Title: However Far Away
Author: scy
Feedback: scynneh@yahoo.com
Disclaimer: Not mine
Fandom: Heroes
Pairing: None
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: Up through 1x07, 'Nothing To Hide.'
Summary: Peter always gets his way.
Author's Notes: I always wondered how much Peter practiced his first acquired ability, and what Nathan thought of his attempts. Thanks to ladycat777, who listened to me on IM, read it through, and commented at a critical juncture. mwah, hon.
September 2007

Being able to fly didn't help one see in the dark, which Nathan thought would have been useful. When he was off the ground, he had to be close enough to the lights to see the shapes of cities below him, and then he was worried that someone might see him and not mistake his shape for a very small aircraft. But without the roar of an engine to make them look up, Nathan knew that many people didn't even consider tilting their heads to see the sky.

Most were occupied with what was going on around them, and were swept up in their routines and aspirations. He had always been trained to aim higher than the skyscrapers, and had followed jet trails from the ground and speculated where they'd come from and how fast they were going to their destination.

Peter wouldn't believe that of his brother; even though he stared at the world as if he was continually surprised and had never given up pulling Nathan over to see what he thought was so interesting. As he got older, the interruptions hadn't decreased in novelty, but he had toned down the shouting to get Nathan's attention.

That was until he'd begun having dreams about flying. There were other times when he came to Nathan and told him about the crazy stuff he'd dreamt, some of it was the usual teenage fantasy stuff, but there were instances where Nathan couldn't explain how Peter knew what he did.

He'd dreamt Nathan being in danger; a dread that worked him and the blurred memory of a dogfight over a dark, cold ocean. Later, Ma told Nathan that Peter had been having trouble sleeping, and when he talked to his brother he brought it up, only to have him talked around to something else. He could tell when Peter was nervous about upsetting him and thought that by keeping something from Nathan, he was doing the right thing.

Every time he could tell what Peter really needed versus what he thought would be given, Nathan had to shift him out of that mind set so he'd tell Nathan what was going on.

With him being in such a state anything could happen, and now that he'd flown, floated, and forced Nathan to admit that the incidents weren't isolated, Peter was ecstatic, but still sullen with Nathan. That was an area of concern; when Peter felt like he had to make a point, he went into hospice nursing or jumped off buildings and expected Nathan to watch without stepping in. It didn't surprise Nathan, but he wondered if Peter would ever stop expecting Nathan to let him do something stupid and not save him. It was his job; he rescued a lot of people, whether they wanted him to or not, and while he didn't mention it when he joined the D.A.'s office, he'd already been doing it for years before they hired him.

Peter flying was him finding another way to try and step away from Nathan's shadow, but while he did, he was using something that Nathan had first. He didn't mind; Peter barely accepted anything but rescues from Nathan, and those were taken grudgingly. So when he went to find his brother, he expected to have a crick in his neck from craning his head back to survey every rooftop.

He'd been searching for Peter for almost an hour and a half, and when he found him, he breathed a deep sigh of relief.

"I've been looking for you," Nathan said.

"You can't see the city from the ground," Peter said. He was hopping on and off the edge of the roof, possibly getting up his nerve to take a dive or trying to see how much Nathan could take before he had to share what Peter was interested in hearing about.

"It's just a different perspective," Nathan said, eyes on the way that Peter's shoes slipped every fourth jump and how he recovered with a shake of his head and a grumble about 'lift.'

Peter rolled his eyes. "And you don't want to see it."

"Some people can afford to think the best of the world, others ensure that there's a place for them."

"We both know which camp you're in," Peter said, and it was another instance of him thinking that he understood what Nathan's ultimate goal, when he really didn't.

Peter wanted to be perceived as tolerant and forgiving, but Nathan had seen the way he pursued what he wanted and, Nathan was in the habit of getting it for him. Peter had learned at a young age that he should go to Nathan if he wanted something their another wouldn't approve of. She doted on her second child, but she sheltered him too, so that Peter went out of his way to find kind of trouble most boys found by stepping out the door.

Now Peter was flying, and given what Nathan knew about gravity, even being in the air for inexplicable reasons didn't make a person immune to natural law. If Peter lost control of this ability, he'd fall again, and if Nathan wasn't around, Peter could get hurt.

Knowing Peter, he was so excited about being able to do something unique, that he had carried everything but common sense along on this quest he thought he was undertaking, instead being a knight on a white horse, he was the guy who took to the air to save the world. Peter's worries were never Nathan's and who knew if he'd even considered failure or what would happen to anyone he left behind. But that was Peter, and so Nathan ignored the biting remarks and waved at his brother to get off another precipice.

"Come on down, it isn't good to be on the edge like that."

"I'm not going to fall off," Peter said. "If I did, I could just soar back up to see the look on your face."

"You'd soar back up," Nathan repeated sarcastically, "to have me kick your ass."

"Hey, if I want to practice and get better at this, then you can't stop me," Peter said.

"There's a learning curve that ends with you breaking bones," Nathan said.

"No, it's only if I don't figure this out, that I could be splattered all over the pavement," Peter corrected, seeming to relish the imagery that Nathan didn't want to picture. "But I will, I just need a little practice."

"You having doubts doesn't make me any more willing to let you try," Nathan said.

"And I said that you can't stop me," Peter said and stood up, toes sliding off the ledge.

"Okay, maybe I can't keep you from wanting to jump off high buildings, but could you at least do what you said you were going to and start small?" Nathan asked.

"We already know that I can fly, why does it matter?"

"Because, I don't like watching you risk your life," Nathan said sharply. "Do you think it was fun to see you plummet out of the sky like that?"

