Another important chapter, although it's really another transitional chapter. The next three chapters after this will conclude the story with a healthy dose of action. Thanks for the reviews and comments. I've got a Lance-centric one-shot sitting on my computer waiting for completion; after this story wraps up I'll probably post that, if anyone's interested.

Disclaimer: I don't own X-Men: Evolution and I'm sure as hell not making any profit off of this.

My License to Kill

-

He didn't know what to do, but that was nothing new. When he was eight, he'd stumbled into the garage as his dad was working on the old station wagon that sometimes one of his parents would drive after having a six-pack of beer and a joint or two.

"Whatcha doing?"

His old man pushed out from under the car and looked at him. Dominic Petros was tall and athletic, with big shoulders left over from his days as a high school fullback. He kept his raven hair short and cropped, and he kept himself clean-shaven on the days that he actually remembered to shave. His eyes were piercing, and he had the unique ability to make his son feel puny and small, like a bug about to be stepped on by an indifferent sixth grader in the school playground.

"I'm working on the car." Dominic was from Crete, but he'd moved to New York when he was four years old, and he had inherited not the accent of his parents but the accent of his fellow citizens. "Do you want to see? You can help."

"Okay."

"First, can you grab the toolbox? I'm going to need to swap out in a second."

Lance lifted the large black box and jumped down the stairs. He set it down next to his father and waited.

"The tires are dirty," he blurted out.

Dominic laughed. "Yeah, they are. You can help me clean them later if you want."

"Okay."

Dominic pushed back under the car and disappeared. Lance stood, unsure what to do, and unwilling to do anything that might aggravate his father.

After a while Dominic cursed.

"Damn it! Stupid…" A grunt. "Can you hand me the Phillips-head?"

Lance opened the tool box and looked around. "Uh…"

"The Phillips-head."

He knew it was no good asking what a Phillips-head was, so he just grabbed a long screw and placed it in his father's outstretched hand. Dominic's fingers ran over the grooves of the screw, and he pushed out from under the car.

"Does this look like a Phillips-head to you?" he'd growled. "God damn it, you don't know anything, do you? Do you ever know what to do?"

Tears began to sting his eyes, and he was far too smart to cry in front of Dominic. His father retrieved a pack of Marlboros from his pocket and paid no more attention to his son.

"Go cry to your mother." A small flame rose from the lighter. "You know I don't want to see your blubbering."

Now, more than thirteen years later, Lance felt like that eight-year-old kid, alone and disappointed with no idea what to do next. He knew he was just wallowing in his own pity, but his whole life was one letdown after another, and nothing he did ever seemed to do anything to stop – or hell, even slow down – that cycle.

He didn't bother watching her walk away. He didn't need to watch to know she was gone, probably for good, and that was the end of that. Once again he'd screwed himself over.

"Hey! Rockhead!"

If there was anything that could've possibly gotten his attention in that moment of self-pity and self-loathing, it was an angry Canadian with an adamantium skeleton swiftly walking up to him with long menacing strides.

"Oh Jesus," Lance muttered, wondering if he should call the rest of the guys and say goodbye. To Wanda I give my stress ball… to Fred I give my half-eaten sandwich in the refrigerator… to Todd I give my bar of soap… to Pietro I give my stash of sugar-free gum… and to Pyro I give nothing, the crazy bastard.

"Yeah, you'd better say your prayers!" Wolverine growled. He grabbed Lance by the collar of his shirt and pushed him against a tree. "Just what the hell do you think you're doin'? I don't know what exactly you did, Alvers, but I don't appreciate punks like you makin' my students cry, okay?"

"I didn't –" Lance struggled for breath as Wolverine's forearm pressed into his throat "– I didn't want to make her cry. I'm not in great mood myself, you know?"

"Really?" Lance grimaced as Wolverine pulled him away from the tree and tossed him to the ground. It was only some slight comfort to know that the X-Man could have been a lot rougher if he'd wanted to really hurt him. "Why don't you tell me about it."

It was a command, not a question. Several months under Nick Fury had taught Lance how to take orders, even if he sometimes grumbled about them under his breath.

"All right? You want to know what happened?" Lance unsteadily got to his feet and dusted off his S.H.I.E.L.D.-issued pants in a vain attempt to preserve some shred of his dignity. "Your girl came and accosted me for being late to this stupid party, ignoring the fact that I'd just been risking my ass on some dangerous mission to God-knows-where for our noble government. So I guess I got kinda irritated at her."

