Chapter Text
Clint stared at the leather collar in horror.
“Oh, hell no.”
His DEA handler shrugged. “It’s this, or I call your Director and tell him you want out.”
“I am doing you guys a favor,” Clint growled. The DEA guy just looked at him.
Clint ignored his temporary handler and stared at the collar, thinking furiously. This couldn’t be what the Director had in mind when he’d offered Clint work outside of S.H.I.E.L.D. Not that Clint had bothered to ask what the Director had been thinking – for the past few weeks, whenever he’d said, “Jump” all Clint had asked was, “How high?”
It wasn’t paranoia if everyone actually was waiting for you to turn crazy and start shooting people.
Fury had come to him three weeks ago with an assignment from the FBI. S.H.I.E.L.D., with its endless forms, couldn’t clear him for field work barely a month post-Loki, but the FBI didn’t have that problem. They needed someone with good aim, and Clint’s arm worked just fine. Fury gave him a downgraded security clearance and turned him loose. Clint had raised an eyebrow but agreed – Fury hadn’t bothered to explain what the point of the hire was, but Clint could figure it out for himself. S.H.I.E.L.D. had been a tucked-away organization for the past fifty years – not exactly hidden, and hardly black-labeled, but out of the spotlight. With the attack on New York, that spotlight was shifting, and Director Fury knew how to manage the backdoor politics of such a move.
By lending Clint out, Fury would gain favor with the other agencies – and through Clint’s skills, S.H.I.E.L.D. would demonstrate why it deserved that spotlight every now and then. At the same time, Fury would have Clint off the Helicarrier and away from anyone who had last seen him at the wrong end of an arrow, and he’d have Clint field-tested and working through some of his issues without it being on the company dime.
Forget two birds – when Director Fury threw a stone he hit an entire fucking flock.
But that had been when he’d been working for the FBI. Now, Clint knew Fury just wanted pictures. Evil, terrible blackmail pictures to get him back for that stunt he’d pulled in Bolivia, the one with the chocolate wafer and the ice cream cone.
Damn the FBI, anyway. They’d had him popping organ dealers in Arizona and taking out gun runners in Pennsylvania, then sub-contracted him out to the DEA for a quick job in Maine. Everything had gone smoothly, so the DEA had pulled him back to New York to deal with coke shippers upstate.
Clint hadn’t argued with any of it at first. Hell, it had been nice to be useful again. None of the agents he worked with knew he’d recently shot and killed a number of his closest associates. None of them had a clue that he’d turned sensitive S.H.I.E.L.D. information over to HYDRA agents, or helped Loki run down the best way to attack and distract the Avengers.
None of them – because Clint hadn’t talked to anyone about this – knew that he’d told Loki the best way to get into and out of the detention area. Nobody, not even Natasha, knew that that he’d pointed at a piece of paper and practically said to Loki’s face, “There. There’s where you can stab Coulson in the back.”
Agents, good S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, had died because of him. Coulson had died because of him.
Just because Fury had brought him back again didn’t erase the fact that Clint had killed him.
Clint thought burying himself in work would at least help him sleep at night, but it wasn’t enough. He still felt itchy around the edges, keyed up and ready to go. He’d been toying with the idea of asking the CIA for more involved missions, and he hadn’t complained when they’d transferred him over to the DEA
Which was another tick in the “be careful what you wish for” category. Along with, “I hate you, go away,” and “I wish you would die”.
Clint thought he would have learned that one by now.
He stared at the collar. “Tell me that’s a belt and you got my measurements wrong.”
The DEA guy rolled his eyes.
Clint sighed and reached for the collar. He held it at arm’s length. “You’ve got more for me than a piece of leather and a smile, right?”
His handler – Davidson? Donaldson? – handed him a laptop with a few BDSM sites pulled up and gave him the sell. Apparently, they’d been after a drug dealer named Nicholas Belanger for a couple of years now. The DEA had done everything they could think of to get a bug on him without luck. They’d tried sticking him in a hotel lobby, catching him on the street, and even getting into and out of his limousine. Nothing. They’d even tried disguising DEA agents as prostitutes, but no dice. The man kept a thick wall of hired muscle between himself and every other person on the planet.
Except, apparently, when he went to a local BDSM bar in town. That was when he finally let people get close.
“Dungeon,” Clint’s handler corrected, frowning.
“Excuse me?” Clint asked incredulously.
