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App for Ataraxion
CHARACTER INFORMATION
Name: Nathan Petrelli
Canon: Heroes
Original or Alternate Universe: Original
Canon Point: Season 3, Volume 4: A Clear and Present Danger
Number: 078
Setting: Heroes is set in a pseudo-real world, circa 2007, where unbeknownst to the population (and even themselves in most cases) there are people who exist with genetic or laboratory induced abilities.
History:
General
An only child until the age of twelve, Nathan grew up in the Petrelli household. His parents were incredibly powerful people; co-founders of The Company alongside a number of other powered people, Arthur Petrelli and Angela Shaw would eventually have two sons. His father was a veteran of Vietnam, and consequently a highly paid criminal defense attorney, while his mother spent his money in New York where they kept a mansion, rubbing shoulders with the well to-do of high society. It became clear well into his childhood that Nathan wasn't developing an ability, so well into his twenties, with a formula at last perfected, he was given the artificial power of flight.
At twelve, Nathan became an older brother. The newcomer, Peter, would inherit his mother's willfulness, while Nathan had been more thoroughly exposed to his father's cold practicality. As Nathan says in his winning election speech: Pop believed in making the hard choices, for the greater good. So do I. 'For the greater good' would become something of a mantra to him as the years passed. Nathan had everything in his education; was taught multiple languages, was top of his class and consequently valedictorian, and graduated university with honours.
Nathan was a good older brother. Going to college and then on into the US Navy, he planned his leave around Peter's birthdays, took time away during important cases to see him, and did his best to be around whenever Peter needed him, which - since Peter grew up being second best to Nathan and consequently idolised him - was more often than not. While Nathan went into law, eventually becoming Assistant District Attorney, Peter defied his parents by choosing nursing, estranging himself from his family in the process. Nathan, meanwhile, married his wife Heidi, and had two sons, Monty and Simon. This in addition to an illegitimate daughter - Claire - who by definition would have likely come about just before his tour of duty.
As a pilot for the Navy, then, Nathan served in Bosnia, Serbia and Rwanda. Ironically, considering this career, it was flight which turned out to be his ability. He would discover this when his convertible was driven off the freeway at high speed, flying out before it crashed, but leaving his wife inside. She was subsequently paralyzed, throwing their relationship into a strained turmoil. After Arthur Petrelli died (murdered by his wife, who claimed that he had had a heart attack, and then politically changed this to suicide) and ruthlessly driven as a result, Nathan chose to turn his strong ADA position into a first step on the political career ladder, running for the 30th congressional district seat of New York.
Volume One
The campaign is under way, and the ambitious and slightly overwrought Nathan Petrelli is nine points behind on the polls. With his interest in his marriage flagging following his wife's accident, and his relationship with his mother struggling due to her new found freedom, Nathan still manages to find new and exciting ways to push away the people around him. Peter is dreaming about flying - ludicrous, right? - except that it rings too true to things that Nathan doesn't want to think about right now. His own developing ability in particular.
After Peter jumps off a building, forcing Nathan to catch him (and winding up with the younger brother waking up in hospital two days later), and it's only after Peter confronts him on a rooftop again that Peter actually hovers, forcing Nathan to confront the truth. That doesn't stop him from compromising his relationship with his brother. To that end Nathan holds a press conference, speaking about his brother's depression and claiming that he had attempted to commit suicide. This gets Nathan a well deserved punch in the face. Shortly after this, Nathan - more bemused at himself than anything - saves a girl from a burning building.
Nathan heads to Las Vegas for a supposed meeting with Linderman, but gets no further than his aide. Instead he spends the evening drinking, and meets Niki, whom he eventually sleeps with. Unfortunately this only leads to Nathan being captured by The Company, though he escapes them and flies away before anything can happen. When he lands at a nearby diner, dressed only in gray pajama bottoms, he runs into Hiro (a Japanese time traveler), who tells him about the terrible future to come--that New York city will explode if nobody stops it. At last returning to the hotel, Nathan discovers that his tryst with Niki was in fact the setting up of an attempt at blackmail; Linderman can't afford for Nathan to turn down his offer. He accepts, but raises his price: 'Two million dollars makes me a candidate in your pocket. Four million makes me a congressman.'
Staging a brunch back in New York with his family, Nathan agrees to speak to a reporter, and talk about his wife's accident, but the outing is disturbed by Peter, trying to get his hand on a painting that Linderman bought from Isaac Mendez (a man who can paint the future). Nathan is determined not to give in, despite Peter's suggestions that he fly off the terrace, and they settle down to brunch, though things are briefly disturbed when the reporter mentions Nathan disappearing with a blonde during his trip to Las Vegas. Currying favour, it is in fact Peter that covers for him, backing up the story of his attempted suicide by claiming that Nathan was visiting an expert on depression and making it look like a business trip. Peter is smart enough to have worked out the truth, of course, but Nathan phones to request the painting anyway.
After lying to Peter about acquiring it, Nathan inspects the painting himself with Simone, and then covers the canvas with paint, insisting that Peter should never know about the contents of the picture, particularly after she recites the 'save the cheerleader, save the world' mantra back at Nathan. Despite destroying the painting, a copy gets into Peter's hands, and he heads to Odessa to save the world. It's only after this that Nathan catches up to him again - held by police after the events at the high school - but moments after leaving the station Peter passes out. His coma lasts some time, with Nathan keeping a close eye on him throughout.
Following the incident with the painting, Nathan insists on meeting Isaac, and they talk about how he paints, though Nathan's belief in any of it is stretched to the limit. Only after speaking to Hiro does he begin to let the possibilities sink in: that someone might actually explode in the middle of New York City. He visits Mohinder, who he believes to be an expert on the subject, and he explains that Peter has a chameleonic DNA, that it can copy the code of others, and therefore their abilities. Together they find Peter packing to leave, but he turns invisible in the hallway and escapes.
Forced to leave other people to look for Peter, Nathan has to deal with family business. His illegitimate daughter Claire had resurfaced, and he heads to Texas to give Meredith Gordon - her birth mother - $100k to keep silent. Claire watches, and Nathan makes a decision not to see her, if only for his public image - and goes back home. In a show of rebellion, Claire throws a rock at his car as he retreats, though he doesn't see her.
At last, back in New York, the FBI visit in on him, telling him to arrange a meeting with Linderman therein to wear a wire to bring him down. Unfortunately this leads to the the FBI agents being killed, and Nathan - knocking out Niki, who is working for Linderman again - takes her gun to kill him. They speak in the kitchen, and Linderman promises Nathan a future in the White House. All he has to do is let Peter explode, killing .07% of the population of the world. All well and good, except that when Nathan gets home Peter is already dead, Sylar having put a shard of glass through the back of his head. After Claire removes it, however, Peter revives, leaving the possibility that even if Peter did explode, he - at least - would survive. Not long after, Nathan learns that 'Linderman's plan' isn't Linderman's at all. Even his parents had been involved in it, with his mother being an agent to convince him to let it happen. Neat family.
