apocalypsos | Fic: Into The Black (Heroes)

Title: Into The Black
Author: Troll Princess
Fandom: Heroes
Rating: PG
Pairing: None
Summary: A short piece about Nathan and flying.

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Into the Black

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Nathan Petrelli can't fly.

Not that he doesn't have the ability. When he tears away from the bonds in his mind and lets himself push off he takes off from the ground like he goddamn means every bit of it, soaring through the air like he's intent on slicing it apart. When he wants to take off, he does, and it's a new kind of unreal.

And not that he won't, because he will. If his brother is falling from the roof of a building, his arms spinning like he thinks he'll be able to grab onto handholds in midair that no one but he and Nathan can see, he will. If he's being held at gunpoint, if two strangers show up out of nowhere to drag him off to parts unknown, he will.

If it's self-defense, if it will save his life (and damn anyone else's), he will.

But he can't.

There are cameras everywhere, you know. The world is filled with them. Most cell phones have them. They hang from street lamps, from the ceilings of shopping malls. They take pictures from space for people Nathan plans on getting to know after he gets elected.

They see him, even if he doesn't know it.

So he can assume they see it when he lifts off the balcony of his penthouse, just a few feet off the stones, not even high enough to be noticed and late enough when anybody who could is long asleep. The boys are down, Heidi's in their bedroom, and he is here, out in the black, defying gravity.

Pushing off, and loving every minute of it.

But Nathan Petrelli can't fly.

Nathan Petrelli is on buses and posters. He shakes your hand as you walk through the street, he flashes you a false smile and smoothes his hand over your child's hair. He's a handsome charmer who'd never think of doing something so odd and dangerous as breaking the laws of physics.

No matter how much he might want to.