Mercy

Considering he was on the run, Peter hadn’t experienced airports all that much in his life, usually sticking to more low-key methods of travel, which was why, upon arrival at Heathrow airport, he very nearly turned around and walked right back out again.  

The place was practically thrumming with the number of people in there, hurrying back and forth, phones and plane tickets in hand, bumping shoulders with anyone and everyone. Peter hated it. As he stalked his way through the throng of people at the main entrance, glancing up every now and again to make a note of security camera locations, he cringed at every skim of human contact he felt, whether it was a slight brush of a jacket on his, or a hand forcefully pushing him out of the way.  

Peter let out a little puff of air from his nose each time it happened, his exasperation not once showing anywhere on his face except his eyes, but his agitation was clearly growing. It festered in his chest, and he wanted nothing more than to take out a weapon, a dagger perhaps, and slide it into the fifth intercostal space, effectively silencing anyone who dared come near him.  

He didn’t of course. It would draw way too much attention, and he was not about to deal with becoming a fugitive as well as a runaway; that would take so much energy that, in all honesty, Peter didn’t have. 

So, he was stuck dodging his way through groups milling around in the airport, the harsh lines of their faces only accentuated by the austere, white lights that flickered dangerously every five seconds. While they were seriously beginning to get on Peter’s nerves, they were the only source of light - the sun was a late riser, struggling to make its climb up the horizon.  

Peter finally broke out of a particularly large, loud crowd, and emerged by one of the huge windows. By the look of the quickly greying sky, he assumed that it was going to be typical British day: cold, wet, and miserable. In a way, it made him grateful that he was leaving, as the empty light of the airport reflected off the grey-speckled flooring and, as predicted, a smattering of icy rain hit the glass. Thankful he had arrived before he had been caught in the rain, Peter delved back into the sea of bodies, desperately searching for some kind of official-looking desk where he could finally buy a ticket out of his both literal and metaphorical hell. 

“Hi honey, are you lost?” A sickly-sweet voice interrupted his search. He spun around as a gentle hand landed on his shoulder and eyed the woman who was smiling at him expectantly, her uniform indicating that she was indeed the answer to all his prayers - airport security.  

For a second too long, Peter’s brain bluescreened, any and all knowledge of the English language flung out of his brain unceremoniously by a fun cocktail of sleep deprivation, starvation and panic.  

He gaped at the woman, and her concerned stare turned soft, hands coming up to sign slowly, Can you sign? 

Oh, thank God, Peter thought - he had never been so thankful for a misinterpretation of silence in his life, and the languages teacher that had practically beaten his knowledge into him. He nodded enthusiastically, rapidly signing something along the lines of, Yes, actually, do you know where I could buy a plane ticket to New York? 

The woman gave him a strange look, and Peter chose to ignore it – so what if his signing is a bit sloppy – and pointed in the direction of a group of desks. Before she could even lift her hands to sign anything else, Peter was already hurrying across the terrazzo floor, quickly signing his thanks to the woman.  

“Well, that was the most awkward encounter I’ve had in my life.” He mumbles to himself, before plastering on a wide, and extremely fake smile for the person at the desk, who was clicking away at their computer, head in their hand. They flicked their bored eyes up at him and sighed dramatically. Peter internally sighed right back – he was going to hate this, wasn’t he? 

“What do you want?” They asked, already yawning loudly, and stretching out their stiff limbs, like a cat lounging under the sun rather than an employee in the workplace.  

“A one-way ticket to JFK airport,” Peter, through gritted teeth, remembered his manners, “Please.” 

They looked him up and down, clearly judging his dark hoodie and jeans, and Peter grew even more irritated – he was on the run for God’s sake! Not that the desk person knew that, but still. Clearing his throat, Peter gestured with his head as if to say, get on with it then, and they rolled their eyes, clicking away at the computer, nails clacking against the keyboard.  

Peter stood in an awkward silence as he waited, hands stuffed deep into his pockets as his mind wandered slightly. He supposed he did look a tad odd, booking a one-way ticket to New York with nothing but the clothes on his back and a somewhat manic look in his eyes, but personally he didn’t think it warranted such judgmental stares.  

“Okay,” the person said, snapping Peter back to the issue at hand, “Here you go.” 

