Petya! So there's a few options here, but let's go with one where Petya is happy and also is in keeping with the theme I apparently have going of bastardry. So here we go, The One Where Petya Is Actually A Bastard.

Which, if I ever wrote it, would absolutely be called Now, Gods, Stand Up For Bastards. Also I feel I should tell you that I first came up with this one while fighting with a fitted sheet. Featuring yet another husband option for Petya!

So, bastard!Petya. He had a rough first few months of life. In the main one, Therese had to give birth in the district because Tradition, but in this one, she knew she was carrying a bastard, so she wasn't giving Piotr home-field-advantage on infanticide. (In general, I assume that Therese knew how to make sure she wasn't getting pregnant with her affairs. In this case, I assume Stuff Happened.) They have paternity tests these days and Petya gets one immediately and hey, looks like there's a problem here.

Many things happen. Mostly Xav happens.

Xav and Piotr get along only long enough to win wars together and no other times, ever. And now Piotr has a bastard in his family. And Xav is never over Piotr going around killing bastards. He's not about to let him do it again. And it's also a way to get a victory over him.

Therese had taken Petya and gone to stay on the metaphorical friends couches; it's not like her family is any more happy about this. Aral's already killed her lovers, so whichever was the biodad isn't gonna step up. Xav's like, come and stay with me.

Therese had named the kid Piotr as a massive fuck you to Piotr, because if Piotr throws her out, he no longer can control what she names her son, so fuck you Piotr, I have now named a bastard after you, how do you like me now. The only thing Piotr absolutely can control is if Petya is a Vorkosigan.

Which is where Xav comes in. And where Ezar does. Because Ezar is technically in charge of House Vorbarra, what with being the Emperor. But Xav is Dorca's son and Yuri's brother and we're at like six years from the end of the war and Ezar has a limited amount of political capital to waste with Xav. Ezar does not need these problems with Xav because Piotr picked the wrong bride for his son. This is a House Vorkosigan matter and needs to stay that way. Except it is not a House Vorkosigan problem right now.

So Ezar orders Piotr to leave the boy alone.

But Xav... Xav's gonna turn the knife.

Xav tells Piotr, hey guess what, either you give that baby the Vorkosigan name, or I'm gonna adopt him and make him a Vorbarra. A Vorkosigan bastard or a Vorbarra bastard, pick one, Piotr.

Ezar is like, THIS IS NOT KEEPING THIS A HOUSE VORKOSIGAN PROBLEM, PIOTR. DON'T YOU DARE MAKE THIS MINE.

Basically, Ezar is not really in a position to tell Xav that he can't adopt a bastard and give him the Vorbarra name. He's absolutely in a position to make Piotr's life horrible, though, if this all ends up in Ezar's lap. And Piotr needs to be on Ezar's good side, especially since Aral's doing things like going around murdering people in duels.

So Ezar's angry and Piotr is infuriated and there's a tense stand off that Ezar is absolutely hating, because it's just reminding him of the limits of his power and how he got it in the first place (he is dealing with both kingmakers who hate each other and he has to be in the middle, he's probably like "and to think I'd thought I was done having to get between them after the Cetagandans retreated"), and eventually Ezar makes Piotr swallow his pride and call the kid Vorkosigan.

But he's not a Lord. He's Piotr "Petya" Vorkosigan, absolutely not Lord anything. Piotr's washed his hands of him. (The Vorrutyers could give him that title if they wanted to, which the current ones don't, but Pierre in the future thinks would be fucking hilarious to do and keeps trying to get Petya to let him. Petya refuses because then he'd be a Vorrutyer, not Vorkosigan, and he gets a lot of joy from wandering around as a Vorkosigan while knowing Piotr hates every second of it. He might be willing to be convinced after Piotr dies.)

There's also the matter of legally bastarding him, which is never fully clear to anyone if they did it, since Piotr is the type to kill bastards, not make sure they're officially disinherited through the legal system, and Aral was mostly drunk. I figure that if a kid is born within a marriage, he's legitimate by default unless his parents or other authority declare him not to be. Aral's fully in his jealous fit and killing rage, so he's not gonna claim Petya as his own, and repudiates him, it's never fully clear on if Aral could ever take it back. Because all Petya needs to be legitimate is Aral recognizing him as his father.