Meanwhile everything is coming together. Linderman heals Heidi after a visit to their home, and Nathan helps her to stand for the first time after the accident. Nathan wins in a landslide - despite having been down in the polls - due to Micah's technopathy. And when D.L. and Jessica (Niki) visit Nathan's office, he conspires with them to kill Linderman, and therefore free himself of the man's control.
And then it falls apart. First Nathan's thoughts betray him, and then Claire - dismayed at Nathan and Angela's nonchallence about what is about to happen - jumps out of a window to escape him, desperate to stop Peter from exploding and save the city. All of this emotional upheaval at last turns Nathan toward heroism--he flies into Kirby Plaza at the last minute and, certain that he is about to die, flies his brother into the sky where his uncontrollable power can be dispersed safely.
Volume Two
They're high, and safe, and Peter tells Nathan to let go, despite the burns spreading over his body. After the explosion, Peter - almost instantly recovered - flies back down to catch Nathan before he can hit the ground, taking him to hospital. Only after a further three months, deeply scarred and burned from his experience, was Nathan healed by Peter's regenerative blood.
Another month passes; Nathan has lost his job, and deeply traumatised by his experience and fearing the worst for Peter, takes to drinking. Not caring for himself, prone to bouts of violence, he drives Heidi away from him. He shakes off Claire, refuses to listen to his mother, loses his children (whom he isn't even allowed to see). The police are investigating the murder of Kaito Nakamura, and it leads them to Angela, who confesses in order to stop the investigation proceeding any further, but is attacked mentally later on, causing self-inflicted wounds. She ends up in hospital, but eventually they arrest her--she refuses Nathan's help.
Wanting to know what his mother (and father) were mixed up in, and not certain how to proceed in finding out, Nathan follows Matt on his quest to find Maury - a telepath who just happens to be Matt's father. They get locked in a nightmare, fighting each other, and after they escape, head to the Primatech facility to find Bob, the next victim to be. This, in turn, leads Nathan back to Peter, to the truth that he is alive and on the run with Adam Monroe. Nathan flies to Ireland to look for him, but finds nothing--as Peter has moved on to Montreal.
After Victoria Pratt's death, the truth comes out about what Adam and Peter are looking for, a virus that if released could kill billions of people. Hesitantly, Angela tells them where they will find the virus, and they go to stop Adam and Peter, flying to Primatech. They intercede just in time - Peter seems about to kill Hiro, lost in the moment and almost entirely under Adam's command - and after Peter had disarmed Matt, it's up to Nathan to stop him. Adam had convinced Peter they were here to destroy the virus, when in fact he wanted to release it, and after a firm admission of brotherly love, just as he did when he saved Peter in New York, Peter turns and stops the vial from smashing, consequently destroying it, and saving the world again.
Certain that the only way to prevent anything like this happening again is to go public about their abilities, Nathan goes on stage not long after. He is about to make his announcement when he's shot twice in the chest, by--
Volume Three
--Peter from the Future, obviously!
Shocked and covered in his brother's blood, Peter pursues the attacker but loses him, while Nathan is rushed to hospital. He dies from his injuries, but moments later is mysteriously and unexplainably resurrected. Whether it's leftover from the blood still in him from his previous regeneration, or as a result of Peter's presence is uncertain, but he survives the shooting incident, waking up a little later and walking into the hospital chapel to explain his epiphany to a family there. He's a man of God now, apparently. It saves his life, because Future Peter was ready to shoot him all over again if he had to. He tells him (after collapsing again) that he believes people with powers could be angels sent to do God's bidding, and explains that they couldn't be angels if everyone knew. (AN: I know it's weak but give them a break it was the writer's strike after all)
In any case, Nathan is a superstar now, and he gets offered a new job as Junior Senator for New York. At first he's troubled by the decision, but takes it after all, although there's the added concern that he's hallucinating Linderman (this turns out to be the telepath Maury manipulating him). Not long after accepting the job, he gets a call from Peter, trapped in Jesse's body, explaining that he's escaped with a whole bunch of other criminals. Joy of joys. After letting Future!Peter listen to the tape, Nathan gets back to work, getting sworn in, and then going looking for Tracy. After she accidentally kills a persistent reporter with her ice ability, and after finding out that her ability was genetically engineered, she attempts to commit suicide by jumping off a bridge; Nathan saves her, prompting a new relationship.
Together, they go to see Peter, finding out that their mother has put him into a drug induced coma to protect him from a new ability he's absorbed - Sylar's. (She fails to mention this season's big 'reveal' - in that it was always a lie - that Sylar is supposedly also her son.) They go looking for Mohinder for answers instead, and Nathan at last is told that his power was synthetic. But Mohinder has gone all psycho spider-man on the world, and it takes two tries to escape him. The Company intercede at Nathan's behest to clean the place up, and Nathan goes to see Peter, who has been to and from a place called Pinehearst while Nathan had been detained.
Peter explains that their father is alive, though Nathan doesn't believe him, and that it was Arthur Petrelli who took his powers. All of them. Despite Peter's warnings, and swearing to him that he wouldn't go, Nathan goes to Pinehearst to confront his father. He leaves without hugging him, and therefore keeps his power, safely going back to Peter so that they can come up with a plan together.
Their plan involves finding the Haitian - a man with void abilities that prevent others from using their powers - but as they come in to land on the island Nathan's power falters and they fall. They argue over Peter's need to be a hero even though he's lost his powers, but now Nathan's aren't working either, so they trek through the jungle. Nathan ends up captured by guerrilla bandits. Peter, with the Haitian, free him, and then Peter is captured trying to hold off their escape. Nathan comes back for his brother, and after they defeat the Haitian's brother Samedi, Nathan leaves Peter behind to go back to Pinehearst, convinced that his father has the right idea--that giving abilities to the right people isn't such a bad plan after all.
Arriving at Pinehearst, Nathan takes over almost instantly, standing his ground against his father, who is forced to give in under the added application of Tracy's support. The eventual allure of the White House raises its head again, convincing Nathan he's on the right path, and they go about making sure the first of the soldiers is injected with the complete formula, now that the catalyst has been found and used on it. Though Arthur disappears (and is killed by Peter and Sylar in the meantime), Nathan persists with his experiment.
After discovering his father's body and closing his eyes, Nathan confronts Peter, and after Peter leaves attempts to send his new super-soldier after him, only to be foiled by the turncoat Knox. Tracy kills him, and they rush to stop Peter destroying the formula, only to discover that they're too late. Frustrated, Nathan fights Peter to the ground, and is almost engulfed by flame. Peter, taking the formula, rescued him, and as they watch Pinehearst burn, Nathan shakes Peter off, telling him that he wouldn't have saved him if things had been the other way around.
