s all Nathan wanted right now. He wanted a soft face with which to pillow his fist - tender bones that would crack satisfyingly underneath his knuckles. He wanted to beat the shit out of something. He had a winter’s wealth of rage in his fists, and he wanted some lump of skin to take it out on.
It felt like his knuckles were burning with the…rage that was simmering inside of him. When he thought about Claire he was blinded by it, like the white-hot fire that had been eating his guts since she came, burning him from the inside out. God help her when she walked through that door.
He ate nothing, slept not at all, and drank only enough water to keep his strength. He paced at the window in his living room, watching the sand-colored steps that gave way to the street.
It scared him how much he worried about her. Everyone always called her indestructible, but he was the one that knew her, that had lived with her and her silly arguments, with her bunny slippers and her bad moods. She wasn’t indestructible. She was far from indestructible.
He waited. He watched. Claire was going to meet the real Nathan when she came home, and god help her for it, since he wasn’t sure what he would do when she got back.
-----
Nathan was sitting in the sunroom when he heard the front door slam. He recognized the sound of her footfalls on the floor. He was out of his chair and pounding down the stairs before he knew it, but he stopped halfway down the steps.
“Hey,” she said, shrugging out of her coat. “Look, I’m sorry I took off. I was mad and I needed some time to cool down.” Claire balanced her coat on the stair railing. She looked fresh and relaxed in a pair of jeans, a shirt, and a little black vest that buttoned under her breasts.
“Where were you?” Nathan’s voice sounded calm, which surprised him.
Claire sighed. “A hotel. I ordered a lot of room service and watched chick flicks. Dad gave me money when I came here.”
“That’s nice.” Nathan descended to the bottom of the stairs and walked around Claire. He looked out of the large front window, down to the street below. There was no one there.
“I was alone,” said Claire bluntly. “You never trust me.”
“No, I don’t.”
Claire’s face looked hurt. “God-“ She tried to brush past him to the door.
He caught her arm. “No you don’t.”
“Excuse me?”
Nathan walked over to the front door, pulling her along with him. “No you don’t.” He smiled at Claire, his eyes bright.
She shook her arm out of his grasp and backed away from him. He locked the door with an authoritative snap and advanced toward her. She took a step back.
“Get over here.” He was still smiling.
“Stop it,” she said, a bit uncertainly but with a strong tenor. “You’re acting like a psycho.”
He shot after her, misjudging her quickness by just a sliver. She strafed to the left, and he felt her hair slide through his fingers.
Claire’s chest was heaving as she ran up the stairs, headed straight for her room on the third floor. Nathan was amazed at how fast her legs were pumping. He ran after her, taking the steps two at a time but still falling behind.
Nathan saw her take one quick glance over her shoulder at him. She didn’t look afraid so much as shocked at his behavior. He was shocked too. He wasn’t thinking. He was too angry to think. She was home and she was safe, which he was glad for. But now all that rage that had simmered inside him for three days, begging for a path to the surface? He felt it pouring out of him, and he wanted to throttle Claire for ever making him so afraid for anyone beside himself.
He caught up to her on the landing of the second floor, tackling her around the knees and they skidded across the smooth walnut floor. “Let go of me, psycho!” She kicked at him viciously, and he fought to control her.
“You think you can just leave without telling me where you’re going?”
“Yes I can! You told me to leave!” She screamed this into his face as he struggled to pin down her arms.
“I didn’t tell you to leave! I told you to go if you wanted to, but you don’t get to just take off and not tell anyone! Jesus fuck, Claire, I thought you were dead!”
“Like you give a shit!” Her teeth gritted as he forced her wrists together. “What are you gonna do to me, huh? Kill me? You’re gonna have a hard time with that!”
Nathan mumbled something under his breath as he pulled her by the arms, up and over his knees. He was going to spank her. She was his daughter and daughters get spanked when they do something wrong.
She twisted in his arms and scratched violently at his face. “Get off me! Get the fuck away from me! I’m not a baby!”
He wrapped his arm around her waist, but he grabbed her too high on the torso. His fingers slid over one firm breast, and Nathan felt lightning. He held her body firmly against him, and her knees slid down onto the wood.
“Let go of me! Let go of me or I will kick you in the balls so hard-“
“You’re not brave enough!”
“Watch me!” She screamed in his face again, angry and red-faced.
“You disrespected me!”
“So what! You…are…NOT keeping me here!” And Claire threw her head back against his chest with all her might, breaking his hold on her. She stood up quickly, her hair a tumbling mess of blonde around her shoulders. She backed away from him, and he stared at her as he got to his feet. He didn’t move, stood still as he heard her pounding up the final flight to her floor. To the roof where she would jump and leave him. Probably forever.
He’d never flown inside a house before, and this time he was barely aware of it when he was doing it. He was bending his knees and then there was nothing but air beneath his feet. He shot up to the third floor just in time to see Claire’s eyes widen as she slammed her door in his face.
There was enough inertia behind him that when he slammed his shoulder into the door, the hinges gave way. Claire screamed with surprise as the dust settled and Nathan stood on solid ground once again.
There was a split second when he looked at her and she looked at him. And then he pounced on her.
He didn’t know what he was intending to do - he wasn’t thinking ahead at all. His body told him to subdue Claire, so he did, grabbing her arms and walking her back until her knees hit her bed and she sat down heavily. He straddled her waist, even though she wasn’t kicking at him or trying to get away. He held her hands firmly, straight up from her body. She was still, and her eyes were looking…confused.
Nathan asked himself what he was doing, and he didn't have an answer. He was still obeying his body, and his body was telling him now to unbutton her vest. He muttered again, something that she couldn’t understand and neither could he. He was still straddling her, but he slid back enough so he could attack the silver disks that were slipped over her chest.
She gasped when his fingers touched her, then held her breath. She was a wild, squirming thing underneath him now, as she sat up and started touching him. He pushed her back down, softly but firmly. He couldn’t get her vest open if she sat up.