“Dungeon,” the guy said again. “A BDSM bar isn’t called a bar – it’s called a dungeon.”
“If you’re so good at the terminology, why don’t you prostitute yourself for the job?”
The guy actually rolled his eyes. “We already tried that. I was the hooker he had thrown out in the street. Why do you think we contracted out?”
Clint squinted at the collar. It didn’t mysteriously vanish. “Fuck me.”
That made the guy smile. “Well, I don’t think you’ll have to go that far, but I hear the man does a mean reach-around.”
Clint shook his head. “I’m not into BDSM – I have no idea how to act like someone who knows what the fuck their doing.”
Donaldson rolled his eyes and turned to his computer. “That the whole point – this guy likes newbies; he’d spot someone with experience a mile away.”
Clint stared at him. “Well, I at least need to know the fucking basics!”
Donaldson gave him a grin and spun his computer around. The screen showed the Wikipedia article on BDSM, with a black-and-white picture of a woman wearing a thick leather collar not unlike the one Clint held in his hand. “Ta da! The basics.”
Clint swore at him and kicked him out of the hotel room. He stared at the screen for a minute before rubbing a hand over his face and giving up. Clint skimmed the article while he got changed. Donaldson – Davidson? Clint really couldn’t be bothered to learn the asshole’s name – had dropped a pair of leather pants and a tight black t-shirt in the corner. It took Clint ten minutes to shimmy into the pants, and the shirt was obviously three sizes too small. The collar was a fucking pain to put on, but he managed – he wasn’t about to ask Davidson for help.
Davidson gave him another twenty minutes to click around the internet, then came back in with a sly grin and a tube of liquid eyeliner.
Clint had the sinking realization that this was all going to end in tears.
Derrickson was an idiot to think differently. Clint might have been an Avenger for about fifteen minutes, but even he couldn’t work with such a shit plan. No matter how Clint argued, though, the man wouldn’t budge. He ushered Clint out of the hotel room and into the surveillance van while another agent drove them to the scene. Clint kept up the complaints while his handler fitted him for an ear-mic and gave him a panic button disguised as a ring on his middle finger. Finally, five minutes before the drop, Clint let his head fall into his hands and tried to get himself in character.
He was a nontraditional college student, back at school to work his way into a better job. He’d met a girl who was into this stuff, an undercover agent who’d be at the bar – dungeon, he corrected – running the drinks. She had left a few notes for him about his target, and would help point him out if Clint couldn’t find him once he got inside. She’d hand him the tracker when he asked for a beer. Clint was to approach the mark, already in the bar and apparently wearing a blue button-up with black pants, and get him talking. Then it was up to him to figure out how and where to place the tracker.
The electronic device would work on cloth, but the guy was probably not going to wear his bar-slash-dungeon gear to his drug deal tomorrow, so skin would be better.
Fucking perfect.
For a moment, sitting in the van and staring at the thick wooden doors of the warehouse-turned-BDSM-dungeon they had just rolled up to (with an equally thick bouncer standing outside), Clint considered calling it. Nat would come and rescue him. He could call her and she’d make up some sort of S.H.I.E.L.D.-related emergency that needed him in New York, or Bolivia, or even fucking Tokyo. She’d probably finish the op for him, too, if he asked nicely.
But Nat had already saved his life once this month, and she probably didn’t want to see him again anyway. She was 200 miles away, helping Phil curse his way through physiotherapy. She was better off without him.
They both were.
He could do this without their help.
Clint took a deep breath, pasted a nervous-but-excited look on his face, and stepped out of the van.
Approaching the bouncer, Clint let his eyes widen at the man’s size and fumbled for his wallet. “Umm, is there ... is there a cover charge ...?”
The man stared at him. Clint swallowed, which was really fucking awkward around the collar, and handed him the fake driver’s license. The man glanced at it then handed it back to Clint. “You new here?”
Clint nodded awkwardly again, having no problem projecting that this was his first time here. “I know Shirley?”
The man-monster – seriously, Clint had stood next to the Hulk and he still thought this guy was big – stared at him for a moment more before leaning back and nodding him in. Clint rubbed actually sweating hands on his pants and grimaced when they slid off the slick leather. Reaching forward, he opened the heavy doors and stepped forward into –
Actually, a pretty classy entranceway. Huh. He’d been expecting a hole.