Three weeks after these events, he speaks to the President about his new plan, since the last one failed--to capture everyone with powers and lock them away. To this end he is appointed Head of Homeland Security, and given powers and funds to do his job.
Volume Four
With Angela's help, Nathan recruits Noah Bennett and Emil Danko (codenamed 'The Hunter'), and assembles a team of people under the Building 26 umbrella to secretly hunt down the 'threat to national security' that is people with powers. Claire is asking dangerous questions, far from what Nathan wanted on the day when they make their moves on the biggest dangers to their operation. Agents go after Tracy, Matt, Mohinder and Sylar, among others, while Nathan makes one last attempt to convince Peter to come over to his side. When Peter refuses, he organises to have dinner with him, and arrives back at his apartment early. They talk again, and this time when Peter refuses him, Noah steps in and tasers him from behind.
As Nathan waits in a huge airplane hangar, he watches a line of jump-suited, drugged men and women being walked onto a cargo plane. Among them his brother, and unknown to him his daughter.
A.N. Since this is the canon point Nathan is taken from, I stopped the history here, but I can continue to the end of the volume if you need it.
Personality:
Raised to his career, his profession, all of it with a plan set in motion before he was even born, Nathan has a very strong personality as a result, most of it as synthetic as the ability he was given. He is everything his parents and his childhood raised him to be: a natural leader, confident and influential, a wonderful public speaker. He's manipulative without being cold, politic, and knows how to put his own spin on anything. It's probably fair to say that he's something of a control freak, something that he inherited from his father, ruthless when it comes to getting what he wants, and willing to crush other people's dreams, lives and hearts to achieve it.
He fits the phrase 'only human' perhaps to a T, suffering from vices such as a weakness for women and susceptibility to booze. He suffers subtle extremes of mood, going from depression and deep-drinking to cold, hard and capable of near-killing his own brother for the sake of what he believes in within the space of a day. As well as being completely self-involved on a general basis, Nathan is stubborn, sticking to what he believes in doggedly even when everyone else knows it's a bad idea, and no matter what it costs him in the process. He has difficulty seeing beyond the positive outcomes, and really dissecting what he's doing to see the flaws in any part of his plan.
Nathan carries himself with poise and attitude, has a cutting and malevolent wit - that's usually used for ripping Peter to shreds - and he speaks with an easy friendliness as a politician that makes him easily likable, although debatably it gives him a second reputation as a shark. Unsurprising since, with Peter's influence, he was willing to go after his own father's law firm as ADA, to bring up dirt on his own family before he tried running for the DA's office. With his father's death this never actually panned out. Other examples of this attitude of having his way at the expense of others, building himself up while knocking other people down, come particularly during the first season, where Nathan repeatedly demonstrates how important his own campaign is, even if it destroys his family in the process.
The ever-influential confidence-man, Nathan has his contacts, elbow rubbing with the same high society that his mother brushed shoulders with for decades. He knows how to treat people, how to get what he wants out of them, and at once the hardest and easiest to manipulate on that respect is Peter. Nathan doesn't suffer fools gladly, but Peter isn't a fool--he knows Nathan better than other people do, even if he makes excuses for him because he loves him. He can convince people to trust him, even those who are closer to Peter than to him--it's what he's been programmed to do all his life, and as a result it comes so easily to him it's fluid; natural. The most obvious example is Simone, who despite her fondness for Peter, presents the final Mendez painting to Nathan first.
Underneath, though, Nathan isn't everything he first appears to be. Ambitious, yes; ruthless, yes; single-minded, yes--but it conceals a core of warmth and misguided hopefulness. Nathan is anything but transparent, and when he acts on his real feelings - the good ones - he can be just as single minded and ruthless in their accomplishment. For instance when he destroys the painting, he doesn't just do so because it might hurt his ratings, after all the painting is of Peter lying dead, and when in fact Peter is brought back to the apartment dead (before he regenerates), Nathan is utterly distraught. He really does care, about simple things like his children, his brother, and more inscrutable things like the people of New York, about justice, about doing the right thing.
The trouble is that his selfish purposes rather than his heroic ones tend to take to the surface. The truth is that time and time again Nathan risks his life, his own happiness and his own moral standing for what he believes is the right thing. He has his eyes on the big picture always, which unfortunately leads to small things like people not mattering. Nathan will accept personal sacrifice of any cost--what harm is losing his relationship with his brother if he's willing to risk his own life for a cause?
Nathan believes - at this point in time - that the only way to save the world after what happened in New York, after the near release of a deadly virus by his out of control brother and Adam Young, is to take a determined personal interest in finding a solution for controlling or subduing people with powers. His previous attempt - to take over his father's company Pinehearst and use a formula to give a select group of marines powers - failed miserably due to his brother's efforts to stop it from happening.
His new plan is to capture everyone with powers and lock them away in a facility until they can find some kind of way to take their powers away. He strongly believes in this plan, though it will lead to his brother and mother becoming 'terrorists', though it will risk the safety of his daughter Claire, and even though he himself possesses a power. His single-mindedness crumbles, none the less, as he sees how misguided he was; he is still human, can still feel regret, and as soon as he stops being deliberately blinded to the flaws of the people around him and of his plan as a whole, he demonstrates that guilt and softens up considerably, trying to reforge the relationships he's destroyed in the meantime.
The problem is that Nathan was raised to be a specific person. He was brought up, given everything, told that he was special, prioritised over his brother. He was groomed from an early age to be at the top of his career path, a District Attorney in New York, a fighter jet pilot, and recuringly as visits to the future make it clear, President of the Unites States of America. Outside of his career and success, he hasn't had an easy time finding out who he is, not having the freedom to be himself or make his own decisions outside of strictly professionally. It's only until his life starts crumbling apart that his priorities, his passions, become clear to him. Between his hospitalisation and Haiti, he begins to feel those things out, but he never really gets the chance to find his feet before his next mistake. He has a lot of self-discovery ahead of him--or at least he would have if his canon didn't kill him.
So in conclusion it's safe to say that Nathan's relationship with his parents is one of manipulation. Angela even has Nathan's memories and personality transplanted into Sylar to keep him alive after he's murdered. He became what they wanted him to become, and when Nathan comes to take Pinehearst from Arthur, demonstrating his clout, all of his potential brought together, he gives up control to his son without much fight. He always favored Nathan over Peter (who he thought too soft), though was troubled by the fact that Peter was the one born with powers while Nathan was not. The creation of the formula was essentially for Nathan, then, to grant him the ability that he would need to rise to another kind of power.
