Work Text:
i.
Nathan has always been the better son. He was bred, groomed, molded, pushed, privileged, and adored from the minute he was born, but he was never really loved. He had purpose. Principles. Process. It was no wonder Peter was always their mother’s favorite. No wonder their father never took enough interest in them to pick a favorite.
Nathan was a difficult child who grew into a difficult man. He’s slick and cutthroat and he is not a nice person. He knows this. But he likes to think he does the right thing when he has to. When it really counts.
ii.
Loving Peter was never right. Not the way Nathan did it. He was negligent, obsessive, judgmental, jealous, all in turns, but always at the wrong times, always in the wrong ways. Nathan wants to blame Peter for this, for at least part of it. For all his other flaws, Peter possessed the singular gift of making people fall in love with him – and Nathan isn’t completely convinced that’s not a flaw as well.
So he loved him. He loved him too much, not enough, not in the right ways. Same old story, just too much blood tying it together.
iii.
Nathan was prepared to die. He’d made a kind of peace with it, with knowing he was being strong for Peter when Peter most needed it. And maybe there was a little comfort in knowing that it was all ending.
He wasn’t prepared for Peter to die. Not alone. Not without Nathan by his side. They should have been together. A lot of things should have been together, but mostly this. In this, they were together. Peter, flawed, fucked up, perfect Peter, so sure of his destiny – but in the end, Nathan had saved the world. Peter just died.
iv.
Saving the world? It’s not fulfilling. Not soul-saving. Not something Nathan cares to repeat any time soon. As far as he’s concerned there’s not much worth saving. He keeps going on for his mother. Because Peter would have wanted him to. Maybe a little for Claire.
He drinks. He always drinks more than he should, but now it’s worse. More obvious. He drinks to forget and he drinks to remember and he drinks to punish himself. He drinks at Peter’s table and falls asleep in Peter’s bed and when he wakes up buries his face in Peter’s pillow and cries.
v.
The worst part, maybe, are the things Nathan lets himself believe. He never used to believe in miracles, but in the past year he’s seen too many to disbelieve. He won a no-chance election because of a boy who can talk to machines. He flies as fast as a jet plane. His illegitimate daughter can jump off a twenty-story building and walk away thirty seconds later. Some part of him thinks Peter is still out there somewhere. That there’s someone who can bring Peter back to him. Nathan is never more stupid than in those moments. Is never more alive.