Arc Five. Chapter One Hundred Thirty-Two. Infiltration Station

Come on stupid thing, MJ can do this, so I can too Peter thought to himself,

“Hillo,” and he scowled and shook his head, “heylo, eye aim Peitor Perker,” and he cleared his throat again. “Heylo, aye aim Pytor Perker, and aye am luking for wurk.” and Pietro looked at him,

“Uh, what's with the shitty accent?” he asked as he munched on a bar of chocolate,

“You said they were looking for volunteers right? So without I.D and no references the best I can do is take one of those leaflets and head to a recruitment centre, from there, well, it's a work in progress.” Peter and Pietro walked down one of the almost deserted streets, leaflets advertising the New Sokovian Republic Army were blowing around in small wind funnels, whoever had meant to hand them out dumped them on the street instead and let the terrible eastern European weather distribute them through the streets.

“You, uh, think that’ll actually work? I mean, you don't exactly look like a Sokovia farmhand,” and Peter stared at him.

“Then tell me,” and as Pietro described a much scruffier rougher looking outfit, stained jeans, thick woollen hand-knitted sweater and scarf, thick duffle coat Peters clothing morphed and changed, to match his description.

“Uh, cool,” Pietro said, nodding and gave him a thumbs up. “But, I have I.D and if they match me with Wanda then uh, your ruse fails.”

“Yup,” Peter agreed, “Which is why you’re going home.” and Pietro stopped and put a hand on his chest,

“Uh, no, that's my sister, so I’m going, and well, you can’t stop me.”

Peter snorted, “Yeah, let's not have a dick measuring contest in the middle of the street, but I can. You just said it yourself, if they tie you to Wanda then all of us get caught. So this isn’t some bullshit ‘I don't want you here’ excuse, it's some ‘don’t fuck up the one plan I’ve got’ excuse. I don't care if you go home or stay here but you can't come with me.”

“Don’t you have some super cool spy stuff you can use, like a hidden microphone or a laser pen?” and Peter shook his head,

“See, I told Nat I needed stuff like that but no, spies don't get cool stuff, it's all boring stuff like phones and guns.”

“Really?” Pietro said and they both sighed at the same time, looked at each other and laughed,

“sucks,” they both said and laughing Pietro said, “Jinx,” and punched Peter in the arm, “fuck dude, what the hell are you made from?” he said rubbing his hand and waving it in the air.

“Badassium,” Peter said, grinning while Pietro rolled his eyes,

“Fatassium more like,” and Pietro laughed at his own joke while Peter shook his head and snorted 

“better than dumbassium, which is what you’re made from.”

“Ahem.” a voice from behind them cleared its throat and as Peter and Pietro turned, a pair of uniformed men were stood staring at the pair as they argued. One holding up a flashlight he shone in Peter’s face with the other kept a hand on the holstered pistol by his side. Peter noticed the first man also had a machine gun slung over his shoulder and that these were the people he was looking for. No patches, name tags, or numbers to identify them, the locals probably knew the uniform well enough to avoid them.

“Uh, hi.“ Peter smiled.

“Papers, and would you like to explain why you are breaking curfew?” one of the men asked as his partner kept a hand on his gun,

“Uh, we didn't know and we got lost looking for the recruitment office, uh sir?” Peter said, hoping his ass-kissing would stop them from being arrested.

The officer raised an eyebrow, “recruitment, at 7 o'clock in the evening?” and looked over to his partner who unholstered his pistol. “I think you need a better lie than that.” and Pietro vanished in a cloud of dust, leaving Peter stood there staring at the two shocked men,

Asshole Peter thought as the first officer also drew his pistol. Unwilling to draw even more attention to himself Peter raised both arms, “I did not know he could do that,” he complained as the officers kept their guns drawn on him.

“Put those on.” The first officer threw a pair of really crappy handcuffs at Peter, the simple click-lock cuffs were barely tight enough to hold his wrist together and seemed like cheap replicas rather than real police cuffs.

Peter clicked the flimsy chain cuffs to his wrist and once he had both hands clamped the officer came forwards and tightened them, smirking as he pinched the skin on Peter's wrists, but as he was covered in a thin layer of symbskin Peter just stared at him unamused by the apparent bully. 

The second officer waved his pistol, “to the station,” and he was bundled into the back of a rank smelling police car, stale cigarettes and cheap alcohol permeated the front and leaked into the back, and Peter had to form filters over his mouth and nose to stop himself from gagging.

“Hey America, money?” and as Peter shook his head the officer tutted, “then we do this the hard way. Got family? Someone we can call to arrange, ah, your booking fee?“ He asked and as Peter shook his head he cursed and thumped the back of the headrest. “You listen American, a kid like you eh, all alone, you got money to come here, you got money to get home, so let us do our job and you stay unhurt okay?” and Peter shrugged.

He had hoped that they would take him to a police station and from there he could find out where Wanda was being held, but it seemed he was just being shaken down by two petty criminals. If he wanted them to arrest him, then.