Clint glanced around the well lit anteroom. There was a desk covered in a black cloth with a pretty young lady sitting behind it. She had a black ledger in her red-gloved hand and was making a notation. Clint walked forward, nervousness not entirely an act, and studied her closer. She was wearing a form-fitting red dress that looked vaguely bridal. It curved over her breasts, hugged close to her waist and then flared slightly outwards. Her make-up was bold but not overdone, dark without being goth. She looked – well, good.
Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad.
The woman glanced up as Clint walked towards her and her small desk, and smiled at him. It was a pleasant smile that somehow contained too many teeth and dangerous intentions.
Clint felt something inside him shiver.
… maybe it would be as bad as he feared.
“I’m, uh, new here.”
The lady laughed, a soft, bell-like sound that echoed in the small anteroom. “Oh, puppy,” she said and glanced at him over her book. She raised a delicate eyebrow. “I know.”
Clint blushed as she ran her eyes over his stupid pants and too-tight shirt, but noticed when she stopped and stared at his collar. “A little formally dressed for a newbie, though.”
“Well, I – I mean I, know Shirley?”
The woman’s smile softened, losing its edge. “Oh, the new bartender? She’s very good.” She tapped her ledger. “What’s your name?”
“Clive Burton?”
She raised her other eyebrow. “Is that a question or an answer, puppy?”
Clint squared his shoulders. “An answer,” he said, more firmly. Somehow, that earned him another wicked smile.
“Excellent. I’ll just write you in, then. Shirley started about an hour ago. She’s at the bar now, I think. Don’t blush at her too hard, or your owner will beat you.” She grinned at him. “I know I would.”
“Uh, okay? And thank you,” he said and turned before she could say – or do – anything suggestive again. His owner? Seriously? Clint ignored the feeling of her eyes on his back as he walked towards the next set of double doors.
This time, when he stepped through them, it felt more like he had imagined it would – the well illuminated entranceway opened into a dimly-lit interior, and Clint stopped for a moment and stared, knowing it was what Clive would do.
It also gave him a second to catch his breath for real, because this was too much like falling down the rabbit hole.
The floor was a rich, dark wood that must have originally come with the building. There was a dance floor on the east side of the room where the shadows were longer and a steady mass of people writhed together. The bar, a long wooden structure with brass lamps and beer taps, was to his left. The rest of the room was a kind of relaxed lounge, with soft-looking leather sofas and broken-in loveseats. On the far back wall were the bathrooms and a heavy red curtain. The curtain twitched occasionally as people went in and out, and Clint couldn’t make out much beyond it. There were couples scattered throughout the lounge, often with people sitting on the floor between the knees of their... partners. Clint supposed that was what they were called.
Several people looked up as he stood in the doorway. Some were obviously there with others, but many lounged alone. Clint scanned the faces quickly, taking in details. It didn’t take him long to find his target.
Nicholas Belanger was conversing quietly with a young woman on one of the black leather couches in the corner of the room. The drug-dealer was an average-looking man in his late forties with enough salt in his pepper hair to be considered respectable. He was dressed in a blue button-up with black pants that probably cost more than Clint made in a year. The Pretty Young Thing he was flirting with sat beside him in a low-cut dress and not much style. She was obviously just as new to this scene as Clint was, but far more excited by the attention.
Clint’s files said the man never traveled anywhere without at least one hired gun, and it didn’t take Clint long to find him. The bodyguard was a well-built guy in his late twenties, early thirties. He had on a simple black-on-black shirt and pants combination that was loose enough to conceal at least two handguns and probably a knife. The man was pretty enough to almost blend in, and was standing at Belanger’s right shoulder. He carefully scanned the crowd while pretending to enjoy the drink in his hand.
If the overly-cautious Belanger was trusting his life to one man in a bar full of strangers, the bodyguard was probably his best and quickest in a fight. Clint had a garrote in his pocket, one agent he hardly knew as back-up, and a handler in his ear he did not trust at all – so while he figured he probably could take Belanger now, it was a good thing the job stipulated he wasn’t even supposed to try.
Done gawking and being gawked at, Clint turned and headed to the bar. “Shirley” was easily recognizable from her file, and was hard at work – laughing, mixing drinks, and taking tips from the other patrons. Clint edged his way to the bar as the door behind him opened again. He turned to look and watched as five more people walked in. They were dressed in a combination of suits, short skirts and leather, and moved like regulars. The place was starting to fill up. Clint turned back to his contact.
“Uh, can I have a drink please?”