Aral does slowly cool off about his not!son, but it would pick a fight with his dad if he recognized Petya, and meanwhile he's navigating between fighting with his dad and his grandpa over this bastard son he didn't want, from a marriage he was happy to be rid of. He's getting a lot of pressure from Piotr about providing an actual heir, and he's no more in a hurry to do that than in canon, and meanwhile, if he doesn't, there's a somewhat-decent chance that Petya could inherit if he could get the lawyers on his side (because he was born in the marriage, and "paternity tests" are not yet a thing in established law, all it really needs is formally saying he's not the kid; and while Aral did do that, it's fully possible he didn't dot all the i's and cross all the t's, in a way that could be exploited, especially if the other claimants are less related to Aral is than Petya, who is Aral's second cousin once removed) (Padma is Aral's first cousin, so, like, Petya is not the closest relative Aral has, he'd just be the closest one who got the name Vorkosigan), and Petya does inherit about half of Xav's estate, so he's got the money for it.

It's not something that Petya himself would have any interest in (because he's mad about how Aral treated his mom) but as Aral keeps going on and on without an heir, it's not inconceivable that it could be Petya Because it amuses me that canon!Petya can't outrun rumors that he's a bastard, so too bastard!Petya still has potential to get himself legitimized if anyone had any interest in doing it, which they do not.

Because there were witnesses to the repudiation, and Therese is going around saying Aral isn't the father, and there is a paternity test... it may be reversible, but it'd be really embarrassing to Aral to try to do it. It would make more sense for Aral to say "okay he's not my son, but he's my second cousin once removed and that's good enough for me, he's my heir while not being my son" if Aral really wanted to make this right for Petya. And the longer he doesn't do that, the harder it would be for him to ever do it. And it's all moot once Miles is born.

In terms of Petya's relationship with Padma, I'm not too sure about all of it. On the one hand, Xav is raising Padma, and Padma would suddenly get a semi-brother/foster-cousin/random baby housemate out of this situation. On the other, Padma is close to Aral. So there'd be that push/pull. Padma's also ~11 or close to it, and so it's not like Aral's gonna confide in him, but he'll still understand thoroughly that Aral rejected this kid, and so family loyalty could mean that Padma rejects him, too? But Xav took him in? And Xav also took in Padma? So Padma might be torn. He might just keep it all walled off, so he doesn't mention Petya at all to Aral, and Petya grows up with no idea at all that Padma even knows Aral, until he slowly realizes that Padma and Aral are cousins and friends, and in fact, Padma and Aral actually *are* cousins, whereas Petya isn't related to Xav or Padma in any way other than general Vor family tree business (depending on who his biodad is, but anyway, Aral totally murdered that guy and it's not like that family is taking Petya in, although how amazing would it be if that was a Vorhalas relation, maybe some cousin of Rulf or whatever)

But Petya grows up pretty happily and is close with his mom and he's got enough problems being a Notorious Bastard to even think about joining the military. Petya gets to live the dream and ends up doing a history degree. He absolutely took about 10,000 potshots at Piotr in his dissertation, it was pretty great.

Otherwise, he's just generally keeping his head down. He's a rich disaffected youth who isn't on good terms with the Vorkosigans, so Serg approaches him on the theory that The Enemy Of My Enemy Is My Friend, but is rebuffed because Petya has standards. But mostly that kind of political stuff is above Petya's pay level. To anyone who doesn't know the ~~sordid history~~, Petya's some low Vor nobody in the capital, there are tons of them, he's not special.

He is, in fact, so not special that Vordarian doesn't even bother to send anyone to try to kill him, because Petya's not standing in his way at all, and Vordarian probably figures (correctly, tbf) that Therese would be perfectly happy if someone killed her ex-husband. So Padma and Alys might have found their way through the early days of the coup and knocked on Therese's door and hung out there for the duration, while Petya kept going around like nothing had changed.

Petya's goals are always very boring, but there's not much conflict there, he gets himself a nice academic career at the university and a nice ambitious husband. Who is Racozy and if you're like "Lanna, was that process of elimination of every named character who is even theoretically in the approximate age range", you are entirely correct. But Racozy either comes up entirely through the ministries or comes into the ministries from the military, so there's no reason he can't have been a civilian the entire way and worked his way into being Aral's protege. And by the time he's old enough to be noticed, Petya and Aral's cold war is barely a war; Petya just holds a grudge forever, but it's not like Racozy needs to care about that, it's not going to get in the way of it. And by the time Racozy is noticeable, that he's married to Aral's not!son isn't a problem on Aral's side of things, just an interesting trivia point. Racozy is a Bright Young Star Who Is Going Places, and is married to some low Vor academic. It's not like he wanders around saying "my father in law isn't Aral Vorkosigan".