Finally he won that battle, and her vest was off. She tore at her shirt, pulling it up behind her neck. He was going to help her pull it off, but then he saw the waistband of her jeans and all that smooth, peach-col d flesh that was above it. He saw the tiny, golden hairs that dusted her belly and when he touched her there she made a choking sound and started tearing at his belt.
He slid her jeans off without unbuttoning them, lifting her whole lower half off of the bed as he did it. Her shoes were tossed halfway across the room. Her underwear had slid off with her pants, or maybe she never wore any at all.
He was still muttering, nothing intelligible but he heard her name in there. He wanted her. He wanted to be inside of her, now - yesterday. He had wanted her for so long that he couldn’t believe that he’d stayed off her until now. Briefly, he thought about how this was wrong, but he don’t give it much of a passing thought. He wanted to own her body. He wanted to consume her soul. He wanted Claire Bennet to be his, and yes, he wanted her forever. Just like she’d said.
She seemed just as hungry as he was. She ran her tiny fingers underneath his shirt, over the rough hair that sprinkled his chest. She sucked on his stomach, which made him groan and pinch handfuls of her hair. She tugged at his pants greedily, and then she kissed him.
Nathan was the one who kissed first. He always had been. He liked first kisses to be a surprise - when she was least expecting it. But Claire took their first kiss, and it left him floored. She wrapped her arms around his head and held him tightly. Her lips were firm and wet, and she kissed him like she was punishing him - biting, stinging kisses that left him shocked and still.
He grabbed her around the waist. She was on his knees in front of him, where he sat on the bed. The hard kisses that she was imprinting on him slowly bled into something…deeper. It scared him. This part scared Nathan more than anything. It was like this made it real. They were slow kisses that were give and take - she opened her mouth for him. He kissed her upper lip. God, she was so small. His tongue pierced through her lips, and he felt every muscle in her body tighten, and her arms gripped him closer.
“Was this the fire?” She whispered this into his mouth. “Blood and fire…”
He nodded, though he wasn’t sure exactly what she was talking about. He wasn’t sure about anything anymore. Blood, fire, air. Indelible elements that were constant; were necessary to life and living.
“Claire.” He said her name reverently as he lifted her under her arms, raised her above him like a bright afternoon sun.
Her mouth parted and she looked heavenward as he lowered her, slowly, and he threw his forehead into her neck. He was inside of her now, sliding into the warm, wet deepness that was Claire.
Her throat made a hiccupping catch, and he kissed her there. She breathed heavily and he gave her a moment to settle on and around him. He felt so warm. He felt safe and warm, staring into her face, which blinked and crinkled and finally lowered her mouth to his.
Claire grabbed tightly to his shoulders as she leaned over and above him, her breasts pushing into his face as she slid upward over him. He kissed her breasts, held their firm fullness in his fingers. And when she let her body fall back over his, he inhaled a breath of air, quickly, almost like he was in exquisite pain.
This was the fire, then. His blood and his fire, burning through the both of them. It had been a slow blaze at first, tortuous to be so close to her and to not have her. Almost possessing but always coming in short. A smoldering heat that he fought with indifference and disrespect, but he hadn’t fooled either of them.
“Nathan…”
He held her tightly against him as he rolled over her. He watched her face as he pushed into her, watched her look heavenward, over his shoulder, at his chest. He smiled when she finally looked at him, and gave her another slow pulse.
She pulled him closer and whispered. “Nathan.” She spoke his name like a lover would, thrumming against his ear from deep in her throat. “Nathan, I don’t want to leave you.”
He brushed her hair off of her forehead as he slid out, almost out of her again, and her feet curled tightly around his back to prevent him from doing so.
“I’m here,” he whispered, and he kissed her cheeks, her eyes, her mouth, her chin. He would be here, and so would she.
This then, was the only time Nathan Petrelli had ever felt at peace. Claire was his salvation and his damnation, a beautiful, double-edged sword that had finally bested him with nothing more complicated than the power of Claire. She had won, and he was her flawed prize, forever.
fin.
a/n: once again, i'm sorry for writing such a shitty story - i had very little time to proof & improve this, so this is appallingly rough-drafty. i'm so busy with school that i can't justify spending time on fanfic, but this story attacked me and i bowed to it like the bitch that i am. it was fun to write nathan though, i really love him and i've been loving nathan/claire lately, so yeah. thanks for reading, and i am so sorry that my stories have not been very good lately. my deepest apologies.
Author: missaliceblue
Pairing: Nathan/Claire.
Rating: R for sex, language.
Status: Completed One-Shot, somewhat canon.
Word Count: around 7700
Summary: Nathan Petrelli never wanted peace. Or a daughter.
Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.
-----
Meredith had sounded so tired on the phone. “Happy Father’s Day,” she’d said, with a weak voice.
“Yeah?” It was during finals week his last semester at Brown, pre-law. He was busy, and the very knowledge that there was now a living, breathing piece of his DNA on this planet made his stomach clench. He had the Kaplan pre-test in the morning. He didn’t need this extra stress.
There was a long pause, and then she sighed into the crackling phone, that blonde girl that he had dated while interning at the Texas senate. She was a bit older than him, sweet and sexy and trashy as hell. Two months of fun for the both of them, and a happy goodbye from either side when he went back to Rhode Island in the fall. And then the phone call…
“Did it go okay?” he asked.
“Right as rain,” she said, and her twang made him wince a bit. They had never even considered trying to make it work. She said that she was too Catholic for an abortion, but she’d be giving it up without even seeing it. She wasn’t even going to name Nathan as the father. It saved some paperwork.
Perfect as far as he was concerned. “Great, great,” he said into the phone distractedly.
“It was a girl. Just thought you might want to know.”
He didn’t.