Shirley-not-actually-her-name smiled at him and asked, “What would you like?”
Clint smiled at her. “Whatever your favorite is. It’s me, um, Clive? From online?”
Agent Shirley gave him a pretty decent wide-eyed squeal. ”Oh! Clive! Wow,” she said, ogling him suggestively from across the bar. “You certainly look better than your Facebook picture!”
Clint’s hand went to the back of his neck. “Thanks?”
“Well, welcome to The Underground,” Shirley went on brightly. “I’m at work right now and will be for another few hours, but I can give you the highlights.” She turned and started pointing around the large room, and Clint leaned in close to hear her directions.
“This is the bar, obviously, and we make the best drinks. And there,” she pointed, “is the dance floor – duh. This is the lounge area,” she indicated the sofas and chairs, “where people like to relax.”
She gave him a wicked smile and used the turning of her head to hide her next words. “He’s been here about an hour, had two drinks but only finished one. He likes to be sober. Our information was accurate; he’s been hitting on newbies all night. The bodyguard is for the main room only; he won’t follow Belanger through the red curtain.”
Clint glanced at her curiously, but she turned as if she hadn’t spoken and pointed across the room. Along the back wall were the men’s and women’s washrooms and the heavy red curtain Clint had noticed earlier.
Shirley went on in a normal tone of voice. “There are the bathrooms. The curtain is where it gets interesting – through it are the private rooms you can rent by the hour. Lana,” she nodded towards a tall and frankly terrifying-looking woman in a long black dress, “is in charge tonight, so see her if you would like to reserve anything.” She waggled her eyebrows suggestively.
“There are small single rooms and larger ones meant for,” she did the waggle thing again, “an audience. The common Play Area is back there as well. It’s generally busier than the public space out here, but you can only get in with a known patron, so…”
She winked, and Clint got her meaning. His “friendship” with Shirley had gotten him this far, but it would be up to him to get past the red curtain. If the bodyguard really did stick to the main room, Clint would have his best chance of planting the tracker on Belanger if he could get him past that point.
Clint smiled and made small talk while he paid for his drink, but he kept his gaze moving around the room. He used a sniper’s trick of gathering information, never staring directly at his target – people could feel that – but looking just beyond or in front of them.
Nicholas Belanger was definitely flirting with the newbies. He had two he talked with occasionally as they came on and off of the dance floor, as well as the woman still sitting on the couch beside him. Shirley’s report had said he would choose one or two to take into the back rooms per night. He liked to use the Play Area – apparently, the man preferred an audience.
The thought made him shiver.
Clint honestly wasn’t sure if he was turned on or disgusted by the idea. Twenty minutes spent researching the BDSM scene online had been enough to make him distinctly uncomfortable with the idea of Belanger taking him to the Play Area for the night. Some of the things he read had seemed interesting enough, but there was something called a “Saint Andrew’s Cross” and he’d seen a set of whips that looked like something HYDRA would hand out to junior agents.
Not exactly an arousing thought.
From the bar, Clint stared at the dance floor and watched Belanger from the corner of his eye. The drug dealer was reaching forward and tugging on a braid of the Pretty Young Thing’s hair. As he watched, Belanger pulled harder, making the girl wince. The man smiled cruelly, and Clint swallowed and looked away.
He was okay. He could do this.
Clint turned back to Shirley. “I’m going to look around a little, alright? But maybe,” he grinned, “I’ll take a little liquid courage before I go. Can I have a beer?”
Shirley laughed with him. “Yeah, no problem.” She put his glass aside and filled him another. Clint reached forward to take it, feeling and covering the beige-colored transmitter that came with the glass.
Transferring the tracker to his pocket, Clint walked with his beer into the lounge area. A pretty older woman on a couch looked up, glanced at his collar, and then smiled at him. She had a young man on a leash sitting at her feet, his head tipped back onto her lap. The woman had long red nails and she ran over them over man’s head, scratching gently through his short hair.
Clint felt another shiver travel up his spine. The guy was practically boneless against her, legs stretched forward on the floor. He couldn’t imagine feeling that relaxed in a public place.
Clint accepted the woman’s smile as an invitation and stepped towards her couch. He perched with his drink on the edge of the black sofa and introduced himself.
The woman smiled at him and said her name was Candice, and then patted the head of the man at her feet and introduced him as her “pet” Derrick. Candice was obviously a regular. Clint chatted with her few minutes before another man walked up to them. He was tall and dressed very much like Clint, with black leather pants and a dark shirt. He had his hand around the wrist of another man, and Candice introduced them as Terry and Brian.