However even Arthur's coldness couldn't prevent Nathan from bonding with his younger brother, getting a soft spot for him that Nathan often treats as his own personal weakness to overcome. Nathan is Peter's hero, and has been from a young age, standing in for Arthur as a father figure in a manner of speaking, but also being a brother. Everything that Peter really achieved for himself as a young man was helped along by Nathan. He drove him to excel, usually by making things harder for him, taught him how to be a man, got him drunk for the first time. Peter would follow him along just to be near him, and subsequently - as an adult - even come back to Nathan for advice.
They're very close, sharing physical as well as verbal shots at each other, knowing each other incredibly well, and not afraid to tell each other the truths that nobody else would dare bring up. They're brothers through and through, boisterous and generally well-meaning, occasionally short tempered with each other, but generally well meaning, at least until things start falling apart. When they're really mad at each other, the personal insults and physical confrontations are much more cutting emotionally and much more violent as a result. They knew how far they can push each other, and how to go over the limit, too (even if Nathan's bodyguards protect him even from Peter.)
Nathan is, however, extremely temperamental, possessing less restraint than Peter. Despite his brother being powerless after destroying the laboratory, Nathan loses his temper in a cold and clinical heartlessness, tells Peter that he 'broke his heart' and proceeds to beat the hell out of him with a pipe. He later deceptively hugs Peter, keeping him still until he can be tasered. Not exactly brotherly love, any of it. It could be called a moment of madness, but that's not doing Nathan justice--he knew what he was doing, and believed it an acceptable loss, approaching things with a military precision and utter ruthlessness, something that can probably be blamed on his deployment to the Navy. Most of Peter's good memories of his brother come from before he went to war. Despite all of this, though, Nathan does love his brother. He says so blatantly at the end of each Season, just once, before each of his brushes with death.
Before I close off this personality section, I'd like to reflect on one more relationship that's important to Nathan--no, not Tracy Strauss, since he dismisses her after Pinehearst's collapse, but with the other woman in his life, the long suffering politician's wife Heidi. (It's my personal belief that she was a woman chosen for him rather than the other way around; someone safe after the mess that was Meredith Gordon and an illegitimate daughter.) Nathan was a family man, and he loved his wife enough to want to protect her from his transgressions, and enough to turn on his father after Heidi's accident: Peter had to restrain him from actually attacking Arthur in the hospital. He wanted to protect his family, and he wanted to be with his sons especially - Simon and Monty - whom he loves enough to break the restraining order placed on him after their separation.
His experiences with powers as well as the break up and the loss of his family no doubt have a strong influence on the mental turmoil, mistakes, and bad choices that occur soon after. Nathan never actually has time to work through everything he's lost and everything he can lose, and because he's externally so tough, so capable, the truth is that there is never anyone there to comfort and guide him. The best Angela can do is tell him to pull himself together, having absolutely no pity. Considering what he's been through and everything he's lost, things he can't tell anyone else about, considering his fall from grace, it's a tough old world for Nathan Petrelli.
Abilities, Weaknesses and Power Limitations: Nathan's history as a fighter pilot is perhaps the first indication you might get of what his power is; he can fly. Though he makes no effort to use it much at first, by Volume 4 he is capable of hovering, walking on air, and flying at supersonic speeds.
It's likely that he's built up a small amount of air-invulnerability in order to make those speeds possible, but in general Nathan's flight is confined by his own human capabilities. He can catch people in mid-air, so long as he slows down to do so, carry other people on his back/in his arms, although this is dependent on his own physical strength, and is in general a lot more graceful about his landings than he once was.
His ability to fly is completely instinctive--at first it's triggered by fear, and he flies out of an open topped convertible which then crashes, and later on when he's thrown out of a building he instinctively catches himself.
Nathan's ability was laboratory induced (synthetic), rather than his being born with it like his brother Peter.
Inventory: Wallet, keys, Vote Petrelli campaign badge, US flag pin
Appearance: Nathan is an unimposing five foot ten, but what he lacks in height he makes up for in sheer presence. Broad chested and shouldered, with an oblong face and a squared off jaw, his is the comic book superhero look personified. Like his brother, Nathan is of Italian heritage, sharing his dark brown eyes and hair.
Age: 39
SAMPLES
Log Sample:
The escape had been terrifying; thrilling. Very few things got through to Nathan any more; but physical excitement still made his heart race like he was twenty again. There was nothing stale about running away from a guy with a gun, getting into a fist fight with his brother, sleeping with another woman... Flying. The most exciting his life got otherwise was watching the judge trip over on his way into the courtroom. And sure, being assistant district attorney in New York was supposed to be a dangerous job--it might have been if not for the fact that the criminals were more afraid of the Petrellis than the other way around. Death threats were just part of life's little games, but nothing ever actually came of them.
But flying. It wasn't something he should be doing where just anyone could see him. He didn't even want it in so many words, but actually being in the air again after his military career had ended was something else. In certain ways it was nothing like flying an F16; the air was cold - even in Nevada - crisp but not freezing, prickling at his face and hands. It whipped his hair back out of his face as he flew, headlong, unsure of his direction but for the moment simply not caring. Far below him the desert and sparse brush stretched out; the pitted and dried up husk of the earth disappearing away into the distance, beautiful in its emptiness, and up here there was only peace; only Nathan and the thin, wispy clouds.
He could go wherever he wanted. If he chose to, he never had to go home to his family again, didn't have to so much as see another person, let alone tell them his name. The world could be his. But he'd never been one to have his head in the clouds; that was really Peter's domain. He had a life, a family, and a career. Wishful thinking was just another way of wasting time, and time meant points.
And he was wasting time now; time he couldn't afford. At last - his fate sealed - he changed direction, following an ugly road through the desert, flying lower in the sky as he swept down toward a lonely motor diner. It seemed like as good a place as any to go looking for a phone, he just had to hope that nobody would see him flying in, or at the very least put it down to their hangover playing tricks on them. Overestimating his own landing skill, he tore a gauge in the dirt twenty yards long, throwing up sand into his own face and hair in the process, and raising an arm defensively against it as he went.
Frankly, the only thing worse than the sand in his eyes were the friction burns on the bottom of his feet. Flying was just so hazardous.
Comms Sample:
[ Cue one irate, frustrated looking Petrelli, managing to make even a jumpsuit imposing. He's smiling, but it's not a very nice smile, more grim and unpleasant than anything. ]
I'd like to speak to someone in charge, and failing that I'd appreciate a headcount. How many of you are American?
[ Priorities. Ascertain the chain of command, judge its efficacy, and if it fails work out if it's possible to undermine it. ]
I've spoken to some of you already; to others, my name if Nathan Petrelli. Before I woke up here, I was Head of US Homeland Security, that's why I'll make you this promise now: I will do everything in my power to find out how this happened and get us back home.