-----
Everyone hated him in his law class. He bought tests from last year’s senior class members and paid them well not to sell to anyone else. He hid the most helpful books by misfiling them in the library. Not one of his peers clapped when he walked across the stage.
No one in the audience noticed, though. Everyone else was too busy applauding the bright young man who was smiling that charming smile. Nathan Petrelli was going places, everyone said it. He graduated from Yale Law at the top of his class. Editor of the review. He had a million friends - not one of them from the School of Law, but that just showed that he wasn’t an elitist, right?
You don’t make your way to the top by being a nice guy. Nathan Petrelli knew he wasn’t nice, and he was perfectly fucking fine with that.
-----
“Jesus Christ, Petrelli - you tryin’ to make partner before 25, or what?” Joe clapped a hand on Nathan’s back, and laughed as he lit Nathan’s cigar with the lighter from the back of the limo. They’d just won a giant settlement for a small teamster local in Jersey.
Joseph O’Callihan was one of the best labor attorneys in the country. His round stomach was always tucked into a designer suit, and a fresh flower in his lapel. Joe was a good mentor for Nathan, who kept his head down and drank it all in. Nathan learned a lot - how to talk to a steelworker like you understood what it was like not being able to afford a dentist. How a well-fitting suit was more impressive than any stupid speech. This job was his real internship, and nothing escaped his shrewd Petrelli eyes. His mother had always taught him to shut up and listen. You learn more that way.
Joe had let him handle the PR on this one, the reporters who were clamoring for a sound bite on the courtroom steps. Nathan gave them what they wanted. Joe said he was smooth like a good brandy.
“You’re only going up from here,” said Joe with a proud smile. Nathan smiled back and sucked deeply on his cigar. He didn’t want to make partner in Joe’s firm, though he was sure he could, and in just a couple more years. But where was the challenge in that?
Nathan exhaled, blew smoke through his nostrils and he looked at Joe. “I think I’m going up too, Joe. Straight up.” Nathan made his fingers into the shape of a gun and pointed at the smudge of sky they could see at the top of the limo.
-----
He wasn’t made of stone. He had a weak spot for his Ma and his little brother. His mother was probably the only person in the world who had an opinion that he wanted to hear. Maybe it was the Italian blood that flowed in his veins, but in his heart of hearts he was a Mama’s boy. He fought it on a daily basis though, and his will had always been stronger than his blood.
But still, he listened to her. She was a tough cookie and they understood each other. She understood his ambitions and his temperament; he understood her need to meddle in the lives of her children, and that the Petrelli name was sacred in her eyes.
Now, Peter…had always needed looking out for. By the time Pete rolled around, their Dad had pretty much checked out and Ma had always seemed to resent the lack of fire in Nathan’s younger brother. Peter wasn’t made for the dirty work, and Nathan found he preferred it that way.
“I’m blowing it, Nate. With my grades.” Peter looked like he was almost in tears. They were sitting in their mother’s kitchen on Christmas Day, Peter home from his first semester in college. Nathan’s new girlfriend, Heidi, was having tea with Mrs. Petrelli, who was still debating her stamp of approval. Peter had admitted that 15 credits had been a stupid move on his part, and now he had a D- in one of his classes.
“Aw, that’s crap and you know it. You’re a smart guy,” said Nathan fondly.
“Not like you,” said Peter, and he shook his head.
Nathan thought about telling him to go into the department secretary’s office. Flirt it up and bring her some chocolates. Go into the professor’s office once a week. Get to know the guy and turn on the charm. Buy some of the A papers from last semester’s smart students - rewrite them and add a couple new sources.
But that wasn’t Peter, and he didn’t have the teeth that were made for blood, like Nathan did. So Nathan told him to get a tutor, work hard, and if worse came to worse, drop the class and take it again next semester.
Peter nodded. “I know, Nathan. Thanks for listening.” He sighed. “You always know the right way to do things. I’m just worried.”
Nathan leaned back into the kitchen chair. “Hard work, Pete. That’s how you play the game. Now lets hit that rhubarb pie before anyone else does.”
Peter smiled and hugged his brother when they got up. “You make me feel better, Nathan.”
Later that afternoon, Nathan made a couple calls to the right people at Peter’s college. His secretary cut a check. Nathan filled out a tax-deduction form, and Peter would pass his Chem lab with flying colors.
This was his role in Peter’s life. He was always saving him, and he was happy to do it.
-----
With time comes softness, and when Nathan entered his 30’s he felt certain parts of himself relax a bit. He didn't feel peace, and he didn’t long for it either. He never had wanted peace. It just wasn’t his way.
But he’d done things the right way and now he treated himself to a small amount of…normalcy. His wife was working out as he’d hoped. Heidi was beautiful and well-bred, took care of herself and handled the children’s business smoothly. The boys were amusing distractions after dinner for an hour or two, before the nanny took them to bed.
He was gaining a name for himself in New York City. He’d done his time as a pissy public servant, working for shit wages and even shittier cases. But people liked him and his name looked great on his office in city hall. They thought he fought for the little people, and he did. He did right by those weaker than him. That is the true mark of the strong, in the eye of the public.
Nathan was nothing if not a planner. It was what he’d been taught. Preparation. Think ahead. Know what you’re about, and you’ll never get caught with your pants down.
Oh, Nathan Petrelli had plans. Big ones.
-----
He hugged her that day in his office because it was what his mother told him to do, and it seemed like the appropriate thing at the time. “Go in there and tell her that she can’t ruin your image. Hug her and tell her you’re sorry.”
“For what?” Nathan’s eyes were dark and brooding.
“For having to send her away.”
“Yeah, why would something like that bother a little girl?” Nathan spoke with sarcasm.
Mrs. Petrelli walked to stand in front of him with a withering gaze. For a moment, Nathan thought she might slap his mouth like he was twelve again. “She’s your daughter, Nathan. Don’t pretend you never knew. Haven’t you thought about this moment? Didn’t you know it was coming?”