“Hey, you can’t do this, I'm an American citizen you know,” Peter complained loudly, but the two men continued to talk, “Hey, I'm talking” and as he kicked the back of the man's seat he turned and rested a pistol on the headrest,

“Hey, American, passport? Money?” and Peter shook his head, “then shut up, til we process you, or,” and he tapped the gun on the side on the headrest. “You Americans like guns huh? I show you my gun, get you a real good look at it okay?” and he pulled back the hammer and Peter’s eyes fell to the floor. “Yeah, that's what I thought, big and loud but no balls,” and as he said something else in Sokovian his partner laughed but Peter sneered, yeah yeah laugh it up, if I didn't need to find your headquarters, I’d let you get up close and personal with that stupid thing. and Peter leaned back as the officer clicked the safety off on the pistol he was holding. 

Peter felt the man's anger, but he felt he was expecting him to talk tough, if he backed down the men would take more delight in beating him, or worse and while he could take it, it would blow his cover. The arrogant, rich stupid American was a stereotype these men expected, and both would take sadistic glee in breaking him and making him bleed. Playing on that and hoping that practising with MJ was enough, he could use it against them.

“Yeah, tough guy, how about we ventilate you a bit, eh, the cost just doubled, and accidents happen,” the man spoke something that Peter had no idea what it was, the thick eastern European accent hard enough to decipher but as his foreign language skills were abysmal it made no difference,

“My dads a senator, you touch me and I’ll sue. I’ll get him to turn you into a fucking traffic cop, shitty fucking country with its shitty fucking hick assholes,” and Peter kicked the back of his seat again.

“Listen, shithead, we kill you and dump you somewhere if you don't shut that mouth of yours,“ and Peter figured that was enough, any more and he risked them following through with their threats and he would have to do something they would regret,

“Hey, it was a mistake okay, so uh, don't, please don't,” he tried to sound scared. “I uh, got mugged, I don't have any money, they stole my clothes and left me these. If you take to the embassy I can get the money, please, just don't. That asshole, he uh, he was taking me to get more money, he stole my wallet, please, just, don’t.”

The officer snorted, “station, so we can process this young man and make sure he pays his fine, maybe he won't have an accident on the way there. If he shut his mouth huh?” and his partner laughed.

Peter leant back in the car trying to look as dejected as possible and staying silent, staring at his hands and he rubbed them together. The two in the front began to ignore him, talking in a language he didn’t understand but he could guess from their laughter that it was probably about getting a rich kid and robbing him.

Everything was going according to plan, if these two delivered him even to a small substation from there he should be able to gain access to their computer system and fuck he swore in his mind, that fucking speedy bastard. He had no idea what Wanda looked like, she could be a giant blonde amazon for all he knew, even if she took after Erik, Pietro had silver hair, was hers silver too? or normal. aww shit, he cursed again.

Seeing the look of annoyance on his face the officer keeping an eye on Peter in the rearview mirror snorted to himself, stupid American he thought as if we wouldn’t know who you were. Peter hadn't given the local authorities any credit. Of course, they knew any strange people coming into town would probably be connected to the jet that invaded their airspace and an alert had been issued to all the police stations, local and rural. 

Peter kept the smile off his face as the man's thought reached him, it didn’t matter if they knew who he was, it only added to the fact that Shield was up to something here, and even without Nat’s help he would figure it out.

They didn’t have a picture but his bad accent and clothing, ignorance of local laws and bad acting towards the officers pegged him as an outsider to anyone who lived in Sokovia for any length of time.

Even if he wasn’t anything to do with the downed jet, it wouldn't matter. With the ramp up in ‘recruitment’, another body wouldn't be missed and their boss always gave out bonuses to those who met their targets. The girl had gotten them several hundred cigarettes and a dozen bottles of smuggled good scotch, better than the cheap vodka that was probably more gasoline than alcohol anyway.

As the pair manhandled Peter into the rundown but at least waterproof station a camera swung round and caught a good image of his face. Trying to avoid looking at it, Peter could tell just from the noise that it was a high tech digital model, a stark contrast to the shit heap office they dragged him through. His phone with more processing power could run most of the office equipment here than the faded yellow, nicotine-stained PC that sat whirring in the corner.

Even the jail cell they threw him in was like something out of a medieval movie rather than a prison. Thick bars, coated with years of paint, seemed more rust than actual iron and the bucket in the corner let him know that he would be lucky to not die of dysentery if the food didn't kill him first.

Taking a good look around and stretching out with his other senses he could feel that this was just a small police station, only a few officers on the floor he was in but a larger office was hidden through some doors. He could hear several high-end PC’s whirring and the chatter of a radio operator, reporting his capture and possible involvement with the jet.

It was several hours before anyone came for him and when they did he squinted a the young woman who approached him, her hands seemingly covered in red sparkling gloves. Crackling with power, he could smell the ozone and as his vision blurred he stared at her,

“Nat?”