Name: Nathan Petrelli
Canon: Heroes
Original or Alternate Universe: Original
Canon Point: Season 3, Volume 4: A Clear and Present Danger
Number: 078
Setting: Heroes is set in a pseudo-real world, circa 2007, where unbeknownst to the population (and even themselves in most cases) there are people who exist with genetic or laboratory induced abilities.
History:
General
An only child until the age of twelve, Nathan grew up in the Petrelli household. His parents were incredibly powerful people; co-founders of The Company alongside a number of other powered people, Arthur Petrelli and Angela Shaw would eventually have two sons. His father was a veteran of Vietnam, and consequently a highly paid criminal defense attorney, while his mother spent his money in New York where they kept a mansion, rubbing shoulders with the well to-do of high society. It became clear well into his childhood that Nathan wasn't developing an ability, so well into his twenties, with a formula at last perfected, he was given the artificial power of flight.
At twelve, Nathan became an older brother. The newcomer, Peter, would inherit his mother's willfulness, while Nathan had been more thoroughly exposed to his father's cold practicality. As Nathan says in his winning election speech: Pop believed in making the hard choices, for the greater good. So do I. 'For the greater good' would become something of a mantra to him as the years passed. Nathan had everything in his education; was taught multiple languages, was top of his class and consequently valedictorian, and graduated university with honours.
Nathan was a good older brother. Going to college and then on into the US Navy, he planned his leave around Peter's birthdays, took time away during important cases to see him, and did his best to be around whenever Peter needed him, which - since Peter grew up being second best to Nathan and consequently idolised him - was more often than not. While Nathan went into law, eventually becoming Assistant District Attorney, Peter defied his parents by choosing nursing, estranging himself from his family in the process. Nathan, meanwhile, married his wife Heidi, and had two sons, Monty and Simon. This in addition to an illegitimate daughter - Claire - who by definition would have likely come about just before his tour of duty.
As a pilot for the Navy, then, Nathan served in Bosnia, Serbia and Rwanda. Ironically, considering this career, it was flight which turned out to be his ability. He would discover this when his convertible was driven off the freeway at high speed, flying out before it crashed, but leaving his wife inside. She was subsequently paralyzed, throwing their relationship into a strained turmoil. After Arthur Petrelli died (murdered by his wife, who claimed that he had had a heart attack, and then politically changed this to suicide) and ruthlessly driven as a result, Nathan chose to turn his strong ADA position into a first step on the political career ladder, running for the 30th congressional district seat of New York.
Volume One
The campaign is under way, and the ambitious and slightly overwrought Nathan Petrelli is nine points behind on the polls. With his interest in his marriage flagging following his wife's accident, and his relationship with his mother struggling due to her new found freedom, Nathan still manages to find new and exciting ways to push away the people around him. Peter is dreaming about flying - ludicrous, right? - except that it rings too true to things that Nathan doesn't want to think about right now. His own developing ability in particular.
After Peter jumps off a building, forcing Nathan to catch him (and winding up with the younger brother waking up in hospital two days later), and it's only after Peter confronts him on a rooftop again that Peter actually hovers, forcing Nathan to confront the truth. That doesn't stop him from compromising his relationship with his brother. To that end Nathan holds a press conference, speaking about his brother's depression and claiming that he had attempted to commit suicide. This gets Nathan a well deserved punch in the face. Shortly after this, Nathan - more bemused at himself than anything - saves a girl from a burning building.
Nathan heads to Las Vegas for a supposed meeting with Linderman, but gets no further than his aide. Instead he spends the evening drinking, and meets Niki, whom he eventually sleeps with. Unfortunately this only leads to Nathan being captured by The Company, though he escapes them and flies away before anything can happen. When he lands at a nearby diner, dressed only in gray pajama bottoms, he runs into Hiro (a Japanese time traveler), who tells him about the terrible future to come--that New York city will explode if nobody stops it. At last returning to the hotel, Nathan discovers that his tryst with Niki was in fact the setting up of an attempt at blackmail; Linderman can't afford for Nathan to turn down his offer. He accepts, but raises his price: 'Two million dollars makes me a candidate in your pocket. Four million makes me a congressman.'
Staging a brunch back in New York with his family, Nathan agrees to speak to a reporter, and talk about his wife's accident, but the outing is disturbed by Peter, trying to get his hand on a painting that Linderman bought from Isaac Mendez (a man who can paint the future). Nathan is determined not to give in, despite Peter's suggestions that he fly off the terrace, and they settle down to brunch, though things are briefly disturbed when the reporter mentions Nathan disappearing with a blonde during his trip to Las Vegas. Currying favour, it is in fact Peter that covers for him, backing up the story of his attempted suicide by claiming that Nathan was visiting an expert on depression and making it look like a business trip. Peter is smart enough to have worked out the truth, of course, but Nathan phones to request the painting anyway.
After lying to Peter about acquiring it, Nathan inspects the painting himself with Simone, and then covers the canvas with paint, insisting that Peter should never know about the contents of the picture, particularly after she recites the 'save the cheerleader, save the world' mantra back at Nathan. Despite destroying the painting, a copy gets into Peter's hands, and he heads to Odessa to save the world. It's only after this that Nathan catches up to him again - held by police after the events at the high school - but moments after leaving the station Peter passes out. His coma lasts some time, with Nathan keeping a close eye on him throughout.
Following the incident with the painting, Nathan insists on meeting Isaac, and they talk about how he paints, though Nathan's belief in any of it is stretched to the limit. Only after speaking to Hiro does he begin to let the possibilities sink in: that someone might actually explode in the middle of New York City. He visits Mohinder, who he believes to be an expert on the subject, and he explains that Peter has a chameleonic DNA, that it can copy the code of others, and therefore their abilities. Together they find Peter packing to leave, but he turns invisible in the hallway and escapes.
Forced to leave other people to look for Peter, Nathan has to deal with family business. His illegitimate daughter Claire had resurfaced, and he heads to Texas to give Meredith Gordon - her birth mother - $100k to keep silent. Claire watches, and Nathan makes a decision not to see her, if only for his public image - and goes back home. In a show of rebellion, Claire throws a rock at his car as he retreats, though he doesn't see her.
At last, back in New York, the FBI visit in on him, telling him to arrange a meeting with Linderman therein to wear a wire to bring him down. Unfortunately this leads to the the FBI agents being killed, and Nathan - knocking out Niki, who is working for Linderman again - takes her gun to kill him. They speak in the kitchen, and Linderman promises Nathan a future in the White House. All he has to do is let Peter explode, killing .07% of the population of the world. All well and good, except that when Nathan gets home Peter is already dead, Sylar having put a shard of glass through the back of his head. After Claire removes it, however, Peter revives, leaving the possibility that even if Peter did explode, he - at least - would survive. Not long after, Nathan learns that 'Linderman's plan' isn't Linderman's at all. Even his parents had been involved in it, with his mother being an agent to convince him to let it happen. Neat family.