Of course he knew about her, in the way that he knew he had a cousin somewhere in Kansas. She was his daughter, but he didn’t let himself think about that. She would never go into the same category as Monty and Simon, his sons that he loved but never had much time to pay attention to.
And frankly no, he hadn’t expected this day to come. Why should it? Nathan felt like he’d been betrayed, but there was no one to blame.
He’d enfolded the small blonde girl into his arms, pulled her up against his chest and made her promises that he knew he wasn’t going to keep. That’s also something that he’d always done, too. Nathan was better with words than he was with actions.
He watched her get into a yellow cab, watched her profile stare up at the mansion where he lived. He jumped when his mother trailed her hand on his shoulder.
“Are you angry, son?”
“Why would I be?” More sarcasm.
“Stop it.” His mother removed her hand. “You know it had to be this way.”
He had no reply. It was the first day he had met her, and already he had told her lies. He couldn’t figure out why that bothered him so much.
“Besides, she’s a Petrelli. Blood and water and all that. She understands.” His mother’s shoes clicked along the marble hallway, then faded.
That was the thing. She was his daughter, but she hadn’t smelled like his flesh, or felt like it either.
-----
Peter knew her, so well. It just seemed wrong and for the first time, Nathan was a bit jealous of his little brother. It was an odd feeling, one that baffled him the first time he recognized it.
“She’s great, Nathan.” Peter smiled that crooked smile of his and he stared at the little blonde girl that was sitting in their mother’s sunroom.
Eyes and hair, that’s all she was to him, all he could remember. Long, golden locks, and big blue eyes that looked at Nathan for answers.
“I’m sure she is,” said Nathan indulgently. He thought that Peter was probably infatuated with her, in the same way that Peter used to fall in love with the latest gadgets when he was a teen.
“She’s special. Like us, you know. You can’t hurt her. That’s her power.”
“Mm. Convenient.” Nathan never talked about…that, if he could help it. ‘That’ was not part of the plan, and had already caused him enough trouble, thanks. “What is she doing here?”
“Long story,” said Peter. “She needs a place to stay.”
He’d never offer her a place at his home. She had looked at him, briefly, when they had been discussing it in his mother’s foyer. She had expected him to say something. Oh, she can stay with me. Give us a chance to get to know each other.
Sorry. A daughter wasn’t in his plans.
-----
She wasn’t a little girl anymore. He was amazed that she could have grown so much in a just over a year.
“Hi.”
He nodded at her.
“Did my father call?”
“He did.” Nathan knew he should be more welcoming, but it was like he couldn’t force his hands and face into the masks of happiness he knew they should be. It was like she was his kryptonite. Nothing functioned whenever she was around.
“Look, I know you hate me, but this is where my father sent me, so here I am.” The rebellious tone with which she said ‘father’ didn’t go unnoticed.
“Do you do every thing people tell you to?” The words shocked him just as much as they shocked her. They came out of his mouth before he even thought them.
It was a shitty thing to say, and he didn’t blame her for dropping her mouth in pain. She was on the doorstep of his small brownstone in the Upper West Side with a backpack over her shoulder.
“What happened?” He didn’t want her to answer his last question.
“Can I come in?” She looked up at him. She was so small. Why?
He didn’t answer her, but stepped back from the door.
He watched her nose wrinkle as she walked in. His place was clean, because he paid someone to keep it so, but it was without a finer touch. The walls were bare, still covered with the peeling wallpaper that had been there when he bought the place.
“Nice.” Claire spoke with her back facing him.
For a short moment he wanted to slap her, and the ferocity that grabbed him was stunning. But, the feeling soon passed and Nathan only spoke when his voice was back to being calm. “It must be nice, to be so young and have everything figured out.”
“You sound like your mother.” Her words weren’t half as bitter as the look in her eyes. This was going all wrong, so fast. Like a train that jumped the rails.
She made him angry very easily. She’d done that from the beginning. Like when she jumped out that window. He’d rushed to her, scared until he saw her get off of the pavement and run away. Anger was not a common emotion in Nathan’s life. It implied a lack of control and he hated the way it made him feel.
“Mom’s not such a bad thing to be,” said Nathan easily. “You sure you wouldn’t rather stay with her?”
“Gee, thanks,” she said. She tossed her backpack onto the floor. “No, my dad said I needed to stay with you. He was very specific. He thinks you’re the only one who can keep me safe.” Her speech had changed. Less ‘likes’ and ‘duhs’. A quieter tone. Sadder.
“Oh, really? Not Peter?” Claire and Peter were still quite close, as far as he knew. He’d been surprised when Bennet had asked Nathan to keep his beloved daughter safe while engaged in some shady business that went unnamed and undefined. Nathan preferred things that way.
Her brow wrinkled in confusion. “He’s gone all the time, I thought?”
Nathan nodded. “He is. But you’re young. Don’t you want to see the world?”
“My dad wants me to…go to school.” She took a deep breath and gulped. Before Nathan was even aware of what had happened, her fists were rubbing at her eyes, and there were droplets on her sweater. She was crying.
“Hey-“ He took a step toward her.
“Don’t!” She looked at him angrily, with a raised hand. “Just…don’t. Don’t act like you give a shit about me because I know you don’t.”
“Claire-“
“Stop it!”
Any other day he would have let her have it, but her tears bought his pity and some patience so he let it go. “You’re on the third floor. It’s nice. Stairway to the roof. I know how much you enjoy jumping, so feel free.”
Her tears stopped and her eyes narrowed on his face. “You asshole.”
He gave her one of his best politician smiles in return. “I don’t hate you, by the way.” He smiled for real when he saw her bottom lip turn upward at one corner.
Nathan wanted to tell her that he was glad she was there. That he was glad that he could do something for her, finally, after all these years. That she was wear she belonged. But Nathan always figured the less lies told, the better.