"I flew," Peter said. "I did exactly what I said I was going to."

"That doesn't change what happened," Nathan said.

"We flew, together," Peter insisted.

"No, you fell," Nathan said, picking out the most important fact. "I caught you, couldn't hold on and you hit the ground."

"That doesn't mean that we didn't fly and it's going to happen again," Peter said.

Nathan looked around, found a place to sit down and rubbed his hand across his face. "You're not going to be reasonable about this, are you?"

Peter stepped off the ledge and came over to crouch in front of Nathan. "We can fly, Nathan. Me, just when I'm around you, I try to do it alone, but I can't, and that's weird, but I'll figure it out, but right now I want to try to learn how this works and so I need you to help me."

"Why?"

"Because otherwise I'll do it alone." Peter rested a hand on Nathan's shoulder. "And I know you don't want that."

"You always get your way," Nathan said wearily.

"I only want to understand what's happening to us," Peter said. "I'd think that you would too, so that you can control it."

Nathan laughed abruptly. "Nicely played, Pete."

Peter was smart enough to know when to admit that he'd been caught in a scheme and shrugged. "It's the only way you're going to explain this."

"If you wanted to know about flying you could have asked me years ago," Nathan said. "I was a pilot in the Navy."

"Which makes sense, if you think about it; you were flying before you knew about this gift, and then it turns out that you don't need a plane to fly."

"They're called jets," Nathan said.

"Whatever."

"I think the Navy would like you to know the difference."

"It doesn't matter now, because you can fly without one of them," Peter insisted. "You admitted it, told me that you flew when you were in Vegas." Peter deliberately didn't add anything about other things Nathan had done on that trip, but his expression scolded Nathan again for not telling Heidi what had happened.

"I can't do this without you, Nathan, literally."

Nathan didn't ask Peter if it mattered that Nathan didn't feel comfortable doing this, here, with his brother. Having the ability was one thing, but to show someone else what he could do was another layer ripped off that he couldn't afford to lose where Peter was concerned.

Peter was looking at Nathan, waiting, while Nathan tried to decide how he should word a refusal to his brother this time and then he spoke up.

"You have to have done this a couple times. I know you, nothing happens without your say-so, and if it can't be handled with a sound-bite, you think it's a problem."

"Is that right?" Nathan said.

Peter narrowed his eyes and refused to let Nathan have the opening he wanted, the one that would make this easy to move past.

Looking frustrated, Peter frowned and put his hands out, somewhere between imploring and reaching for something.

"You're telling me that you don't feel like you have to use this ability? When you're outside and you look up, it doesn't call to you?"

Nathan gave Peter an assessing look. "First you want to jump off buildings to be sure you can fly, now you're hearing voice, and you claim that I'm the one not in touch with myself."

Peter grinned. "Hilarious, right?"

"Absolutely."

"So tell me something, Nathan, how does it feel to want to fly?"

Nathan leaned back and closed his eyes, the first time rising up in his memory, the inescapable force that propelled him from the car before it crashed, the helplessness he felt as he watched his wife get hurt, and the pain from crashing into the ground. That had been his first taste of flight since leaving the deck of an aircraft carrier, and he'd known, when he was talking to the doctor who told him about Heidi's condition, that he hadn't survived by luck and he'd have to discover what had saved him and why.

"Light," Nathan said, choosing his words with deliberate care. "I don't feel as though my body weighs as much as it should."

"Maybe your bones are lighter or something," Peter muttered. "I wonder if there's a way to find that out."

"Do you want to hear this or not?" Nathan asked impatiently. He would tell his brother so much, but there was a point from which he wouldn't venture, and being the subject of scientific inquiry was exactly what he'd been afraid of since he concluded he was different, and he didn't want Peter being so flippant about the idea.

"Sorry," Peter said contritely. "And then, what does it feel like to be in the air?"

"You know," Nathan said.

"I was falling, Nathan, you said you flew away from those kidnapers, that was deliberate, and took a lot of guts, you couldn't have known you weren't going to have a problem getting off the ground."

"I knew I wouldn't," Nathan said. "After, the accident, I did what you've been doing, only I was more discrete."

Peter rolled his eyes. "Of course you were."

Nathan paused. "And you want to know what it feels like?" He spoke in a rush to get it out before he got too uncomfortable with being so forthcoming. "Wind everywhere, nothing holding you back, total separation from ground and rules and all that's keeping you from going up and up is not knowing where you'll come down again if you don't keep it together."
"Whoa," Peter said.

"But I can find my way," Nathan said slowly. "Because I'm used to staring at the earth from high up, and I can navigate this, never doubt me, Peter, I can do this, because I won't let it get the better of me."
"It's not a battle," Peter said, "this isn't a war you have to fight with yourself."

"What I have to do, Peter, is take care of this family. If I can do that with this, talent, then that's what I'll do."

"And if you can't, then it just gets ignored," Peter said. "Like everything else you don't think you should have to deal with."

"I haven't seen you prove otherwise, Peter."

"I will, Nathan, it's all going to come together, that's what I've been trying to tell you."

Nathan let Peter grab his hand, gripping it tightly as if with pressure, Peter could convince him that he was sure and right this time.

"Whether you want to admit it, there's something important going on around us, Nathan, all of these things are happening for a reason and it won't matter whether the world is ready for this, we're going to have to step in and make our move." Peter added emphatically, "I'm going to do what I have to in order to save the world."

Nathan reached out and put his hand around the back of Peter's head, tugging him forward until they rested against each other. "I know, Pete."

It was like always; Peter dreamed and wanted to believe it would all work out, and Nathan let him, but was prepared because he would be the one to salvage things and nothing would ever change that.

-end

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