Meanwhile everything is coming together. Linderman heals Heidi after a visit to their home, and Nathan helps her to stand for the first time after the accident. Nathan wins in a landslide - despite having been down in the polls - due to Micah's technopathy. And when D.L. and Jessica (Niki) visit Nathan's office, he conspires with them to kill Linderman, and therefore free himself of the man's control.
And then it falls apart. First Nathan's thoughts betray him, and then Claire - dismayed at Nathan and Angela's nonchallence about what is about to happen - jumps out of a window to escape him, desperate to stop Peter from exploding and save the city. All of this emotional upheaval at last turns Nathan toward heroism--he flies into Kirby Plaza at the last minute and, certain that he is about to die, flies his brother into the sky where his uncontrollable power can be dispersed safely.
Volume Two
They're high, and safe, and Peter tells Nathan to let go, despite the burns spreading over his body. After the explosion, Peter - almost instantly recovered - flies back down to catch Nathan before he can hit the ground, taking him to hospital. Only after a further three months, deeply scarred and burned from his experience, was Nathan healed by Peter's regenerative blood.
Another month passes; Nathan has lost his job, and deeply traumatised by his experience and fearing the worst for Peter, takes to drinking. Not caring for himself, prone to bouts of violence, he drives Heidi away from him. He shakes off Claire, refuses to listen to his mother, loses his children (whom he isn't even allowed to see). The police are investigating the murder of Kaito Nakamura, and it leads them to Angela, who confesses in order to stop the investigation proceeding any further, but is attacked mentally later on, causing self-inflicted wounds. She ends up in hospital, but eventually they arrest her--she refuses Nathan's help.
Wanting to know what his mother (and father) were mixed up in, and not certain how to proceed in finding out, Nathan follows Matt on his quest to find Maury - a telepath who just happens to be Matt's father. They get locked in a nightmare, fighting each other, and after they escape, head to the Primatech facility to find Bob, the next victim to be. This, in turn, leads Nathan back to Peter, to the truth that he is alive and on the run with Adam Monroe. Nathan flies to Ireland to look for him, but finds nothing--as Peter has moved on to Montreal.
After Victoria Pratt's death, the truth comes out about what Adam and Peter are looking for, a virus that if released could kill billions of people. Hesitantly, Angela tells them where they will find the virus, and they go to stop Adam and Peter, flying to Primatech. They intercede just in time - Peter seems about to kill Hiro, lost in the moment and almost entirely under Adam's command - and after Peter had disarmed Matt, it's up to Nathan to stop him. Adam had convinced Peter they were here to destroy the virus, when in fact he wanted to release it, and after a firm admission of brotherly love, just as he did when he saved Peter in New York, Peter turns and stops the vial from smashing, consequently destroying it, and saving the world again.
Certain that the only way to prevent anything like this happening again is to go public about their abilities, Nathan goes on stage not long after. He is about to make his announcement when he's shot twice in the chest, by--
Volume Three
--Peter from the Future, obviously!
Shocked and covered in his brother's blood, Peter pursues the attacker but loses him, while Nathan is rushed to hospital. He dies from his injuries, but moments later is mysteriously and unexplainably resurrected. Whether it's leftover from the blood still in him from his previous regeneration, or as a result of Peter's presence is uncertain, but he survives the shooting incident, waking up a little later and walking into the hospital chapel to explain his epiphany to a family there. He's a man of God now, apparently. It saves his life, because Future Peter was ready to shoot him all over again if he had to. He tells him (after collapsing again) that he believes people with powers could be angels sent to do God's bidding, and explains that they couldn't be angels if everyone knew. (AN: I know it's weak but give them a break it was the writer's strike after all)
In any case, Nathan is a superstar now, and he gets offered a new job as Junior Senator for New York. At first he's troubled by the decision, but takes it after all, although there's the added concern that he's hallucinating Linderman (this turns out to be the telepath Maury manipulating him). Not long after accepting the job, he gets a call from Peter, trapped in Jesse's body, explaining that he's escaped with a whole bunch of other criminals. Joy of joys. After letting Future!Peter listen to the tape, Nathan gets back to work, getting sworn in, and then going looking for Tracy. After she accidentally kills a persistent reporter with her ice ability, and after finding out that her ability was genetically engineered, she attempts to commit suicide by jumping off a bridge; Nathan saves her, prompting a new relationship.
Together, they go to see Peter, finding out that their mother has put him into a drug induced coma to protect him from a new ability he's absorbed - Sylar's. (She fails to mention this season's big 'reveal' - in that it was always a lie - that Sylar is supposedly also her son.) They go looking for Mohinder for answers instead, and Nathan at last is told that his power was synthetic. But Mohinder has gone all psycho spider-man on the world, and it takes two tries to escape him. The Company intercede at Nathan's behest to clean the place up, and Nathan goes to see Peter, who has been to and from a place called Pinehearst while Nathan had been detained.
Peter explains that their father is alive, though Nathan doesn't believe him, and that it was Arthur Petrelli who took his powers. All of them. Despite Peter's warnings, and swearing to him that he wouldn't go, Nathan goes to Pinehearst to confront his father. He leaves without hugging him, and therefore keeps his power, safely going back to Peter so that they can come up with a plan together.
Their plan involves finding the Haitian - a man with void abilities that prevent others from using their powers - but as they come in to land on the island Nathan's power falters and they fall. They argue over Peter's need to be a hero even though he's lost his powers, but now Nathan's aren't working either, so they trek through the jungle. Nathan ends up captured by guerrilla bandits. Peter, with the Haitian, free him, and then Peter is captured trying to hold off their escape. Nathan comes back for his brother, and after they defeat the Haitian's brother Samedi, Nathan leaves Peter behind to go back to Pinehearst, convinced that his father has the right idea--that giving abilities to the right people isn't such a bad plan after all.
Arriving at Pinehearst, Nathan takes over almost instantly, standing his ground against his father, who is forced to give in under the added application of Tracy's support. The eventual allure of the White House raises its head again, convincing Nathan he's on the right path, and they go about making sure the first of the soldiers is injected with the complete formula, now that the catalyst has been found and used on it. Though Arthur disappears (and is killed by Peter and Sylar in the meantime), Nathan persists with his experiment.
After discovering his father's body and closing his eyes, Nathan confronts Peter, and after Peter leaves attempts to send his new super-soldier after him, only to be foiled by the turncoat Knox. Tracy kills him, and they rush to stop Peter destroying the formula, only to discover that they're too late. Frustrated, Nathan fights Peter to the ground, and is almost engulfed by flame. Peter, taking the formula, rescued him, and as they watch Pinehearst burn, Nathan shakes Peter off, telling him that he wouldn't have saved him if things had been the other way around.
Three weeks after these events, he speaks to the President about his new plan, since the last one failed--to capture everyone with powers and lock them away. To this end he is appointed Head of Homeland Security, and given powers and funds to do his job.
Volume Four
With Angela's help, Nathan recruits Noah Bennett and Emil Danko (codenamed 'The Hunter'), and assembles a team of people under the Building 26 umbrella to secretly hunt down the 'threat to national security' that is people with powers. Claire is asking dangerous questions, far from what Nathan wanted on the day when they make their moves on the biggest dangers to their operation. Agents go after Tracy, Matt, Mohinder and Sylar, among others, while Nathan makes one last attempt to convince Peter to come over to his side. When Peter refuses, he organises to have dinner with him, and arrives back at his apartment early. They talk again, and this time when Peter refuses him, Noah steps in and tasers him from behind.
As Nathan waits in a huge airplane hangar, he watches a line of jump-suited, drugged men and women being walked onto a cargo plane. Among them his brother, and unknown to him his daughter.
A.N. Since this is the canon point Nathan is taken from, I stopped the history here, but I can continue to the end of the volume if you need it.
Personality:
Raised to his career, his profession, all of it with a plan set in motion before he was even born, Nathan has a very strong personality as a result, most of it as synthetic as the ability he was given. He is everything his parents and his childhood raised him to be: a natural leader, confident and influential, a wonderful public speaker. He's manipulative without being cold, politic, and knows how to put his own spin on anything. It's probably fair to say that he's something of a control freak, something that he inherited from his father, ruthless when it comes to getting what he wants, and willing to crush other people's dreams, lives and hearts to achieve it.
He fits the phrase 'only human' perhaps to a T, suffering from vices such as a weakness for women and susceptibility to booze. He suffers subtle extremes of mood, going from depression and deep-drinking to cold, hard and capable of near-killing his own brother for the sake of what he believes in within the space of a day. As well as being completely self-involved on a general basis, Nathan is stubborn, sticking to what he believes in doggedly even when everyone else knows it's a bad idea, and no matter what it costs him in the process. He has difficulty seeing beyond the positive outcomes, and really dissecting what he's doing to see the flaws in any part of his plan.
Nathan carries himself with poise and attitude, has a cutting and malevolent wit - that's usually used for ripping Peter to shreds - and he speaks with an easy friendliness as a politician that makes him easily likable, although debatably it gives him a second reputation as a shark. Unsurprising since, with Peter's influence, he was willing to go after his own father's law firm as ADA, to bring up dirt on his own family before he tried running for the DA's office. With his father's death this never actually panned out. Other examples of this attitude of having his way at the expense of others, building himself up while knocking other people down, come particularly during the first season, where Nathan repeatedly demonstrates how important his own campaign is, even if it destroys his family in the process.
The ever-influential confidence-man, Nathan has his contacts, elbow rubbing with the same high society that his mother brushed shoulders with for decades. He knows how to treat people, how to get what he wants out of them, and at once the hardest and easiest to manipulate on that respect is Peter. Nathan doesn't suffer fools gladly, but Peter isn't a fool--he knows Nathan better than other people do, even if he makes excuses for him because he loves him. He can convince people to trust him, even those who are closer to Peter than to him--it's what he's been programmed to do all his life, and as a result it comes so easily to him it's fluid; natural. The most obvious example is Simone, who despite her fondness for Peter, presents the final Mendez painting to Nathan first.
Underneath, though, Nathan isn't everything he first appears to be. Ambitious, yes; ruthless, yes; single-minded, yes--but it conceals a core of warmth and misguided hopefulness. Nathan is anything but transparent, and when he acts on his real feelings - the good ones - he can be just as single minded and ruthless in their accomplishment. For instance when he destroys the painting, he doesn't just do so because it might hurt his ratings, after all the painting is of Peter lying dead, and when in fact Peter is brought back to the apartment dead (before he regenerates), Nathan is utterly distraught. He really does care, about simple things like his children, his brother, and more inscrutable things like the people of New York, about justice, about doing the right thing.
The trouble is that his selfish purposes rather than his heroic ones tend to take to the surface. The truth is that time and time again Nathan risks his life, his own happiness and his own moral standing for what he believes is the right thing. He has his eyes on the big picture always, which unfortunately leads to small things like people not mattering. Nathan will accept personal sacrifice of any cost--what harm is losing his relationship with his brother if he's willing to risk his own life for a cause?
Nathan believes - at this point in time - that the only way to save the world after what happened in New York, after the near release of a deadly virus by his out of control brother and Adam Young, is to take a determined personal interest in finding a solution for controlling or subduing people with powers. His previous attempt - to take over his father's company Pinehearst and use a formula to give a select group of marines powers - failed miserably due to his brother's efforts to stop it from happening.
His new plan is to capture everyone with powers and lock them away in a facility until they can find some kind of way to take their powers away. He strongly believes in this plan, though it will lead to his brother and mother becoming 'terrorists', though it will risk the safety of his daughter Claire, and even though he himself possesses a power. His single-mindedness crumbles, none the less, as he sees how misguided he was; he is still human, can still feel regret, and as soon as he stops being deliberately blinded to the flaws of the people around him and of his plan as a whole, he demonstrates that guilt and softens up considerably, trying to reforge the relationships he's destroyed in the meantime.
The problem is that Nathan was raised to be a specific person. He was brought up, given everything, told that he was special, prioritised over his brother. He was groomed from an early age to be at the top of his career path, a District Attorney in New York, a fighter jet pilot, and recuringly as visits to the future make it clear, President of the Unites States of America. Outside of his career and success, he hasn't had an easy time finding out who he is, not having the freedom to be himself or make his own decisions outside of strictly professionally. It's only until his life starts crumbling apart that his priorities, his passions, become clear to him. Between his hospitalisation and Haiti, he begins to feel those things out, but he never really gets the chance to find his feet before his next mistake. He has a lot of self-discovery ahead of him--or at least he would have if his canon didn't kill him.
So in conclusion it's safe to say that Nathan's relationship with his parents is one of manipulation. Angela even has Nathan's memories and personality transplanted into Sylar to keep him alive after he's murdered. He became what they wanted him to become, and when Nathan comes to take Pinehearst from Arthur, demonstrating his clout, all of his potential brought together, he gives up control to his son without much fight. He always favored Nathan over Peter (who he thought too soft), though was troubled by the fact that Peter was the one born with powers while Nathan was not. The creation of the formula was essentially for Nathan, then, to grant him the ability that he would need to rise to another kind of power.