-----
She went to school - not a public school though, god no. Nathan enrolled her at a nice girl’s-only prep so close that she could walk.
“Uniforms are stupid.”
“Better than wearing chain mail, which is what you would have needed at the public school with hair like that.” He looked derisively at her head.
Claire rolled her eyes and tossed her long locks off of her shoulders.
Bennet sent her letters sporadically. Never more than one a week, sometimes just once a month. Her mother and brother were hiding someplace else. Claire sent letters thorough her father - the only one who knew where everyone was. Nathan never asked about them. He suspected that Claire kept her pain close to her, which was smart.
Instead of being a parent or even a friend, Nathan fulfilled the only role he knew was necessary. He kept her safe.Nathan was Claire’s safe haven because he was too much in the public eye to be a target. They’d tried to take him out once, and it had only increased scrutiny in places that certain people wanted kept dark.
So he continued his work, quietly, providing a front for whatever nefarious business that Parkman and Peter and Bennet and all the rest were up to. Nathan was the shine that brought them all respectability, and Claire, his young blonde daughter, was a part of the patina these days.
She brought home good grades, but she had no friends. Nathan never pushed her to make them. It was her choice and he understood that it was easier this way. For awhile she just read books for most of the evening, until she got bored of that and he grew irritated by her loud sighs that he could hear even from his office on the second floor. Finally, it was annoying enough to make him push away from his desk and stomp up the stairs.
“Must I entertain you?” He leaned an arm on her doorway.
Claire was laying face up on her bed. “No. And go away.”
He walked into her room. “I was thinking…I know you think my place is a little rough.”
“It’s hideous here.”
“Right, well…”
“It’s out of the 70’s, and not in a cool way.” Claire looked at him without blinking.
He stared back.
“It’s like a prison. I’ve seen nicer places in UNICEF ads.”
“Fine. How about you fix it then?” He dropped a phone book on her bed. “Feel like a little remodeling?”
Claire rolled onto her stomach. “You want me to…remodel your house?”
“Within reason. And no pink. I hate it.”
Claire’s face twisted. “Please. Me too.”
Nathan nodded. “That keep you busy enough?”
Claire sighed loudly and faced away from him. “Whatever.” But he saw that her cheeks had pinkened and her eyes were brighter.
-----
Claire’s room was smallish, but with two windows and a tiny balcony. She painted the walls a bright color of teal, like the Tiffany boxes he would bring home for Heidi on their anniversary. His living room was a coffee brown, the refinished floors shining and covered with beautiful dark red rugs. She had a knack for color. He didn’t tell her that, though.
There was two months of sawdust in the creases of Nathan’s shoes, but he didn’t mind too much. He had given up the some of the vain focus on his personal appearance of his youth. People were impressed by power suits, yes, and he still wore them. But not every day. He realized now how important it was to show your vulnerabilities, especially if others were frightened of power. People like flawed heroes. Superman lived, ate, and slept alone. Got very boring, surely, and no one trusted loners.
She ate Pop Tarts for breakfast every morning, which made him want to vomit just by looking at the crusty corners. He took coffee for breakfast and nothing else; black. They’d taken to leaning on the kitchen counter as they ate. It was a beautiful kitchen now, too, with soft yellow walls and black granite counters. Claire had nice taste. Nothing was very feminine though. He wondered if she did that on purpose.
“Almost done with the living room,” he said. “Are we done after that?”
“Nope. Have to do your room,” said Claire, as she squeezed the bright pink filling out of her breakfast and licked it off her finger. “I wasn’t sure what you wanted.”
Nathan drained his coffee cup. “We can talk about it when I get home.”
“I was thinking blue and white. Sky colors.”
He rolled his eyes a bit, and she smiled at him. She’d taken to gently teasing him occasionally. They weren’t friends, but at least they were speaking.
“Then you’ll need gray too. The sky is mostly gray the higher up you get.”
“Yeah?” she asked, and leaned her head to one side.
He watched her hair slip off of her shoulder. “Yep, from that high up, the clouds kind of blend…especially if you happen to be going fast.”
She smiled at him now, for real this time. Not one of those carefully-conscious ones that she gave when it was expected. “It sounds awesome. I love flying…”
Peter. And that idiot boy that she never named but Bennet had briefed him on. Nathan shrugged into his suit coat. “Yeah, well. I don’t do that anymore.”
Claire scowled at his bad mood, immediately sensing the change in the air between them. “Right, like you can just turn it off.”
“I can.”
“No, you can’t,” said Claire petulantly. “It’s a part of you. You can’t just turn a part of you off, like you don’t need it anymore.”
Nathan took a step toward her, and she flinched. He leaned down to her face.
“Mind over matter, Claire. Watch me.”
Two weeks later, there was a large, steel-gray bed in his room. Glass topped tables, and a dusty blue rug. The walls were painted the softest color of blue gray, and the new curtains were a dazzling shade of white. She’d left his window open, and the breeze ruffled Nathan’s hair as he stood in front of it.
They never talked about anything that mattered. Sometimes he wanted to scream at her for no reason at all.
-----
“You’re never going to catch a husband if you don’t learn how to cook.”
She rolled her eyes at him but continued to tear leafs of lettuce into a bowl. “This is called cooking.”
He thought of the food his Nana used to make, his father’s mother from the old country. Creamy polenta and ossobuco with fresh gremolata. Pears poached in red wine with cream. Claire exceeded at putting things together, but she was no cook.
But she could boil a chicken breast and chops some tomatoes and a cucumber for a salad. He couldn’t remember when she started making enough for him to eat too, but she had and he was grateful for it. Usually he forgot to eat unless she thumped on his door and handed him a bowl of whatever.
The ate out a lot. He took them to restaurants. You could eat every night at a different place in the City, till the day you died. They ate at Pomaire a lot - Claire loved spicy foods and so did Nathan. The didn’t speak when they ate, kept their eyes on their plates and their mouths full of food, just in case.