Wolverine was unimpressed. "And that's it. Nothing else."

"That was the gist of it, yeah."

"Alvers, I've been dealing with punks like you before you were even a twinkle in your mommy and daddy's eyes. Long before that, actually. Don't try to lie with me. Even my students have trouble doing that. I should know, Kitty lies to me nearly every time she's going out for a date with you."

"Well, don't worry about that. I don't think we're going on many more dates after this."

"Probably not." Well, it may not have been what Lance wanted to hear, but at least Wolverine was honest. "But if you don't tell me right now, so help me God, Rocky, I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to control myself. I've got a nasty little temper."

"I'm telling you the truth, you ass –"

Snikt.

"Really?" asked Wolverine as he held up a fist, his claws glittering in the moonlight. "Well excuse me if I just want to make sure. One last time, kid. What the hell happened?"

"All right, I'll tell you! Just put away the freaking claws already."

"Fair enough."

With another metallic noise the claws retracted, and Lance let out a deep breath. He hadn't noticed that he'd backed up against a tree in his nervousness.

"So."

"All right, all right. Anyways, we had a really bad mission. Really terrible. Our intel was shit, the alarms weren't taken out, and the place we were raiding had a lot more people than we thought they did. Mutants, too. So it just becomes a complete crapshoot, bullets are flying everywhere, Todd's hit, and we all think we're going to die. We're lucky to get out of there alive."

"So you had a bad mission. It happens. There's something you're not telling me."

"Jesus, I'm not even lying! Human lie detectors I can deal with. How can you tell I'm not telling you something? I thought X and Grey were the only telepaths around here."

"Don't need to be a telepath," Wolverine said. "It's all in your face. I hope you don't end up on some mission that requires you to lie a bunch or fabricate an identity. You're way too uptight. Any decent security would have you in a second. You'd be bleeding from every hole in your body, and they'd make a few more just to be safe."

"Ugh, that's disgusting, man."

"It's true. I've seen it before."

"I really didn't need to know that," Lance replied, ignoring the new sickness in his stomach. "But we've had some of those missions and I've done fine."

Again, Wolverine was unimpressed. Tough crowd. "You haven't gone up against the best yet. You'll get your ass whipped when you do."

"Thanks."

"Just being honest." Wolverine shifted his weight back on his heels and crossed his arms, but his eyes stayed on Lance. "Stop stalling. Tell me what happened."

"Okay." Lance, who had been avoiding the gaze of the older man for so long, found Wolverine's eyes and stared into them, almost defiantly. "Can I ask you something? How many people have you killed?"

To his surprise, Wolverine answered, "Enough. Why?"

"Do you remember your first kill?"

"Huh." Wolverine observed him for several seconds, as if looking for something, but eventually looked away, and Lance couldn't tell if he found what he was looking for. "To be honest, I've had some memory problems. I'm… a little older than I look, to put it bluntly, and the further back I go the foggier it gets. But I remember some of my first kills. I was in the army for a while. At the beginning I was real hesitant, didn't want to hurt anyone, but after a while I realized it was necessary. Sometimes you lose control of yourself and you kill when you shouldn't. I've done that. Now I try to keep my cool, avoid lethal damage, but you can't always avoid it. I don't remember my first kill, but I know the feeling."

"The feeling?" Lance asked. His throat was dry.

"The guilt. After it's done you realize that you've just ended someone's life, that that person's never coming back. You start thinking about their family and their friends. You wonder if they had a mom and dad, or if they had a baby girl at home." Wolverine's face is nearly indiscernible in the darkness. "And the guilt leads to doubt. You start wonderin' if maybe you made a mistake. You start askin' yourself if maybe there was another way. You start thinking that you were a little too trigger-happy."

"Do you ever think that maybe it isn't necessary at all? That it's always a mistake?"

"Of course. But I always end up deciding that there are times when it's the only option. If someone's threatening your life or the lives of your friends and family. There have been times where I've killed and it was because I was told to, or because I thought it would make a positive impact on the world. I've stopped that. It's a last measure, I think, but there's no doubt in my mind that sometimes it's necessary." Wolverine let out a bitter laugh, and Lance thought it might have been the most disturbing sound he'd ever heard. "But look at me. I was born to be a killer. I might be a little biased in my thinking."

"Yeah."

The humor vanished from the air. "So. You killed someone."

"Yeah." Lance tried to swallow the lump in his throat, but it just wouldn't go away. "He was standing over me with a shotgun and just looking at me and I shot him straight in the nose. He was dead before he hit the ground."

"It sounds like it was pretty necessary to me. Either you kill him or he kills you."

"Yeah, but then I wonder if I could've avoided it. I wonder if maybe I hadn't been so stupid, then maybe I wouldn't have been in that situation at all, and maybe neither of us would've had to end up dead. I can't help thinking that there's parents out there waiting for their son to call but he can't because some punk kid from New York shot his nose off."

"The doubt," said Wolverine. "God, do I know the doubt. But it's good that you're doubting, Rocky. You need to learn from this one screwed-up mission. Listen, you all are a bunch of kids, you're going to make mistakes. Especially in life-or-death situations. You need to learn from this mission. You need to learn how next time you can be better prepared, or how your team can be better prepared, so you don't have to kill someone to save your own life. I know it seems like a lot to deal with, but it's the only thing you can do. S.H.I.E.L.D… I don't always agree with Fury and his lackeys, but I think they're doing a bunch of good on the whole, even if they do some bad too. You and your friends need to learn from each mission, or else you may end up carrying someone home in a body bag. I should know. I've seen friends die in front of me."

Lance didn't know what to say. He could only listen.

"You need to learn all this stuff, but you can't become – what's the word? – desensitized. You need to be efficient and objective during this missions, but you also can't do that and lose who you are as a person. There are times where I was nothing but a killing machine. I was Wolverine, and it got to the point where I nearly ended up killing Logan. You can't do that. You gotta want to be the best not out of some selfish desire… you've got to want to be the best because if you're that much better, that's another life saved. You get where I'm goin'?"

"Yeah, I get where you're going," Lance replied, finally. "You sound like you've thought about this a lot."

"Ain't that the truth. I'm pretty much the world's foremost expert on death and killing. Of course, I don't tell any of the parents that when they come to visit their kids."

Lance chuckled. "Yeah."

"Yeah. I think I've got a better idea of what happened, but let me just get this straight." Wolverine continued the interrogation, but Lance did not feel as uncomfortable for some reason. This whole conversation had humanized Wolverine in a way. "You came back from a shitty mission where you'd had your first kill. Kitty gets on you for being late, you snap. You probably say something stupid."

"I asked her not to go to college."

"Shit, you really did say something stupid," breathed the older mutant. "Well, anyway, she can't deal with that, and she runs off in tears."

"Pretty much."

"Did you tell her about the mission?"

"Yeah."

"Yeah, well… Kitty's never been in that situation," said Wolverine. "I'm not excusing what you said, because it was pretty damn dumb, but she's never felt the guilt before. I have. I understand that a little better. I know it's hard, but you can't expect her to understand. You gotta tell her you're sorry."

"No," Lance said, some of his anger returning. "Thanks and all, but you can't understand all of it. She's just going to leave anyways. It's better this way. This way it won't be as bad saying goodbye."

"Because you won't have to say goodbye at all. Since you won't be on speaking terms at all."

"I guess you could put it that way."

"Whatever." Wolverine sighed and shook his head. "Chuck and I have had our disagreements, but we both agree the best way to learn is through experience, and if you want to be an idiot, I'm going to let you. Eventually you'll get it through your thick skull what an asshole you're being, and maybe Kitty will realize that she didn't handle things all that great either."

"And then there will be world peace and we'll all hold hands and sing 'Kumbaya'," said Lance with dark humor.

"Yeah, that's exactly where I was goin', kid," Wolverine grunted. "Whatever. It's been a good talk, even if you're an idiot. I understand you a little better now, and I don't think you're a complete punk. But you've got a lot to learn."

"I guess." Lance placed his hand on the back of his neck, breaking eye contact with the elder mutant. "Thanks, Wolverine. I kinda didn't expect such a, um, civil talk, but I think this will help me deal with everything."

"No problem, Alvers. If you ever decide to stop being an idiot, gimme a call. We can go out for a drink to celebrate." Wolverine stopped. "You are twenty-one, right?"

Lance laughed. "Yeah, I am. But that sounds great. Don't count on it, but it sounds good to me."

"Good." Wolverine held up one hand in a half-salute. "I'll see you later, Rocky."

"Later."

Wolverine turned and walked away towards the house. This time Lance watched.

-

On Sunday morning Lance was awoken by the sound of the TV blaring and the slamming of the hotel door. Instinctively his hand reached for his gun, which was in its holster on his belt, and he always kept his belt right by his bed.

"Ease off, buddy, I know you've got your gun already." His hand eased when he heard Pietro's voice. "Paranoid lunatic. I just wanted to tell you it's time to get up."

"Ugh." Lance rolled over on his back and rubbed his eyes with his hands. "What time is it? Where've you been?"

"It's nine, so you probably need to get up and start moving if we want to get to the club by eleven. And I've been working out."

"You've been what?"

"Working out," said Pietro again.

Lance laughed and sat up in his bed. "Well now I'm awake. What'd you do? Pump iron?"

"I ran on the treadmill."

"You're kidding me."

"Backwards."

"How was it?"

"Boring," admitted Pietro. "Even backwards the highest speed feels like I'm running through a bunch of jello. I don't think there's really a difference between forwards and backwards, honestly. But then I swam."

"You do look a little wet," Lance noted. "But wasn't that just as boring?"

"For the most part. At one point there was no one in the pool, so I was able to go a little faster."

"How fast?" Lance asked.

Pietro grinned. "Fast enough. Next time we're in Europe, though, I want to try to swim the English Channel in ten minutes."

"Wow." Lance let out a low whistle. "That's pretty damn good. What about your hair, though? Didn't the water disrupt the delicate gel balance? It's not looking very perky today."

"Don't worry, I brought my gel, pal. I've always got gel handy. The ladies –"

"Dude, stop talking about the ladies."

"The ladies love the gel."

"Whatever, man."

Lance grabbed a pair of pants and began the haphazard process of sticking his legs through the legs. Pietro began to fiddle with the TV, and by the time Lance was dressed Pietro had been through every channel three times trying to find something worth watching.

"Just leave it on something, will you?"

"Nothing good on," Pietro moped. It was a stock market advice program, so Lance had to agree. "You ready to go eat breakfast?"

"Yeah, yeah, just let me get my right shoe on."

They took the elevator down and ate a quick (though terribly slow by Pietro's standards) breakfast, and they headed back upstairs to relax and make their final preparations. Pietro was going over one of the files when Lance's cell phone began to ring, interrupting the sports highlights show he was half-heartedly watching.

"Hello?"

"Alvers, this is Drew."

"Oh, hello, Drew." This caught Pietro's attention. "How's it going?"

"I'm just calling to make sure everything's in order for the Hellfire Club mission."

"Yeah, everything's good."

"Everything's great," Pietro said loudly.

"That's what I wanted to hear. Anyways, I just wanted to double-check and make sure that you both know that you are permitted to use lethal force if necessary, but we're trying to make this a clean infiltration. Still, I'm hearing bad things about this, and I'm thinking this mission may be more dangerous than it seems."

Lance sat back against the headrest of the bed. "Really?"

"Yes," said Drew on the other end. "I know your powers may seem somewhat useless in this situation, but there may come a time where we authorize using any means necessary to escape the Club, even if it means bringing it down. I'm hoping it doesn't come to that, but it may."

"Thanks for the pointers, but I think we'll be all right."

"I hope so." He thought he heard Drew sneeze. "Good luck, Alvers."

She hung up.

"What'd she say?" Pietro asked.

"That we've got a license to kill, pretty much," said Lance as he put the phone in his pocket. "To quote the badass James Bond movie that came on TV a few days ago."

"We already knew that. I could've sworn Fury said something about it in the debriefing."

"Yeah, not that it matters. If I've got a choice between getting my head blown off or blowing someone else's head off and ignoring protocol, then I'm going to say to hell with S.H.I.E.L.D. protocol. I'm not gonna get myself killed because I'm too scared to piss off some high-level bureaucrat."

"I knew there was a reason I liked you."

Lance didn't elaborate on his feelings about killing in the line of duty. For the most part he'd been pretty honest. "She also told me I'm cleared to bring the place down if that's the only way we can get out of there. I think she thinks we may be getting in a little over our heads."

"Psh, we'll be fine. Who does she think we are? We're the best task force S.H.I.E.L.D. has got."

"No we're not."

"Doesn't matter. We're the best mutant task force they've got, anyways."

"We're the only mutant task force they've got."

"Doesn't matter," Pietro said again. As usual, Pietro's self-confidence openly defied all logic or reason. "We're still going to go in there and kick someone's ass if they try to mess with us."

"Now that I can agree with." Lance chewed a toothpick in his mouth. "Huh. I think Fury told me not to use my powers and to try to avoid lethal force, now that I think about it. I dunno what advice to follow."

"Well, Drew's hotter than Fury," said Pietro, and that settled that.

Lance read over the file again, although he thought he'd pretty much memorized it by now, and even if he hadn't, Pietro surely had. Laziness probably wasn't becoming of a member – and, arguably, the true leader – of an elite government agency, but he was tired, and he'd be fine once they actually got going. Whenever that was going to be.

"We need to go," Pietro said halfway through an airing of Lethal Weapon on TV. "We don't want to be late."

"Yeah yeah yeah." Lance threw his legs over the side of the bed and pushed himself to his feet. "I'm ready, let's go."

The elevator was crowded, and Lance was wedged between someone that only could have been a football lineman and someone playing a Game Boy. The machine would make annoying synthesized noises whenever the boy did particularly well, and by the time they reached the ground floor Lance was seriously fighting the urge to grab the damned handheld device and smash it into the glass of the elevator.

After finally escaping from the stifling confines of the elevator, the pair headed outside and hailed a cab. Just as he was about to get in Lance swore as he remembered something.

"Shit, I forgot my wallet," he breathed. "I left it on the sink."

"Do you really need it?" Pietro asked with his usual impatience.

"Yeah, it's got my I.D. Hang on one sec, I'll be right back."

He ignored the elevator and instead took the stairwell, hopping up two steps at a time. By the time he actually got to their floor he was beginning to breathe heavily. I really need to work out more, he thought as he slipped in the key card and pushed open the door. Sure enough, his wallet was right next to the sink. He grabbed it and headed out, this time taking the elevator. He could work out later.

The cab was waiting for him when he exited the hotel. Pietro had an odd look on his face as Lance crawled in the backseat.

"What is it?" he asked.

"What's what?" countered Pietro.

"You've got a look on your face. Like there's something you're not telling me."

"Stop being so paranoid," was all Pietro had to offer on the subject. Lance decided to drop it. Whatever it was, he really didn't want to know. It would probably only irritate him.

They arrived at the Club, and Lance paid the cabbie. The stairs were even busier than they had been the day before, and it struck Lance just how much the Hellfire Club looked like a church. A weird, occult-like, demonic church praising wealth and capitalism, but a church nonetheless.

"Okay," said Pietro. "Inducers on."

Lance pressed the button on his watch and his appearance changed, just enough to mask his identity. No one around them noticed the switch, and the two climbed the steps in peace. They waved to the man at the register, who didn't pay them much mind, and they headed to one of the elevators. The steel door slid open, and for the second time in as many days Lance found himself jabbing the 'U' button with his thumb.

They exited the elevator. The hostess from the day before was at her post, and Lance shot her a roguish grin.

"What's up, blondie?"

"Nothing much, mullet-head," she retorted, earning a laugh from Pietro.

"I like this girl!"

"It's not a mullet," said Lance, still grinning. "It just looks that way 'cause it's pushed back on the sides. Anyway, you know what we're supposed to do?"

"They're all setting up. I don't know. You should probably ask Kine."

"Just hang around and help out anyone if they ask," said Kine when the two approached him. He patted Pietro on the back. "I like you kids. I'm going to have fun training you two tomorrow."

Pietro smiled the fakest smile Lance had ever seen. "I can't wait, sir."

"Wayne," chuckled Kine, "you crack me up."

Again Lance felt that peculiar feeling in his fingertips – extreme joy, and then nothing.

After Pietro had sucked up sufficiently, Kine left them. Lance looked at his friend and asked, "Did you feel that?"

"The sudden happy feeling?" Pietro clarified. "Yeah, I did. Second time that's happened, too. You don't think…"

"Fury said some of them are probably mutants," Lance said, almost whispering. "I dunno. What do you think his power is?"

"Controlling feelings? I don't know. Whatever it is, it's freaking me out. I hate telepaths. Don't tell anyone, but I always hated fighting Grey. I hate the thought that she can get into my head without anyone knowing."

"Your dad doesn't seem to mind Xavier much."

"Yeah, well, my dear old dad also has a helmet that protects him from telepaths, doesn't he?"

"I guess that's true." Lance grabbed one of the passing waiters by the elbow and took him aside. "Sorry to bother you, bud, but when do customers start coming in?"

"Noon on Sundays," said the waiter. "So about thirty minutes."

"Thanks, man."

The waiter went on his way, but Pietro was less than satisfied. "God," he groaned. "We're gonna have to wait forever!"

They tried to keep busy until customers began arriving, but the staff seemed to have everything under control. Lance was more than happy to sit down on one of the chairs near the wall and just wait, but Pietro had always had problems being patient. He paced, although it was probably too fast to call pacing, and Lance realized they were lucky no one had noticed the unusual speed of Pietro's stride yet.

"Stop that, will you? If you're going to pace, at least do it at a near-human speed."

"Oh, shut up," said Pietro, undeterred. "Just keep brooding and leave me alone."

Lance stuck a toothpick in his mouth and shrugged. "All right. Fine with me. Have fun not talking to anyone."

Despite Pietro's fervent belief that noon would never arrive, it did just that, and the first customers began to take their seats. The silver-haired mutant scanned each new group, ending up disappointed each time he did so.

"I don't see him yet."

"He'll show."

"Maybe that girl was screwing with you."

"She wasn't screwing with me."

"I bet you wish she was screwing with you," Pietro said. Lance found the smirk that had come over his companion's face infinitely preferable to his irritating impatience.

"She doesn't like guys."

Pietro stopped, his face marked with disbelief. "She's a lesbian?"

"Yup."

"You're screwing with me."

"Oh," said a grinning Lance, the toothpick bobbing up and down in his mouth as he spoke, "you wish I were, don't you? Sorry, 'Tro, but I just don't swing that way. Maybe Pyro does."

"Will you just shut up for once in your life?"

"Sorry, but not yet," Lance stated as he stood up. His attention had been caught by a lone man taking his seat at a small table in the corner. "There he is. Buckman. We got our man."

Pietro looked to where Lance's eyes were pointed. "Okay. Now what?"

"I thought you had a bright idea."

"Incidentally, I do," Pietro said with a sneer, "but you should probably have a back-up just in case. It wouldn't hurt to use your head once in a while, Lance."

"Trust me, Pietro, you do not want me to use my head right now. I'll end up with a headache, but it'll be nothing like what'd happen to you and everyone else in this joint."

"Yeah, probably. Now you just hold on one second, Lancey. Let me handle the tough stuff."

Lance was more than content to watch while Pietro worked his magic. For a while his friend did nothing. It looked like he was waiting for someone. The waiter Lance had stopped earlier emerged from the kitchen, looking harried and annoyed, and Lance could see Pietro's eyes light up.

"'Scuse me, but this is your section, right?" Pietro asked.

"Yeah, why?"

"There are a bunch of people in this section. I'm not doing anything right now. Would you mind if I helped out?"

The waiter did not hide his surprise. "Uh, no, that'd be great. You see that blond guy sitting by himself? Can you bring him his water and take his drink order? I can get his appetizer and entrée, but I need to finish up serving this one group first."

"No problem, pal. Consider it done."

The waiter nodded and walked past to another table. Pietro smirked at Lance, and Lance grinned back. "Cheeky bastard," he muttered. "What're you gonna do now?"

He saw Pietro approach the table. He couldn't hear what was being said, but the man, Buckman, didn't seem to notice anything awkward about the situation, and soon enough Pietro walked away and into the kitchen. A minute later he reappeared with a glass of water and a wine list, leaving both with the man, who paid him no more mind as he returned to Lance.

"C'mon," said Pietro, latching his hand onto Lance's shoulder. "We need to go to the restroom."

"Hold on, what?" asked Lance. Pietro had already begun dragging him to the front. "I don't really need to go, dude."

"Nonsense. Of course you do. I can sense these things, Lance. It's one of my powers."

"No it's not!"

"Could be," Pietro replied indignantly.

The hostess surveyed them as Pietro pulled Lance down into the corridor, a smile playing on her lips. Lance waved at her, but it was a meek gesture, and soon enough Pietro had pulled him into the restroom.

"Jesus, Pietro, what's this all about? Guys aren't supposed to go powder up together. That's what girls do. Trust me, I've been on double dates." He'd also learned that Kitty, Rogue, and Amara must've used more make-up than any other women in the world, judging by the time they spent in the bathroom. That or they saved any scrap of gossip for their restroom meet-ups.

Pietro ignored him as he checked the stalls and the urinals. Satisfied that they were alone, he turned back to Lance. "Don't be silly, I didn't drag you in here to powder up. If you're that uncomfortable alone in a bathroom with me, don't worry. Soon there will be three of us."

"The hell?"

"Fury gave us laxatives," Pietro said, "which, judging from the stupid look on your face, you'd probably forgotten all about. It's in our standard kit, if you hadn't noticed, and they're really handy. I used them on that theater mission."

"Oh, I remember that," said Lance. "I'd forgotten about that. Huh."

"Yeah, well, while you were busy forgetting about all the important details, I was busy mixing a quick-acting laxative into Buckman's water. If last time is anything to judge by, he'll be in here a few minutes after he takes a sip of his drink."

"At which time we beat him up and take him over to that damn door."

"Well, I guess." Pietro reached into his pocket and retrieved a tiny syringe with a cap on the needle. "Or I could just poke him with this needle and wait for the sedative to take its toll. Which, from previous experience, will take about ten seconds."

"Huh. Yeah, I thought about that earlier, but it slipped my mind. This sedative and laxative stuff is kinda sudden, though. You couldn't have told me earlier?"

"I thought you had your own ideas," Pietro pointed out.

"Yeah, right," Lance chuckled. "But this stuff… it's like that thing we learned in English. The Greek or Latin thing. Deus ex something."

"Deus ex machina?" Pietro asked, and Lance nodded. "Hardly. You didn't think a top-secret government agency would provide members of its covert strike team with the necessary tools to detain innocents?"

"Just shut up already, Pietro. You're making me feel stupid."

Pietro congratulated himself with a celebratory fist pump. "Mission accomplished!"

"You're stupid, too. I hope you know that."

"Stop being such a sap, Lance."

"Stop batting your eyelashes, Pietro. You're freaking me out."

"If I must." Pietro checked his watch, careful not to nudge any of the buttons connected to the image inducer. "Jeez, would his bowels hurry up already?"

"Ugh," Lance groaned. "You really did not have to say that. Bad mental image."

"Well, we're pretty much waiting on his digestive system at this point. I'm just being honest."

"I don't like your brand of honesty." Lance folded his arms over his chest. "I've got a question: should we wait for him to finish his business before we poke him? I mean, I dunno, but I don't want him… letting loose while we're trying to drag him to the door."

Pietro rubbed his chin. "Huh, hadn't thought about that. Good idea. I think we should wait, definitely. I really don't want to have to deal with that."

"Same."

At that moment the door opened and in walked one Edward Buckman. Their intended target did not look well. He ignored the pair and headed for the stall, slamming the door behind him once he was inside. Lance was intensely thankful that there was music playing in the bathroom; he really had no desire to hear what Buckman was up to.

Pietro reached for the door and locked it.

They waited. They were silent while they waited, and Buckman was no louder. It seemed like it was taking an eternity for the Club member to finish up, but after some time spent twiddling their thumbs, there was a flush and the door to the stall opened. Buckman stood in the doorway, his countenance a combination of relief and pain.

"I'm sorry, sir," quipped Pietro. "Did your drink not agree with you?"

Buckman's face sagged as he looked over the two S.H.I.E.L.D. agents. "You're not waiters, are you?"

"Nope," said Pietro. He brandished the needle and drew closer to Buckman, like a lion stalking towards its prey.

"You're going to kill me, aren't you?"

"No," said Lance, startled.

"But for all you know we are," added Pietro, and in an instant the needle was pressing into Buckman's neck. A split-second later the sedative had been injected, and Pietro withdrew the syringe. "Okay, you've got about ten seconds. Anything you'd like to say?"

"I don't know…"

Buckman's body crumpled forward. There was a muffled plopping sound when he hit the floor.

"I guess he didn't have ten seconds," Lance mused.

"Okay, grab his right arm," Pietro ordered. "I got the left."

"One sec." Lance unlocked the door before turning to the unconscious businessman. "Here we go."

Together they carried Buckman out into the hallway. They were careful to make sure no one was in sight, and they rushed to the door at the end of the corridor. Pietro let go, and Lance cradled Buckman's head with his hands. They adjusted him to eye-level with the scanner, and Pietro pried open his eyelids.

"Good afternoon, Edward," said a mechanized male voice. The door slid open.