Archive of Our Own

'Soo... we might, uh... might...'

'Spit it out already Pete.' Nathan was in no mood to play coy in the middle of preparations.

'We might need a few more chairs', Peter finally admitted, in a tone that made it clear there was no ''might'' about it.

Nathan meanwhile just tried not to sigh too obviously, but ruined it by pinching the bridge of his nose anyway. 'Who else did you invite.'

'Niki and her family - don't give me that look, they did you and us all massive favors, and weren't we gonna invite every powered person we know anyway?'

Nathan tried his best unimpressed face for a whole seven seconds before caving. 'Just tell me you didn't invite the invisible guy.'

'Claude? What's your problem with him?' A look passed between them before Peter decided not to push it and conceded: 'I didn't, but only because I don't think he wants to see anyone right now.'

'I'll take it. That all then?'

'No... there's Hiro and Ando, too.' He frowned for a second. 'Have you ever actually met them? Like, outside of Kirby Plaza I mean.'

At that, Nathan's expression grew wistful for almost a whole second and he laughed, quietly but genuinely. Before quickly (and badly) covering it with a cough and mumbling: 'Yeah, once or twice.'

Peter's eyebrows were on a solid course to joining the rest of the hair on his head throughout the whole charade, but now his voice rose with them. 'Once or twice??', he asked, incredolous. 'I thought politicians were better liars!' A shocked laugh escaped him and he leaned forward to grab Nathan's arm as the latter tried to turn away. 'C'mon Nathan, I know there's a story there.'

But Nathan didn't let himself be turned back, stubbornly facing the garden as if to supervise the waitingstaff (he didn't). 'Nothing of importance.'

Peter was slowly getting exasperated. 'Oh come on! What's so bad you can't even tell me?!' His cheerful features slowly slipped into worry.

'Nothing', Nathan insisted, more sharply now. He ripped his arm free but turned back to face Peter. 'We...happened to run into each other. A few times. He told me of the explosion he'd seen. I didn't....... *want* to believe him, but eventually did. End of story.'

'I....assume you mean Hiro', Peter responded lamely, unsure what to make of his brother's suddenly so sour mood. He'd really just meant to tease, but now this seemed more serious. No way in hell was this ''all''!

In response, Nathan merely waved his hand about, clearly wishing to end the topic asap.

Showing mercy, Peter concluded: 'So they can come, right? Hiro, whichever, they're pretty much a package deal. You don't *not* like them, do you?'

Nathan could've ended the whole thing with a simple 'yes' and a swift topic change. Possibly throwing an 'of course' and an indulgent facial expression in there somewhere. But he suddenly felt a hundred years old, and he was just so *tired*.

So he slipped and said: 'Yeah sure, I like Hiro.'

You could've heard a pin drop in the few deathly quiet seconds between Peter registering the words, Nathan registering his own words and subsequently calculating whether he could just open the sliding windows and fly away without the staff noticing, and Peter starting to guwaff, *loudly*.

'Oh my god, you like him!'

Eyes squeezed shut, drawing breath through clenched teeth, praying to wake up. 'Shut..theFUCK...up.'

If anything, Peter got even louder. 'You liiike him!'

'Could you sound any less like a highschooler?'

But Peter couldn't be stopped. 'My point still stands! THE Nathan Petrelli, showing a real, human emotion? Someone stop the press!'

Forced: 'Put a sock in it.'

Peter continued as if uninterrupted. 'I mean, I can't fault you. Hiro is very likable! But still... you so rarely like *anybody*.' Suddenly growing more somber, Peter leaned forward slightly. 'Can you really fault me for being happy about that?'

For a few seconds, maybe even minutes, Nathan said nothing. He had once again turned so that Peter couldn't see his face - or rather that he couldn't see Peter's. Peter let him, and waited him out.

'He...' Taking a steady breath, Nathan realized this was his very last chance to back out. But it was like he was watching himself talk from a distance, and couldn't have stopped the words if he'd wanted to. 'Hiro, he looked at me with an admiration, a kind of wonder. Not even Monty looks at me like that... hasn't since he was in preschool. And I've let him down.' The sheer bitterness in his small, self-deprecating laugh shocked them both. 'I've let everybody down! But everybody else I think... kind of expected that.'

Peter sucks in a breath, but Nathan doesn't give him the time to form words with it.

'Only he didn't. Only he looked truly sad.... that I turned out a villain.'

After this, Nathan expected almost anything from an impassioned speech to awkward silence. He did not expect Peter to weigh his words carefully and reach out to him gently, slowly, giving him the option to back away at any time.

'Nathan... please look at me. Please tell me you don't believe that.'

It took forever and a minute for Nathan to turn around again, and he could not look his brother in the eye anymore. 'I would have done it. No' he raises his hand against the protest he knew was coming without having to see or hear a thing 'I need you to know that. I considered it, I *planned* for it. I was going to let everybody die to *win*.' At some point during his confession, of sorts, Nathan had closed his eyes. He knew he wouldn't see anything but the floor if he opened them but still he refused. He wasn't going to cry - he just didn't want to look at the world anymore. The world he nearly would've destroyed, not for its own good, not truly - for himself.

A dull thud below him was what brought him back, startled into blinking, looking again.

Peter had knelt before him.

'You didn't, though', Peter said in a low, fierce murmur, arresting his eyes instantly upon finding them. 'You stood up to Linderman, to Ma, to *destiny*. You were tempted...yes. But when it came to it, you said no. You alone. You saved us.'

Nathan wasn't sure when they'd started hugging, or when he had started crying after all. All he knew was Peter's voice:

'And you bet Hiro's gonna love that story.'