It wasn’t a life. Claire was in stasis and Nathan knew he was a wildly inadequate companion for a young girl. But she was 17, practically grown, and there was nothing, nothing that he could teach her, even if he’d wanted to.
-----
The brownstone renovation was completed, and Claire looked like she belonged in the rooms painted bright and tasteful. The secret to keeping women happy? Let them paint the rooms they live in. Spending money didn’t hurt either. And Nathan knew women.
He wasn’t a monk. He had a girl named Masako over twice a month - to a room in a discreet hotel. She was nice. All business. He paid her well to be all business.
Heidi had moved on, was seeing some idiot daytrader who wanted to marry her and adopt the boys. His sons. Nathan recoiled from the idea of letting any child of his belong to another man, but at this point? It might be better to stop the Petrelli name in its tracks. He saw the boys every other weekend. They were sweet but so quiet, on their best company behavior when he took them on trips to the Met and Coney Island. Claire was never invited. He knew it hurt her, but it was easier this way. Nathan kept his pain close to him.
-----
“You said I had to catch a husband,” said Claire with faux innocence, when Nathan walked into his house and found her sitting directly on top of some boy’s crotch. But there was something in her eye that felt like she was challenging him. Dare you, she said to him silently. Dare you.
“What the fuck,” said Nathan.
She climbed off of the kid, who was bright red and already inching toward the door. Nathan didn’t see him leave. It was like his eyes were glued on Claire.
She was fully clothed, but her hair was messy and her lips looked red and a bit swollen. He knew that look. Godammit, he knew what that look meant.
“What the fuck,” he said again, at a louder tenor this time.
She rolled her eyes. “Oh please. It was a tiny make out session.”
“Who the fuck was that?”
“His name is Spencer Jolley”
“Who the fuck is Spencer Jolley?” He couldn’t believe this.
“Could you try a sentence without the f-word, please?”
“Jesus, Claire!” Nathan dumped his coat and briefcase on the floor, and headed straight for the kitchen.
“What? I’m 17! I can’t kiss a boy if I feel like it?”
He had no good answer, so he gulped down a glass of water instead. And then another. She hadn’t left the room. “Are you still here?” he asked with annoyance.
“Yes!”
He looked over his shoulder at her, just one dark eye on her. He looked for a long time, watched the anger drain out of her eyes and shoulders. And what was left was something…else. He couldn’t identify it. He didn’t want to identify it.
He went upstairs to his room and locked the door, where he laid, fully clothed, until the sun peeked through the windows in his room.
They never talked about that night again, and that was the last he ever saw of Spencer Jolley. But Nathan made the solemn promise that if Spencer Jolley ever came back to Nathan’s house, he’d invite him in for tea and then tear the kid’s arms off.
-----
Time flies when you’re having fun. Nathan could fly, but he couldn’t make time go faster, no matter how much fun he had with Masako, Tracee (a new one, blonde this time), or anyone else for that matter.
He barely spoke to Claire, but they kept on going out to dinner together, more out of a hunger necessity than by choice. He rarely set foot on the third floor, gave the entire thing up to her usage. He knew she sometimes went out late at night on the weekend. He wasn’t able to sleep until she came back safe. A stupid fact that he couldn’t change, no matter what.
They argued over everything. Dumb arguments that never went anywhere. She didn’t water the plants. He was supposed to call the plumber. Claire’s music was too loud in the mornings. Sometimes he thought that this was the only way they even knew how to interact.
He wanted it to be different between them, but he didn’t know how to start. She made him not know what he wanted. She made him want different things. She made him want to blow his life up in a tin crate, a nuclear bomb in exchange for thirty-plus years of hard work, planning, and sacrifice. She made him want the world to be a different way. She made him feel reckless and vulnerable, and very, very alone. He hated the way she made him feel and some days he hated her too.
Time crept by slowly for Nathan Petrelli.
-----
He was the only one that came to her graduation. If it was possible, his mother had only become less interested in Claire since she moved to New York City. Peter was in another city, state, time period, astral plane. Who knew with Peter, these days?
But there was a nice little write up of the graduation in the next day’s paper, and there was Claire’s piquant face peeking out of row two of the graduates. There was a little flurry of phone calls from friends, one from Bennet even, which started out nice but ended with Claire screaming into the phone.
After Nathan heard her hang up, she came stomping down onto the first floor, where he was eating a granola bar and a glass of orange juice by the counter while he read the paper. Her eyes were red and her hair wild.
“Everything okay?” He knew it wasn’t, but he had to ask. It came out sounding sarcastic, even though he didn’t want it to.
“Sure as shit. My life’s perfect, Nathan.” Her voice trembled with enough anger that her shoulders shook, and tears were flowing freely down her face.
“Good to hear,” he said, and turned back to his paper. He didn’t read a word, though. Those tears were on his mind. He couldn’t believe that she’d let him see her cry.
“You really care about me, don’t you? God, you’re an animal.” Claire practically snarled at him.
Nathan set his paper down. “Was there something you wanted me to take care of?”
“No. You’ve made it very clear that you’re not the one that takes care of me.”
“Did you need taking care of?” said Nathan. “I thought you were a grown up.”
Claire wiped her face, but her cheeks seemed just as red as before. “No. I’m perfectly happy being your prisoner here.”
He rolled his eyes at her, but his fingers were gripping tightly into the paper. “You are being ridiculous.”
“I bet you love keeping me here. I bet you love knowing you’ve got someone in your jail that can’t get out. Who won’t leave you like everyone else did!” Claire was out of control now.
Nathan slammed down his paper. “You’re welcome to get the hell out any time you’d like.”
“Right, so I can get killed and then everyone will blame me for it?”