And that's all well and good and then Piotr dies. And just about Over Piotr's Dead Body, Aral invites Petya and Racozy and their daughters to move into Vorkosigan House for a few months. Because of the scandal of it all. Because that would be a great distraction from all the other stuff, and it will help cover Miles failing out of the Academy entrance exams, and it's just a shiny scandal to attract attention so Aral can work in the background.

Petya is convinced to do it because Aral will give him access to some family documents that aren't public, and Racozy goes along with it because, look, he's a rising star in the ministry in the Regency and post-Regency, so of course he's tied to Aral even if he weren't married to Aral Vorkosigan's not!son; if Aral Vorkosigan gets toppled, then Racozy's career could be hurt, so may as well help out the boss. Plus, their house needs some work, and this way they can get it all done at once and don't have to find temporary accommodations.

Miles is a little put off by why his not!brother has just moved in, along with Petya being healthy and not a mutant, and Miles is feeling threatened. Petya basically just rolls his eyes and is like "chill, kid, your dad is not going to embarrass himself by publicly going back on his word that I'm not his son, this is a political smokescreen and I'm not involved. I just got bribed into this by shiny things that I can use to write more papers saying insults about your grandfather." Well, maybe not that last part. :P

Because absolutely one of the goads Aral used when negotiating with Piotr about moving back in with Miles was, hey, could be worse than a mutant, could be an actual bastard. And the difference between Miles and Petya is that Miles could have non-mutant kids, but Petya's never gonna stop being a bastard. Piotr picked appropriately.

Because even if Aral wanted to legitimize him in general (while keeping Miles as the heir), Petya might refuse on principle, because of his mom and the way Aral treated her? And that Aral totally murdered Petya's biodad? Which Petya doesn't necessarily care about, but it speaks to Aral's character and honor, and Petya is Vor enough to care about honor and think Aral doesn't have any. But he's not gonna go around saying the Regent doesn't have honor, especially as how that would come from the Regent's bastard. So whatever. Petya is not angling for a better relationship with Aral.

His relationship with Cordelia is pretty good, because there's never been a reason to have a bad one. Cordelia's Betan with a Betan education, what the hell does she care about bastards? And Petya's got his mom all his life, so it's not like "my mom's ex-husband's second wife" is a position that makes them related. They can encounter each other without all the messiness of Aral involved. And it's really not like that's happened a lot before now; Aral's probably seen Petya all of three times or so. It's not like their circles overlap much except for Padma, and Padma's not the type to make waves. It's entirely possible the first time Petya met Cordelia was by sheer accident when Cordelia was touring the university.

(I feel like the first time Cordelia and Therese met, Therese did put a word in Cordelia's ear about Aral's jealous rages, because isn't it just like Aral to go fishing for a bride among galactics who didn't know him at all, was he trying to take advantage of this novice, how dare you, Aral. Cordelia assures Therese that she knows about it, and Therese is like "okay, you were warned" and moves on. This was not the drama that the Countess who'd invited them both had wanted.)

Therese is bemused that Petya and Racozy are moving in for a few months as a favor to Aral, but time has dulled a lot of the anger, and, well, she did win the divorce as far as she's concerned.

A side hope that Aral had when he invited Petya and Racozy was that they'd be good influences on Miles and model "I didn't go into the military but I still have a good life" to Miles. But Miles is really focused on adventure and honor and swashbuckling, and Petya's idea of a good time is very far away from that, so I don't know if Aral gets his wish on that one. And Petya and Racozy's girls are young, around the ages of the Koudelka girls, so while that's fun for the Koudelka girls, Miles isn't that interested in hanging out with them.

But the shiny scandal does help draw attention, so good job, team. And Cordelia and Petya drag Miles around the university and Petya shoves a course catalog down his throat, and Cordelia hums a lot about astrocartography also being the family business, so Miles is aware of his other options. He just doesn't like them.

But they avert scandal! And then Petya and Racozy move out! And Petya goes back to his happy life... and then a decade or so later, Petya's not!father taps Petya's husband to be the next Prime Minister.

Petya: ...I changed my mind, I'm back to hating Aral Vorkosigan.