Brian caught Clint’s attention. He looked… almost normal. He was wearing a pair of nice, if expensive-looking, blue jeans and an off-white button-up shirt that was loose at the collar. His gaze was open and friendly, but he stood beside Terry with complete ease. It... wasn’t what Clint had expected.
He figured “Clive” was new enough to the scene to ask a few questions.
“Everyone seems... very different from what I was expecting.”
Brian laughed, but Clint noticed that he didn’t actually reply until Terry squeezed his wrist. “Not everyone dresses in leather and dark lipstick. Even though,” he turned to ogle at Terry, “it does add to the decor.”
Terry grinned, and Brian turned back to Clint. “Most of us come here to relax after work.” He eyed Clint a little curiously, glancing at his collar like the receptionist had out front. “You must be new to the area.”
Clint nodded, fighting the urge to fidget with the piece of leather. Something was definitely off about his outfit. The collar, instead of identifying him as one of the crowd, was making him stand out. He looked around. Brian had a collar. Derrick at Candice’s feet did, too, the leash from which was in Candice’s hand. Glancing around the room, Clint saw more than a few people wearing some version of Clint’s heavy leather neck wear, but they weren’t getting the same evaluating looks he was. He didn’t understand what the problem was.
He wondered if he could safely remove it without attracting too much attention.
“Uh, yeah. Pretty new. Moved down from Canada last month. The only person I know who’s involved here is the bartender Shirley, and she’s only been here a week.”
Everyone nodded. They were still giving him funny looks though. Fuck.
Well, nothing he could do about it now.
Clint nodded a little toward Belanger. “Not everyone is easy-going, though. What’s with that guy?”
Candice looked over, then turned back and rolled her eyes. Her fingers never stopped moving through Derrick’s hair, and the man was practically purring at her feet.
“I don’t know, but he comes in every couple of weeks. Lana lets him because he always respects the rules while in the club, and I suppose his money’s good. But I don’t like the way he hits on puppies.” She shook her head then glanced back at Clint and smiled gently at him. “I’m glad you have someone to look after you here in the States.”
Clint nodded, sweating slightly. Did she mean the “owner” that the woman at the desk had alluded to? “Yeah. And, uh, thanks for the warning.”
He made small talk for another few minutes before turning away. He headed back to the bar, dropped his empty glass down in front of Shirley, and shook his head subtly at her questioning glance. Clint looked once more around the room, noting that it was getting kind of crowded. The dance floor was definitely packed. He started walking toward the back wall where the bathrooms were, next to the heavy red curtain.
On the way, he reached up as if to scratch an itch and thumbed on his ear-mic.
“Someone didn’t do their fucking research.”
There was a slight crackle over the line, and Clint had a moment to wish for S.H.I.E.L.D.’s more reliable technology. “What?”
Clint resisted the urge to shake his head, concentrating on weaving his way through the bar towards the bathrooms.
“Something’s off with my outfit. This collar means more than a necklace, people are – ”
“Fuck that,” his handler said, interrupting him. “Your outfit is fine. You’re a newbie shit, you can make mistakes.”
“Not this kind of mistake. Listen to me – I’ve done deep cover before. I’m raising some definite red flags in this. “
“Take the damn thing off, then.” Davidson sounded pissed. “We’re not blowing the mission because you’ve got cold feet.”
Clint growled. “I don’t have cold feet. Listen, I’m getting a serious vibe from these people. If I take the collar off, it’ll mean more than a newbie mistake, it’ll mean something more – something that I think will blow my cover.”
He was almost at the bathrooms. Clint slowed his footsteps as he passed by the heavy red curtain. The room was busy with people who knew the rules; it would be hard to slip across the threshold without someone catching him. Clint had spent too much time tonight establishing himself as a newbie to fake his way through, but he slowed down at the curtain to peek inside. He wanted to get a glimpse of the layout beyond, wondering if he could time it right, cause a distraction maybe, and dart across before someone caught him.
Someone on the other side was already pulling the curtain aside, though. Clint hung back to peer through. He had a glimpse of a darkened corridor, done in heavy reds and lined with doors, and then a pair of sharp, shocked blue eyes looked up and caught his gaze.
Clint ground to a halt and stared.
Phil Coulson stared back.