Nathan laughed cruelly at her exasperated, tear-covered face. “Well, my dear daughter, if I’m not keeping you here, you can hardly call me your warden! I’m not forcing you to stay. Sorry if I’m not a stimulating parent. Sorry if I’m not Peter, but apparently it’s not bad enough for you to leave. I think the princess likes her gilded cage.”
Claire’s eyes narrowed. “Damn you.”
“Or are you just afraid? Because you can leave, you know. No one’s keeping you here.”
“No one’s keeping me here, but I can’t leave! I can’t stay and I can’t go! I don’t know what I want, but it’s not this! It’s not right. I don’t feel right.” The desperate tone in her voice silenced his sarcastic reply, but when she stared at him he had nothing to offer by way of comfort. She kept looking at him like she wanted him to say something.
He knew what she wanted, and he knew what she was feeling, but he couldn’t tell her that. She was looking at him desperately, pleading at him for…something. Instead he said “What?” exasperatedly.
Her throat gave a little choking gasp and then she was gone, out the front door of his house with a slam.
-----
She didn’t come back for three days.
Nathan wanted to call people - the police, the media, his P.A. and the mayor. He wanted to call Parkman and Peter and he almost did. He wanted to plaster the city with papers bearing her face. But he didn’t, because she was a grown girl and what’s more, she couldn’t be hurt. He remembered how much that fact had pleased Peter, and he longed for his brother to be handy so he could punch the living daylights out of something.
He wasn’t a physical man, but that’s all Nathan wanted right now. He wanted a soft face with which to pillow his fist - tender bones that would crack satisfyingly underneath his knuckles. He wanted to beat the shit out of something. He had a winter’s wealth of rage in his fists, and he wanted some lump of skin to take it out on.
It felt like his knuckles were burning with the…rage that was simmering inside of him. When he thought about Claire he was blinded by it, like the white-hot fire that had been eating his guts since she came, burning him from the inside out. God help her when she walked through that door.
He ate nothing, slept not at all, and drank only enough water to keep his strength. He paced at the window in his living room, watching the sand-colored steps that gave way to the street.
It scared him how much he worried about her. Everyone always called her indestructible, but he was the one that knew her, that had lived with her and her silly arguments, with her bunny slippers and her bad moods. She wasn’t indestructible. She was far from indestructible.
He waited. He watched. Claire was going to meet the real Nathan when she came home, and god help her for it, since he wasn’t sure what he would do when she got back.
-----
Nathan was sitting in the sunroom when he heard the front door slam. He recognized the sound of her footfalls on the floor. He was out of his chair and pounding down the stairs before he knew it, but he stopped halfway down the steps.
“Hey,” she said, shrugging out of her coat. “Look, I’m sorry I took off. I was mad and I needed some time to cool down.” Claire balanced her coat on the stair railing. She looked fresh and relaxed in a pair of jeans, a shirt, and a little black vest that buttoned under her breasts.
“Where were you?” Nathan’s voice sounded calm, which surprised him.
Claire sighed. “A hotel. I ordered a lot of room service and watched chick flicks. Dad gave me money when I came here.”
“That’s nice.” Nathan descended to the bottom of the stairs and walked around Claire. He looked out of the large front window, down to the street below. There was no one there.
“I was alone,” said Claire bluntly. “You never trust me.”
“No, I don’t.”
Claire’s face looked hurt. “God-“ She tried to brush past him to the door.
He caught her arm. “No you don’t.”
“Excuse me?”
Nathan walked over to the front door, pulling her along with him. “No you don’t.” He smiled at Claire, his eyes bright.
She shook her arm out of his grasp and backed away from him. He locked the door with an authoritative snap and advanced toward her. She took a step back.
“Get over here.” He was still smiling.
“Stop it,” she said, a bit uncertainly but with a strong tenor. “You’re acting like a psycho.”
He shot after her, misjudging her quickness by just a sliver. She strafed to the left, and he felt her hair slide through his fingers.
Claire’s chest was heaving as she ran up the stairs, headed straight for her room on the third floor. Nathan was amazed at how fast her legs were pumping. He ran after her, taking the steps two at a time but still falling behind.
Nathan saw her take one quick glance over her shoulder at him. She didn’t look afraid so much as shocked at his behavior. He was shocked too. He wasn’t thinking. He was too angry to think. She was home and she was safe, which he was glad for. But now all that rage that had simmered inside him for three days, begging for a path to the surface? He felt it pouring out of him, and he wanted to throttle Claire for ever making him so afraid for anyone beside himself.
He caught up to her on the landing of the second floor, tackling her around the knees and they skidded across the smooth walnut floor. “Let go of me, psycho!” She kicked at him viciously, and he fought to control her.
“You think you can just leave without telling me where you’re going?”
“Yes I can! You told me to leave!” She screamed this into his face as he struggled to pin down her arms.
“I didn’t tell you to leave! I told you to go if you wanted to, but you don’t get to just take off and not tell anyone! Jesus fuck, Claire, I thought you were dead!”
“Like you give a shit!” Her teeth gritted as he forced her wrists together. “What are you gonna do to me, huh? Kill me? You’re gonna have a hard time with that!”
Nathan mumbled something under his breath as he pulled her by the arms, up and over his knees. He was going to spank her. She was his daughter and daughters get spanked when they do something wrong.
She twisted in his arms and scratched violently at his face. “Get off me! Get the fuck away from me! I’m not a baby!”
He wrapped his arm around her waist, but he grabbed her too high on the torso. His fingers slid over one firm breast, and Nathan felt lightning. He held her body firmly against him, and her knees slid down onto the wood.
“Let go of me! Let go of me or I will kick you in the balls so hard-“
“You’re not brave enough!”
“Watch me!” She screamed in his face again, angry and red-faced.
“You disrespected me!”
“So what! You…are…NOT keeping me here!” And Claire threw her head back against his chest with all her might, breaking his hold on her. She stood up quickly, her hair a tumbling mess of blonde around her shoulders. She backed away from him, and he stared at her as he got to his feet. He didn’t move, stood still as he heard her pounding up the final flight to her floor. To the roof where she would jump and leave him. Probably forever.