However even Arthur's coldness couldn't prevent Nathan from bonding with his younger brother, getting a soft spot for him that Nathan often treats as his own personal weakness to overcome. Nathan is Peter's hero, and has been from a young age, standing in for Arthur as a father figure in a manner of speaking, but also being a brother. Everything that Peter really achieved for himself as a young man was helped along by Nathan. He drove him to excel, usually by making things harder for him, taught him how to be a man, got him drunk for the first time. Peter would follow him along just to be near him, and subsequently - as an adult - even come back to Nathan for advice.
They're very close, sharing physical as well as verbal shots at each other, knowing each other incredibly well, and not afraid to tell each other the truths that nobody else would dare bring up. They're brothers through and through, boisterous and generally well-meaning, occasionally short tempered with each other, but generally well meaning, at least until things start falling apart. When they're really mad at each other, the personal insults and physical confrontations are much more cutting emotionally and much more violent as a result. They knew how far they can push each other, and how to go over the limit, too (even if Nathan's bodyguards protect him even from Peter.)
Nathan is, however, extremely temperamental, possessing less restraint than Peter. Despite his brother being powerless after destroying the laboratory, Nathan loses his temper in a cold and clinical heartlessness, tells Peter that he 'broke his heart' and proceeds to beat the hell out of him with a pipe. He later deceptively hugs Peter, keeping him still until he can be tasered. Not exactly brotherly love, any of it. It could be called a moment of madness, but that's not doing Nathan justice--he knew what he was doing, and believed it an acceptable loss, approaching things with a military precision and utter ruthlessness, something that can probably be blamed on his deployment to the Navy. Most of Peter's good memories of his brother come from before he went to war. Despite all of this, though, Nathan does love his brother. He says so blatantly at the end of each Season, just once, before each of his brushes with death.
Before I close off this personality section, I'd like to reflect on one more relationship that's important to Nathan--no, not Tracy Strauss, since he dismisses her after Pinehearst's collapse, but with the other woman in his life, the long suffering politician's wife Heidi. (It's my personal belief that she was a woman chosen for him rather than the other way around; someone safe after the mess that was Meredith Gordon and an illegitimate daughter.) Nathan was a family man, and he loved his wife enough to want to protect her from his transgressions, and enough to turn on his father after Heidi's accident: Peter had to restrain him from actually attacking Arthur in the hospital. He wanted to protect his family, and he wanted to be with his sons especially - Simon and Monty - whom he loves enough to break the restraining order placed on him after their separation.
His experiences with powers as well as the break up and the loss of his family no doubt have a strong influence on the mental turmoil, mistakes, and bad choices that occur soon after. Nathan never actually has time to work through everything he's lost and everything he can lose, and because he's externally so tough, so capable, the truth is that there is never anyone there to comfort and guide him. The best Angela can do is tell him to pull himself together, having absolutely no pity. Considering what he's been through and everything he's lost, things he can't tell anyone else about, considering his fall from grace, it's a tough old world for Nathan Petrelli.
Abilities, Weaknesses and Power Limitations: Nathan's history as a fighter pilot is perhaps the first indication you might get of what his power is; he can fly. Though he makes no effort to use it much at first, by Volume 4 he is capable of hovering, walking on air, and flying at supersonic speeds.
It's likely that he's built up a small amount of air-invulnerability in order to make those speeds possible, but in general Nathan's flight is confined by his own human capabilities. He can catch people in mid-air, so long as he slows down to do so, carry other people on his back/in his arms, although this is dependent on his own physical strength, and is in general a lot more graceful about his landings than he once was.
His ability to fly is completely instinctive--at first it's triggered by fear, and he flies out of an open topped convertible which then crashes, and later on when he's thrown out of a building he instinctively catches himself.
Nathan's ability was laboratory induced (synthetic), rather than his being born with it like his brother Peter.
Inventory: Wallet, keys, Vote Petrelli campaign badge, US flag pin
Appearance: Nathan is an unimposing five foot ten, but what he lacks in height he makes up for in sheer presence. Broad chested and shouldered, with an oblong face and a squared off jaw, his is the comic book superhero look personified. Like his brother, Nathan is of Italian heritage, sharing his dark brown eyes and hair.
Age: 39
SAMPLES
Log Sample:
The escape had been terrifying; thrilling. Very few things got through to Nathan any more; but physical excitement still made his heart race like he was twenty again. There was nothing stale about running away from a guy with a gun, getting into a fist fight with his brother, sleeping with another woman... Flying. The most exciting his life got otherwise was watching the judge trip over on his way into the courtroom. And sure, being assistant district attorney in New York was supposed to be a dangerous job--it might have been if not for the fact that the criminals were more afraid of the Petrellis than the other way around. Death threats were just part of life's little games, but nothing ever actually came of them.
But flying. It wasn't something he should be doing where just anyone could see him. He didn't even want it in so many words, but actually being in the air again after his military career had ended was something else. In certain ways it was nothing like flying an F16; the air was cold - even in Nevada - crisp but not freezing, prickling at his face and hands. It whipped his hair back out of his face as he flew, headlong, unsure of his direction but for the moment simply not caring. Far below him the desert and sparse brush stretched out; the pitted and dried up husk of the earth disappearing away into the distance, beautiful in its emptiness, and up here there was only peace; only Nathan and the thin, wispy clouds.
He could go wherever he wanted. If he chose to, he never had to go home to his family again, didn't have to so much as see another person, let alone tell them his name. The world could be his. But he'd never been one to have his head in the clouds; that was really Peter's domain. He had a life, a family, and a career. Wishful thinking was just another way of wasting time, and time meant points.
And he was wasting time now; time he couldn't afford. At last - his fate sealed - he changed direction, following an ugly road through the desert, flying lower in the sky as he swept down toward a lonely motor diner. It seemed like as good a place as any to go looking for a phone, he just had to hope that nobody would see him flying in, or at the very least put it down to their hangover playing tricks on them. Overestimating his own landing skill, he tore a gauge in the dirt twenty yards long, throwing up sand into his own face and hair in the process, and raising an arm defensively against it as he went.
Frankly, the only thing worse than the sand in his eyes were the friction burns on the bottom of his feet. Flying was just so hazardous.
Comms Sample:
[ Cue one irate, frustrated looking Petrelli, managing to make even a jumpsuit imposing. He's smiling, but it's not a very nice smile, more grim and unpleasant than anything. ]
I'd like to speak to someone in charge, and failing that I'd appreciate a headcount. How many of you are American?
[ Priorities. Ascertain the chain of command, judge its efficacy, and if it fails work out if it's possible to undermine it. ]
I've spoken to some of you already; to others, my name if Nathan Petrelli. Before I woke up here, I was Head of US Homeland Security, that's why I'll make you this promise now: I will do everything in my power to find out how this happened and get us back home.