User Profile

Background

Nathan's the eldest son of Angela Petrelli and is, by most appearances, as perfect as they come. He comes from a highly regarded family in Hyde Park, NY, and has known about wealth and entitlement all of his life. As the eldest son, there were certain demands made on him to live up to the family's name. He did this by being among the best and brightest in all of his classes in school and even became valedictorian. He was the golden child in his family, taking and keeping the majority of his parents' attention on himself and off his brother, leaving his younger brother, Peter, left to his own devices. But as shallow and self-centered as this might appear, his motive wasn't quite this: Peter was different than his family. Different in ways that Nathan firmly believed that it would hinder his brother, more than help him, if Peter received any of the attention.

After graduating high school, Nathan went on to the United States Naval Academy, in Annapolis, and joined the Navy as a pilot. He met his eventual wife, Heidi, in Annapolis. Before they were to be wed, he had a fling with a woman, Meredith, in Kermit, Texas, resulting in a child. This child was considered his folly, and happened to, a year and a half after she was born, die in a fire with her mother (of course this would later come back to bite Nathan in the ass, just at the time of his Congressional campaign.)

While in the navy, he served a tour of duty in Bosnia, Serbia and Rwanda. A little after his military career, he became a lawyer, like his father and like other members of his family, and worked in the NYC's DA's office. Nathan strongly believes in the laws that the country is governed by.

A dramatic change came into Nathan's life when both he and Heidi were in a car accident. Heidi came out of the accident paralyzed, but Nathan came with barely a scratch...thanks to the onset of his ability to fly that saved him from further damage. Right then and there, he decided to block even having any knowledge of this terrible curse. It didn't fit at all into who Nathan Petrelli was.

When his father's associate, Mr. Linderman, was going to be prosecuted by the DA, Nathan agreed with his brother to implicate their father as well...until their father died suddenly of a 'heart attack' (in all actuality, a suicide). He regretted his decision and left the DA's office. At the insistance of his mother, he soon was announcing that he would be running for Congress.

Many things occurred over the six months of Nathan's running, one was finding new levels of following his mother's wishes, such as using his own brother's failings as a means of making himself look better and needing sympathy. His brother also started talking about how they both could fly. The truth cut Nathan deeply, but he couldn't even be truthful about his powers with his brother. Everything he did, though, all of those hard decisions he had to make, it paid off: he got himself elected into Congress--just into Mr. Linderman's pocket (though he hadn't intended for that: he actually had been trying to double-cross Mr. Linderman with the help of the FBI.) A surprising change came again, one he hadn't seen: the return of the daughter he thought was dead. She actually turned out to be Peter's cheerleader, a girl who his brother claimed needed to be saved in order to save the world.

There was no time to address her properly, though, not until after everything fell into place.

After winning his election, Nathan was to face the biggest challenge he had ever known: his brother destroying NYC. Mr. Linderman spoke of a great change for good that would occur if the population was decimated. It was .07% of the world's population, a rather small number in the long run. There were times Nathan thought Linderman, as well as his own mother, had a point: things had to be changed for the good. And fear and pain could bring people together. He had seen it again and again himself, on his tour of duty and then at home in NYC. But there was something he couldn't get over: being responsible for so many deaths would kill his brother--even though his brother now had the ability to live through such a thing.

There were incidents that helped to sway his mind to deciding to go against the plots his mother and Linderman had for him, but the biggest one was when his daughter had looked at him with pure disgust and verbalized things he had only been thinking before. She was right: he couldn't let Peter be responsible nor would he be able to live with himself if he let his mother's plans reach fruition.

A little later when he and his mother were getting into a helicopter to meet Heidi and their sons in Nantucket, he hesitated. His mother both demanded and urged him to get in, but he did not. Instead, he turned his back on her and flew off, at that moment, and for the first time, not caring who saw him.

With leaving his mother behind, there really was no turning back. Luck was on his side. He came upon the scene with his brother to find his daughter attempting to do what could only be asked of him. He landed smoothly and confidently. This was his power, a part of who he was. He wasn't going to deny that to himself any longer.

He knew, as his brother knew, what needed to be done. After making sure that his brother was ready, he wrapped his arms around Peter and flew them both out into the stratosphere, going high enough to insure that the explosion his brother was going to be creating didn't affect anything. He remembered seeing some of the light, that gorgeous light, and then blacking out, to what, he assumed, would be his death.

Powers

Nathan can defy gravity by flying at great speeds--and can even break the sonic barrier. While going these great speeds, the effects of gravity and other earthly forces do not harm him nor his clothes. Even with landing, if he's on firm ground, he can land without any physical problems to him.

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