He’d never flown inside a house before, and this time he was barely aware of it when he was doing it. He was bending his knees and then there was nothing but air beneath his feet. He shot up to the third floor just in time to see Claire’s eyes widen as she slammed her door in his face.
There was enough inertia behind him that when he slammed his shoulder into the door, the hinges gave way. Claire screamed with surprise as the dust settled and Nathan stood on solid ground once again.
There was a split second when he looked at her and she looked at him. And then he pounced on her.
He didn’t know what he was intending to do - he wasn’t thinking ahead at all. His body told him to subdue Claire, so he did, grabbing her arms and walking her back until her knees hit her bed and she sat down heavily. He straddled her waist, even though she wasn’t kicking at him or trying to get away. He held her hands firmly, straight up from her body. She was still, and her eyes were looking…confused.
Nathan asked himself what he was doing, and he didn't have an answer. He was still obeying his body, and his body was telling him now to unbutton her vest. He muttered again, something that she couldn’t understand and neither could he. He was still straddling her, but he slid back enough so he could attack the silver disks that were slipped over her chest.
She gasped when his fingers touched her, then held her breath. She was a wild, squirming thing underneath him now, as she sat up and started touching him. He pushed her back down, softly but firmly. He couldn’t get her vest open if she sat up.
Finally he won that battle, and her vest was off. She tore at her shirt, pulling it up behind her neck. He was going to help her pull it off, but then he saw the waistband of her jeans and all that smooth, peach-col d flesh that was above it. He saw the tiny, golden hairs that dusted her belly and when he touched her there she made a choking sound and started tearing at his belt.
He slid her jeans off without unbuttoning them, lifting her whole lower half off of the bed as he did it. Her shoes were tossed halfway across the room. Her underwear had slid off with her pants, or maybe she never wore any at all.
He was still muttering, nothing intelligible but he heard her name in there. He wanted her. He wanted to be inside of her, now - yesterday. He had wanted her for so long that he couldn’t believe that he’d stayed off her until now. Briefly, he thought about how this was wrong, but he don’t give it much of a passing thought. He wanted to own her body. He wanted to consume her soul. He wanted Claire Bennet to be his, and yes, he wanted her forever. Just like she’d said.
She seemed just as hungry as he was. She ran her tiny fingers underneath his shirt, over the rough hair that sprinkled his chest. She sucked on his stomach, which made him groan and pinch handfuls of her hair. She tugged at his pants greedily, and then she kissed him.
Nathan was the one who kissed first. He always had been. He liked first kisses to be a surprise - when she was least expecting it. But Claire took their first kiss, and it left him floored. She wrapped her arms around his head and held him tightly. Her lips were firm and wet, and she kissed him like she was punishing him - biting, stinging kisses that left him shocked and still.
He grabbed her around the waist. She was on his knees in front of him, where he sat on the bed. The hard kisses that she was imprinting on him slowly bled into something…deeper. It scared him. This part scared Nathan more than anything. It was like this made it real. They were slow kisses that were give and take - she opened her mouth for him. He kissed her upper lip. God, she was so small. His tongue pierced through her lips, and he felt every muscle in her body tighten, and her arms gripped him closer.
“Was this the fire?” She whispered this into his mouth. “Blood and fire…”
He nodded, though he wasn’t sure exactly what she was talking about. He wasn’t sure about anything anymore. Blood, fire, air. Indelible elements that were constant; were necessary to life and living.
“Claire.” He said her name reverently as he lifted her under her arms, raised her above him like a bright afternoon sun.
Her mouth parted and she looked heavenward as he lowered her, slowly, and he threw his forehead into her neck. He was inside of her now, sliding into the warm, wet deepness that was Claire.
Her throat made a hiccupping catch, and he kissed her there. She breathed heavily and he gave her a moment to settle on and around him. He felt so warm. He felt safe and warm, staring into her face, which blinked and crinkled and finally lowered her mouth to his.
Claire grabbed tightly to his shoulders as she leaned over and above him, her breasts pushing into his face as she slid upward over him. He kissed her breasts, held their firm fullness in his fingers. And when she let her body fall back over his, he inhaled a breath of air, quickly, almost like he was in exquisite pain.
This was the fire, then. His blood and his fire, burning through the both of them. It had been a slow blaze at first, tortuous to be so close to her and to not have her. Almost possessing but always coming in short. A smoldering heat that he fought with indifference and disrespect, but he hadn’t fooled either of them.
“Nathan…”
He held her tightly against him as he rolled over her. He watched her face as he pushed into her, watched her look heavenward, over his shoulder, at his chest. He smiled when she finally looked at him, and gave her another slow pulse.
She pulled him closer and whispered. “Nathan.” She spoke his name like a lover would, thrumming against his ear from deep in her throat. “Nathan, I don’t want to leave you.”
He brushed her hair off of her forehead as he slid out, almost out of her again, and her feet curled tightly around his back to prevent him from doing so.
“I’m here,” he whispered, and he kissed her cheeks, her eyes, her mouth, her chin. He would be here, and so would she.
This then, was the only time Nathan Petrelli had ever felt at peace. Claire was his salvation and his damnation, a beautiful, double-edged sword that had finally bested him with nothing more complicated than the power of Claire. She had won, and he was her flawed prize, forever.
fin.
a/n: once again, i'm sorry for writing such a shitty story - i had very little time to proof & improve this, so this is appallingly rough-drafty. i'm so busy with school that i can't justify spending time on fanfic, but this story attacked me and i bowed to it like the bitch that i am. it was fun to write nathan though, i really love him and i've been loving nathan/claire lately, so yeah. thanks for reading, and i am so sorry that my stories have not been very good lately. my deepest apologies.