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tiptoe39Title:Crowd Control
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
tiptoe39
Rating: PG
Inspired by an interview with a certain Heroes actor who suggested that, as is often the case in the Heroes 'verse, all is not what it seems...
There were no cameras allowed at Nathan Petrelli's press conference.
Not still cameras. Not television cameras. No recording devices. Print journalists only.
It would occur to people later on that this was unusual. Petrelli was a media-savvy guy. If he wanted to get something out there, he knew how to do it. His obsessively grinning mug had been on every bus in New York City, for Christ's sake. But somehow nobody raised a stink at the time.
"They're ready," Matt had said. And Nathan went out, almost spilled the beans on some great secret, and was shot to death.
The funeral was public and well-attended. Despite the very strong Italian Catholic inclinations of the family, it was a closed-casket funeral. There was a police escort, and Angela Petrelli was inconsolable. She had lost both her sons in such a short span of time. Now she was all alone in the world. No wonder the popular opinion was that she had snapped and started killing off the few companions remaining to her. Why the charges didn't stick was still a big mystery. The Post took to printing the worst photos of her and calling her the Black Widow of NYC.
She committed suicide several weeks later. The policemen who had been on the bridge by coincidence and seen her step over the railing could barely get out of the car before she had splashed to the dark water below. They dredged the river a thousand times looking for her body, but never found it.
And several weeks later, an electrical fire destroyed the headquarters of Primatech Paper in Odessa, Texas. Nobody ever connected it to the electrical fire at a nondescript laboratory in Brooklyn the same night, which claimed the lives of one Robert Bishop, 58, and daughter. The only survivor, a single father who lived alone with his young daughter in a shabby Queens apartment, was confused and could only mutter something about being abandoned. The mystery went unsolved.
-
The man who entered the Burnt Toast Diner in Midland the next day had a huge scar across the center of his face. It was the only thing anyone could remember about him. Even those who had caught wind of the strange conversation and craned their necks for a better view could somehow only remember that scar.
"This is it, right?" he said as he sat down. "This is all we have to do?"
"Yes," said the woman. "If everything stays the way we expect it to. And we do expect it to, right?"
"Ma, don't bug him. He's concentrating," said one of the two others. The final man was quiet. His eyes were half-closed. Beneath those eyes were deep, purple bags; the face was pale, sallow. The face of someone who hadn't slept in weeks.
"Of course. My mistake," she said. "Have you spoken with your people about the remaining documents?"
"They're on their way," the man with the long, hardened face replied. "Of course, Pe--"
She flashed him a warning look.
"...Paul here won't need his, we're hoping."
"Indeed. You're a smart man, Norman. I appreciate you giving him the backup he needs." She smiled coldly. "We'll continue your training as I promised," she said, turning to the man with the scar. "You should be able to jump forward and take her back. Of course, now that things have changed so much, you'll have trouble finding her."
"No, he won't," said the pale man. All three jumped.
"I introduced him to Molly briefly before we left. He'll find her." His eyelids fluttered, and he returned to the sort of half-sleeping state he'd emerged from.
"You shouldn't use her name, Michael," the woman said significantly, frowning her disapproval.
"Ma, would you give him a break?" Norman said. "You know how hard it is for him to talk with us when he's doing crowd control. So he slipped."
"I just want to make sure we're not jeopardized by a simple slip-up," she said. "After all we've accomplished."
"We appreciate that." The man with the scar had a surprisingly gentle voice. "You have kept us on the straight and narrow all this time, Mom. We couldn't have done all this without you."
"We all played our parts," his brother said. "Here's to a better and easier life from now on."
Even Michael raised his glass. The moment the four plastic tumblers clinked, there was a sharp moment of focus for those at the diner who were watching. The scar seemed to disappear. The man called Norman, and his mother, seemed surprisingly familiar. And then the moment was over, and they faded into obscurity again, never to be remembered.
:end:
Author:
tiptoe39 Rating: PG
Inspired by an interview with a certain Heroes actor who suggested that, as is often the case in the Heroes 'verse, all is not what it seems...
There were no cameras allowed at Nathan Petrelli's press conference.
Not still cameras. Not television cameras. No recording devices. Print journalists only.
It would occur to people later on that this was unusual. Petrelli was a media-savvy guy. If he wanted to get something out there, he knew how to do it. His obsessively grinning mug had been on every bus in New York City, for Christ's sake. But somehow nobody raised a stink at the time.
"They're ready," Matt had said. And Nathan went out, almost spilled the beans on some great secret, and was shot to death.
The funeral was public and well-attended. Despite the very strong Italian Catholic inclinations of the family, it was a closed-casket funeral. There was a police escort, and Angela Petrelli was inconsolable. She had lost both her sons in such a short span of time. Now she was all alone in the world. No wonder the popular opinion was that she had snapped and started killing off the few companions remaining to her. Why the charges didn't stick was still a big mystery. The Post took to printing the worst photos of her and calling her the Black Widow of NYC.
She committed suicide several weeks later. The policemen who had been on the bridge by coincidence and seen her step over the railing could barely get out of the car before she had splashed to the dark water below. They dredged the river a thousand times looking for her body, but never found it.
And several weeks later, an electrical fire destroyed the headquarters of Primatech Paper in Odessa, Texas. Nobody ever connected it to the electrical fire at a nondescript laboratory in Brooklyn the same night, which claimed the lives of one Robert Bishop, 58, and daughter. The only survivor, a single father who lived alone with his young daughter in a shabby Queens apartment, was confused and could only mutter something about being abandoned. The mystery went unsolved.
-
The man who entered the Burnt Toast Diner in Midland the next day had a huge scar across the center of his face. It was the only thing anyone could remember about him. Even those who had caught wind of the strange conversation and craned their necks for a better view could somehow only remember that scar.
"This is it, right?" he said as he sat down. "This is all we have to do?"
"Yes," said the woman. "If everything stays the way we expect it to. And we do expect it to, right?"
"Ma, don't bug him. He's concentrating," said one of the two others. The final man was quiet. His eyes were half-closed. Beneath those eyes were deep, purple bags; the face was pale, sallow. The face of someone who hadn't slept in weeks.
"Of course. My mistake," she said. "Have you spoken with your people about the remaining documents?"
"They're on their way," the man with the long, hardened face replied. "Of course, Pe--"
She flashed him a warning look.
"...Paul here won't need his, we're hoping."
"Indeed. You're a smart man, Norman. I appreciate you giving him the backup he needs." She smiled coldly. "We'll continue your training as I promised," she said, turning to the man with the scar. "You should be able to jump forward and take her back. Of course, now that things have changed so much, you'll have trouble finding her."
"No, he won't," said the pale man. All three jumped.
"I introduced him to Molly briefly before we left. He'll find her." His eyelids fluttered, and he returned to the sort of half-sleeping state he'd emerged from.
"You shouldn't use her name, Michael," the woman said significantly, frowning her disapproval.
"Ma, would you give him a break?" Norman said. "You know how hard it is for him to talk with us when he's doing crowd control. So he slipped."
"I just want to make sure we're not jeopardized by a simple slip-up," she said. "After all we've accomplished."
"We appreciate that." The man with the scar had a surprisingly gentle voice. "You have kept us on the straight and narrow all this time, Mom. We couldn't have done all this without you."
"We all played our parts," his brother said. "Here's to a better and easier life from now on."
Even Michael raised his glass. The moment the four plastic tumblers clinked, there was a sharp moment of focus for those at the diner who were watching. The scar seemed to disappear. The man called Norman, and his mother, seemed surprisingly familiar. And then the moment was over, and they faded into obscurity again, never to be remembered.
:end: