I've decided to split the final chapter in two (possibly three). The setup is here, and the actual rescue portion will be separate. It would be over 10,000 words otherwise, and would be a bit lopsided. Plus, now you have 100% more cliffhangers!
Oh, and yes, plans will go off the rails. The only one who's relatively safe is Drax, but everyone else...
Hehehehehehe
"Ho-ly shit," Yondu commented, whistling low. One of the three Peters he saw in front of him, the adult one that wasn't wearing ripped clothing caked in dried splatters of blood, flinched slightly ad Yondu's additional curses in his native tongue.
"Okay, so I've figured out Beer, shitty code names, by the way," Yondu added. "Since none a' the rest a ya can understan' Centurian."
Peter rolled his eyes. "Let's save getting into character for when we really need to? I think we're all nervous as it is."
"Who's who, then?"
"Cocktail," said the other adult Peter, clothes burned, frayed, and splattered in streaks of dirt and blood. Gamora smiled grimly, and Yondu noticed a tooth had been knocked out.
"Ya really went all-out."
"Well, we would have put up a fight," Gamora insisted.
"Still, impressed," Yondu said, looking over the 'Peter', 'Rocket', and 'Gamora' they were going to be cashing into the Bloodline Federation. "Pete did this? Haven't lost your touch, boy. How'd ya blacken the tooth? I don' see any shine."
"Doorknob and string," Peter replied, smugly.
"Ya… pulled it out?!"
The bloodstained Gamora to 'Peter's' left shrugged. "It will grow back when Gamora turns back to herself. Any injury we sustain transformed disappears when we become ourselves again. Water, by the way," said Groot. He had a few deep cut lines across his emerald face; dried fern-green blood caked and streaked down to his tight leather collar.
"So then you're Ale," Yondu said, squatting, looking at Peter's handiwork on Drax- turned-Rocket. His jumpsuit was torn in two, limp bits of blue fabric dangling off and burned, exposing the bits of metal on his back. Three sets of scorch marks had burned one neat line of fabric and two streaks down the fur. Yondu recognized the distinct pattern of the Ravager's standard laser rifle's muzzle markings at close range.
"Fuck ya too," Drax spat, fur- or what was left of it- puffing in practiced indignation.
Yondu nodded at the display. "I just hope ya didn't actually shoot him for this effect," he said, pointing at one of the burn marks.
"Other than the tooth, all of it's just makeup or trickery," Peter said, kneeling next to Yondu to show off his handiwork. "Obviously, I ripped, burned, and distressed everyone's clothing off of them. The blood is all real, but it's our own draw of bloodpacks from our med supply. None of the cuts are real, just pinched skin and glue."
"How'd ya do the burns? It smells like ash." Drax twisted sideways so Yondu could get a better look at one of the lines.
"It is. We shaved lines down and I took a lighter and just burned the cut ends without touching skin."
"So, that mean's you're Cognac, then," Yondu said, looking at the three-and-a-half foot kid Peter, shock of blonde hair, dressed in the exact opposite of the three 'hostages'- fine linens with sharp trim. Kree nobility. A small metal pin with cord was affixed to his cloak, a skull and dagger symbol utilized by Ronan's followers. Yondu noticed the colors were slightly muted as if overwashed, and the cloak's lining subtly patched. Fallen nobility. Peter really did his homework.
"Right, then," Yondu said, clicking his tongue, clearly not tearing up from seeing Peter as a young child again. "You three, my men other than Kraglin don't know about the party trick, just that this is a setup that'll make us rich. Once you step outta this airlock, clock starts. I'll have some a' my men truss ya up before we jettison ya' to the wolves. Ale, any objections t' bein' caged, too?"
"Ya gonna do it anyways," Drax replied as Rocket might, then dropped the act. "Of course not. We assumed you might ask, anyway."
"As long as ya don' put it anywhere near me," the real Rocket mumbled under his breath.
"Right, then, get somethin' to eat from mess. Kraglin'll show ya. Stick to dry food n' water, but get somethin' in ya. No clue how long they'll starve ya."
Gamora rolled her eyes, tousling her too-short hair as Peter. "Oh, just like old times," she said, sighing.
"No it ain't, Cocktail. Ya got people waitin' for ya now. Knock 'em dead."
"That is the intended plan," piped Groot, as Yondu shoved the three of them out of the airlock ship bay and into the main corridor where Kraglin was waiting.
"Dammit, this is cold," Rocket whined, stripped down to underclothing. Prosthetics weren't necessary; Peter had just carefully shaved Rocket bald, piles of his own childhood blonde hair scattered around the clamp chair Rocket was sitting in, twitchy and anxious. The first layer of makeup that Yondu and Peter were applying was frigid, and being mostly naked without fur wasn't helping. They'd retreated back into the Milano docked inside the Eclector, away from possible prying eyes; Yondu had brought out his paints and brushes to them so his crew wouldn't see a multitude of Peters.
"Sit still, rat, unless you want this to take even longer. Base layer is always the worst. Then you'll start complanin' you're too hot. I'll give you a blanket to wrap 'round your legs if it'll shut ya up."
"And we'll airbrush the details, that'll be faster," Peter added, helpfully, dancing around Yondu to grab a spare blanket off the couch, dropping it on Rocket's lap.
"Still, probably about two hours, I'd wager. Pete, get started on his arms, I've got the head." Rocket groaned. He wished one of them would turn on a holo or something for distraction.
"You got it, boss," Peter replied. Yondu glared.
"Not ya boss anymore, boy," he grunted, flicking some of the makeup onto the side of Peter's face.
"Oh look, a Jackson Pollack painting," Rocket noted, adorably in Peter's child's voice.
Peter rubbed his palm down Rocket's finished arm and looked. Clean, no streaks.
"Setting powder did its job. No smearing."
"Good. Last thing's nails and contacts," Yondu said, nodding in approval.
"Ugh, right," Rocket groaned. "I hate stuff near my eyes."
"Once they're in, though, you won't feel them," Peter replied, pulling Rocket's chair over to the galley, sitting at the bench seat alongside. "Hand out, now, you still need your nails covered up."
"Look this way," Yondu commanded, and Rocket turned. Yondu gently held Rocket's eyelids and put a red-tinted contact in, releasing. "Blink."
Rocket blinked, twitching, except for the arm that was pinned down by Peter.
"One more, rat. Hold on, you're almost there." Yondu sounded almost… paternal. Almost.
"Other hand, Rocket," Peter asked, as Yondu slid the other contact on, neatly. Yondu grasped Rocket's finished hand, and pulled a small UV light out from under his coat, waving it over the wet blue polish.
"Pretty good?" Peter asked, after leading Rocket down to the polished metal wall in the cargo hold that doubled as a good mirror.
"Not bad at all," Yondu replied, looking over their little Kree.
Rocket turned in the mirror, looking over the makeup job.
"Hey, my handler, what creole of Kree does he speak?" Rocket asked, as he scrutinized the work, finding no exposed peach skin and the right amount of shading to look like real Kree flesh.
"Uh," Yondu replied, "Sout'allow?"
"Oh, good, I know that one. I was worried I might have to be mute." Peter noted a slight delay in his translation as Rocket spoke.
"Oh, right, a kid that age might not have a translator implant yet," Peter remarked.
"Hey, if we're doing this, we are doing it right," Rocket replied. "I don't sound slurred when I talk now, do I?"
"Nope, all good, bud," Peter replied.
"And what are ya gonna do, boy?" Yondu asked, addressing Peter.
"You know what Rocket is, right, species -wise?"
"I've seen critters like 'im before sold off as exotic pets or for meat, yeah. No idea what they is by name, though."
"There you go," Peter replied, shrinking rapidly, as his clothes pooled up around him. Finished, he wriggled out of the pile as a young Rocket, fluffy and without a trace of modification. Rocket picked up Peter, balancing him on a shoulder.
"Oh, yeah, I have that harness and bandana from the printer," Rocket said. Peter nodded vigorously and Rocket walked them both into his workshop, fishing for the props.
Yondu shook his head, still trying to wrap his mind around their skill. "Fucking idjits, why didn'tcha each just make yourselves younger?" he called out.
"Can't," Rocket replied. "Trust me, we tried."
"I hate cosmic shit," Yondu replied, seeing the two of them return from the workshop, Peter fitted in a pet harness with a bandana tied around his neck. "Thank Gods I didn't touch that fucking stone."
"Where's the big guy and the tree?" Koursa, a buff Krylonian mechanic asked, as Rocket and Peter joined the rest of the team already in the mess hall, as they waited for the drop. Several of Yondu's off-duty crew surrounded them, a pile of cards between as they played a betting game to take everyone's minds off the danger to come.
"They're providing backup from elsewhere," Rocket replied.
"And you're sneakin' in with them? Ye can't be older'n twelve."
"I'm a Skrull," Rocket replied, holding out a hand. "Horzai, friend of Rocket's," he added. "Me and Prana here are going to pick some locks and cause general mayhem. Who is supposed to be my father?"
"Trig," Koursa replied, cursing at the cards on the table. "Probably gettin' chewed out by Yondu right now. Ya know the Cap's got a soft spot for ya, Pete," she added, elbowing Gamora in the ribs, before dropping her own hand of cards to the table. "Fuck it, I'm out."
"Your pet a Skrull too? I heard these critters bite, if it's a real one, uh, sorry Rocket," asked Whooka, the ship's doctor, a massive Badoon who adored small, fluffy animals, hoarding the largest pile of chips among them.
Peter nodded, and held out a paw to shake, even though he knew Whooka well. Peter jumped from Rocket's shoulder straight to Whooka's, testing his skill, and the giant began patting Peter's head affectionately. Considering the number of boxed ears Whooka gave Peter as a kid for being an inconsolable moron, Peter smirked internally.
"S'more bread 'd be nice," Drax slurred. Koursa passed a hard brown loaf down the table to Drax, who greedily ripped a hunk from the end, dipping his fingers in Groot's glass of water and devouring the food in large chunks.
"You do know the bounty collector's won't bug you, shrimp, but they'll definitely scan Trig and…"
"Prana," Rocket supplied. The pseudonyms seemed difficult to remember, but they were simply 'kid' and 'beast' in Rocket's tongue from Halfworld. And Rocket would go along with any name his father-to-be decided on calling him, anyway.
"Trig won't trip the sensors, he really is Kree. Prana, though?"
"We've already accounted for that. Even if he's scanned, he'll show up as a raccoon, right down to the molecular level. Not a Skrull-turned-one."
"That's a trick Yondu's gonna wanna know about," Koursa commented. "We've got three Skrull in our crew."
"Don't worry, we told him how it's done, I owe him one anyway," Gamora replied, lifting a hand to scratch the stubble on her chin, before stopping herself. "Ugh. I have the worst itch but I don't want to smear the blood," she hissed, annoyed. "How much longer?"
"Half an hour, people," Yondu boomed, almost as if on cue, coat flaring behind as he walked up to the table, looking square at Rocket. "Kid, Trig, Trig, kid. Get your cover straightened out." He turned to Drax, Groot, and Gamora, adding, "Pete, Gamora, and rat, come around so we can gag and bind ya."
Groot, Drax, and Gamora dropped their cards on the table, holding out arms.
"No, idjits. I'm tying from behind the back, easier to dislocate a shoulder and break outta this stuff if ya need to. Pete, you of everyone should know that." Yondu groaned, flicking Gamora on the side of the head, working quickly with Whooka to roughly secure bindings and gags, rubbing the bindings on Gamora and Groot's arms quickly to produce small rope burns. "Can ya breathe okay? 'N I want your wrists lookin' raw when they cut these off, but I don' wanna restrict bloodflow." All three nodded. "Okay, rodent, I'm tyin' all your legs t'gether now. Koursa, hold 'im up. Somebody go fetch me the cage," he added, yelling at a group of three more Ravagers at the next table over, pulling out another length of plastic bindings for Drax's legs. "Gonna muzzle ya too, now, kay? Lemme know if yer havin' trouble breathin'."
Meanwhile, Peter had jumped back onto Rocket's shoulder, as Rocket and Trig introduced themselves and sorted out the story.
"So you're actually a disgraced Southallow noble," Rocket said, eyebrow raised. "That… makes things easy."
"Yeah, we make a big deal, make them think we are Skrull. They scan me, they scan your pet, get surprised that we are who we say we are, and they won't think of scanning you. Impressive diction, by the way. Where did you pick up the dialect?"
"Internet," Rocket replied. "I'm a bit of a quick study. Names?"
"Well, hm. My father's name was Noh-Varr, that's easy enough for me to remember and roughly in line with nobility naming structure. If I actually had a son it would be that or the name of one of my maternal uncles."
"Works for me. And, we need something easy for Prana… something older sounding, regal. Ruul?"
"Good as any."
"I'll do most of the talking, unless they ask about your pet. And Yondu prepared a small bag for you of toys and books you'd probably have on hand at your age. He says there's a few flat hidden compartments filled with fabric, that won't set off tech scans. I don't know what they're for, but he says you would."
Peter knew how Yondu made his contraband bags, and snatched it out from Trig's hands. In the linings were a few thin bodysuits.
"Oh," Rocket observed. "Extra clothes for those three if they get stripped and humiliated?" Extra clothes for when we have to transform, more like.
"Makes sense. I wouldn't put it past those assholes to do that, especially to a daughter of Thanos."
Peter shuddered. Groot knew what they might do to him as a public form of torture, but they would do their best to not let that happen.
"You really think they're going to…?" Rocket asked.
"We've intercepted messages from the org. They're going to override holocasts on every sentient planet in the quadrant. After Ronan's huge show and utter humiliation, they want this visible. After we contacted them about the trade, they've been talking about it nonstop. They're planning on frying the augmented one first, and giving the animal he'll revert to as a pet to someone. They want him alive and stupid- and Yondu told me not to intervene, you guys had something up your sleeve for him at least. I don't know what they plan on doing to Peter, but we're all Ravagers. Only we get to fuck with him."
"Yeah," Rocket replied. "Rocket's mods look like they're just mechanical- but all they'll do if they EMP blast him is make him loose the ability to talk or stand upright. He's just going to play stupid, and then sneak off with us. I'm more worried about Gamora and Peter."
"That's a relief; good to know he'll be able to safely buy everyone some time," Trig said, lifting Peter off Rocket's shoulders and on his own. "Your friend's a bit heavy, I'll carry him for a bit."
"I'm still worried," Rocket replied, weight literally lifted from his shoulders.
"Trust me, this is more dangerous than that stunt back on Xandar. But this is both Peter- our asshole, and, more importantly, a hell of a lot of dough. Yondu's not paying our shares out unless everyone comes back alive."
"Selfish prick," Rocket spat, with an added laugh.
"Damn straight," Trig replied. "If I had a son, it'd be you. How old are you really, Skrull?"
"Sixteen."
"Sheish. When Pete was sixteen, he was still getting parking tickets on Knowhere. Friend of our asshole Peter is a friend of mine. Let's go get rich, you little punk."
"My thoughts exactly."
Yondu piloted his skiff out to the drop point, one of the moons of Rigel-7. It was a failed terraforming experiment, so it had some minor vegetation and a breathable atmosphere. Kraglin and Trig forcibly dragged out 'Peter' and 'Gamora' to face the small squad of heavily armed Kree, while Yondu whistled, his arrow circling around his head as he hefted 'Rocket's' cage over a shoulder.
Rocket and Peter hung behind- Rocket in awe, and Peter clutching Rocket timidly. Rocket made sure to follow Trig's movements with interest, like a small kid attending Take Your Child to Work Day.
"Just these three?" one of the Kree boomed.
"If I found the muscled idiot, you think I'd hide him? These asshats stole wot's mine. I've been putting bounties on their heads for months now, but the Xandarians keep wipin' 'em from the board."
"We've noticed."
Peter smirked internally. Yondu must have done it for show, all these months; bounty was always for them alive. Once a week, like clockwork, Yondu had put up another bounty on the team as a whole, usually with the reason "bad birthday gift". Peter was very glad he did.
"So when they offer a trade with me, we take our chance, n' take em down in my ship. I even have my M-ship back, thanks to those morons dockin' it and walkin' right in. Problem is, these fuckers already pawned off their Infinity Stone and I'm back to square. fucking. one. They've set me back half a million, they did. Take 'em, gimmie the cash, and blow 'em sky high."
"It's well known you have Skrull on your ship. I want to see if this is a trick."
"Be my guest," Yondu said, holding out a bioscan.
"We'll use our own."
A sharp dressed Kree woman stepped forward, with very complicated equipment. This wasn't a simple surface scan. She shot a needle into the side of Gamor, drawing a small amount of red blood from her arm, as Gamora thrashed angrily against the bindings and Kraglin's sharp grip.
"That's really a half-human, half… something not in our database. But not a Skrull. And the surface scans match him to Peter. She went and did both Drax and Groot, blinking in shock at the readings.
"They're all real," she said, surprised, before quickly plugging a new syringe into a startled Kraglin, checking him as well.
"Ask us," Yondu growled, as he took off his jacket and rolled up a sleeve. "You punch a hole in my coat, I punch a hole in ya with an arrow, capiche?"
She checked Yondu next, and Trig. Rocket was bawling by this point, and Peter could tell by his shaking that it wasn't wholly an act. Rocket and needles were not on speaking terms.
"Why is there a child here?" demanded the original Kree, likely the leader.
"He is my son," Trig replied sternly. "I was forced to abandon my house and birthright from the war. Check your scan more closely. You should know who I am."
"'N that's the other half of it," Yondu replied. "Sir Trig wants to go with ya and witness the execution with his son 'imself."
"That is honorable," replied one of the other Kree. "Consider it done."
"The boy's pet," another mentioned. "Run a test on the creature, too. It looks too similar to the Guardian," he added, spitting out the word like a curse.
"Don't touch Ruul," Rocket cried, hugging Peter tightly. "Don't hurt him!"
"Noh-Varr, see here, it didn't hurt. They just want to see if Ruul is your pet."
"Well, he has a harness, and I have treats, and stuff. 'Course he is."
Nice kid-logic, Peter thought.
"It will only take a moment, Noh-Varr. You must learn bravery, as is your birthright!"
"Oh… okay…" Rocket said, lifting Peter from under the armpits out to the Kree scientist. "Be nice."
She stuck a needle in Peter's thigh, carefully drawing blood. "Yes, just one of those exotic pets," she said, showing the readout on her tablet to the rest of the group. "Rah-kunz."
Peter scrambled back on Rocket's shoulder, and let out an annoyed whine.
"Kid too?" the skeptical Kree asked.
"He is nobility, and has every right to join," said the Kree leader. "When this is over," he added, addressing Rocket, "how would you like a second rah-kunz pet? We'll have it arranged for you. It looks like Ruul could use a playmate."
"Would I ever!" Rocket said brightly.
These idiots are literally going to hand Drax back to us, Peter thought.
Now they needed to figure out what to do to save Groot and Gamora, and get that asshole leader in some bindings.