They handed him the ticket marginally hesitantly, and when Peter just stood there for a moment, gripping the piece of paper tightly, they raised their eyebrows and gave him a pitiful look, pointing down a long corridor. 

“Head that way, and remember you need your passport for boarding.” 

They spoke slowly, as if to a child, and it hit Peter like a train that he didn’t have a passport. Nodding his thanks at the person, he walked towards the corridor, scanning the faces of everyone around him who looked at least a little similar to him.  

A guy with dark eyes and curly brown hair came out of the toilets at the side of the corridor as Peter swept his gaze across the plethora of people – almost an exact look-alike in fact. The man wiped his hands on his trousers, and headed the same way as the crowd, with Peter right on his tail, reaching a hand towards his prize.  

With no small amount of effort, the man’s passport was swiped off his person and safely into Peter’s pocket, ready to be presented at the boarding gate. Backing into the shadow of a pillar in the corner, Peter took out the small blue document and squinted at the picture. It was small enough that at a glance it looked enough like him for the lazy security to just let him through, but his issue wasn’t with the photo, no, not at all - but the name? That was a problem for him. 

“What kind of surname is Holland?” He asked to no one in particular, scrutinising the ink on the passport with narrowed eyes. The first name wasn’t so bad, if not a little bland, but Holland? Seriously?  

The chiming of the intercom was enough to dispel enough of Peter’s disbelief filled monologue, and he joined the stream of people heading towards the gate like salmon swimming upstream. While the experience as a whole was a solid one star out of five, Peter was too distracted by the concept of freedom to care about being shoulder to shoulder with a bunch of strangers. Although, in the back of his mind, a small part of him was still screaming at him to just stab some people and get it over with. He resisted the urge to commit mass homicide, of course, and almost grinned in relief when the plane came into sight.  

There it was. 

Freedom. 

First thing about New York City – it’s a fucking nightmare.  

Peter, of course, learned this the hard way, stumbling through streets upon streets of people, the realisation that he had absolutely nowhere to go on the forefront of his racing mind. In hindsight, Peter should’ve really done some research into the city before going through all the effort of stealing some guy’s passport (he still wasn’t over the name) and boarding a plane to get there. But of course, hindsight is a wonderful thing.  

Skyscrapers felt like mountains around him as he weaved through them, trying to find some semblance of direction and purpose. He saw a couple of tourists with maps near a pizza place down the street he was on, and he wanted desperately to ask them if he could borrow it for a few minutes, but his pride got the better of him, leaving him to continue to wander aimlessly. There were a few times, however, that a flash of something struck him across the face, and strangely, it felt like familiarity, as if he had walked the very path he was walking before, just as disorientated as he was currently. 

That couldn’t be the case of course – while he had been many places with HYDRA, for missions and training exercises, he was fairly certain that he had never been to this particular part of the States. Surely if he had he would remember it, right? 

Peter’s uncertainty only made his head grow heavy, aching as though he had been punched in the jaw. The endless sidewalk seemed to mock him as he picked up his pace, shoving through hordes of pedestrians blocking his path. He needed to get out of the crowds, now. 

A conspicuous looking alleyway welcomed him like he was coming home as he ducked into it, and he was well-acquainted with the feeling of rough brickwork against his palms. As he took some steadying breaths, the oxygen making his head spin, Peter was struck with an odd emotion. It swelled in his chest, and his vision blurred with an abrupt onslaught of tears that dripped down his cheeks and landed with a small slap on the ground. The very presence of the tears caused his chest to tighten, and he spun around, back now to the wall, and clutched the front of his hoodie with slim fingers. 

“What the hell is going on?” He whispered to himself, willing the waterworks to cease. It seriously wasn’t like him to get emotional – that had been trained out of him a long time ago, but perhaps with the absence of a handler in his life, hovering over his shoulder constantly, his mind was finally allowing him to release some of the emotional pressure that had been building up for years.  

Now, that realisation was scary. He was completely alone, a boat lost in the ocean, traversing tumultuous tides with nothing but a splintering paddle, crying out for help with only thunder echoing back its laughter. He had nothing to fall back on: HYDRA was out to kill him, anyone who had shown him kindness was dead, and the small amount of family he had – his mother – was also dead.  

Freedom had never seemed so lonely.