A Gift From: _samalander
Type Of Gift: Fic
Title: Faith and Numbers
A Gift For: sugar_fey
Rating: R
Warnings: Discussion of humaan trafficking, talk of blood & BDSM.
Summary/Prompt Used: For the Prompt: "I'll always bet on you." - Clint and Natasha haven't been working together long when he has to take a leap and trust that she knows what she's doing. It turns out she's doing the same.
Author's Note:Happy Holidays, sugarfey! This is meant to be pre-relationship, early-ish partnership. I hope you enjoy!



The club was dirty. Clint knew the type too well, knew the smell of sex and desperation from his own days on the streets, from having to do things he didn't want to so he could make a dent in his hunger. The place had made his skin crawl from the first moment he'd sidled up to the bar and ordered a whiskey.

Some of the other patrons clearly didn't see it; some thought it was an up-and-up club where they could come in their leather and lace and meet others like them. Some of the patrons were just people. And some were something else. Some were there as predators, as things to stalk the darkness and pick on the weak and unsuspecting. Those were the people that Clint was hoping to meet.

The first of the sort to approach him was a man named Jon; an unsuspecting name, a quiet name, the kind of name that put a person at ease. He was just Jon, you know, just Jon. It was about a month into Clint's time at the club, four weeks of watching and waiting and acting just shifty enough that some of the patrons avoided him, and some asked him for tips after watching scenes where he enacted brutal punishments- always on willing participants, of course, but always drawing blood.

He'd made a name.

Jon seemed like the tip-asking type, so when he approached Clint at the bar, Clint smiled and shook his hand and gave his alias - Colin Bailey - and sat with Jon and drank. The man was human garbage, of that Clint was sure. He had a slime to him, a film over his personality that made Clint feel like he was being cased at every given moment. Though, as good as Jon thought he was at the game, the way he quietly slipped out questions about experience and expectations, Clint was better. A few hours into their friendship, Jon had already dropped hints that Colin might like the VIP perks of the club. Clint accepted with feigned reservations - mostly over price - and it only took a week to be introduced to a dozen or so people, the people Clint suspected were the club’s "recruiters", the ones who found the workers, and kept them in line.

Still, Jon was cagey, edgy around Clint. Like he didn't trust him enough to bring him in all the way. The sex was fine between them, more like a war than anything intimate, but they had a connection - or so Clint let him believe. It wasn't until Jon asked Clint to join him and another recruiter, Kelly, that he'd gotten an in. Kelly and her partner were always looking for a third or a fourth - and finally, three and a half months into his undercover stint, over post-coital cigarettes, Kelly had invited him to meet EJ.

EJ was a thoroughly unremarkable woman-- the kind of woman he'd have passed on the street without a second thought, the kind of face that slid out of his memory without a moment's notice. Until she opened her mouth. As soon as Clint heard EJ's voice order him to remove his shirt, to check for a wire, she became the kind of person who made his skin crawl. It was a cute kind of threatening; a faux-innocence that belied a cruelty underneath. It took about three seconds for Clint to realize that her plainness was an affect, the same as Jon's name or Kelly's maternal aura; something to make her invisible to the casual observer. Something that made her the perfect person to be at the top of this little pyramid.

Clint was afraid, momentarily, that EJ would see his past on his face, peg him as a mark and not a friend. But she was kind to Clint, her wood-paneled office stinking of old lube and money, gently explaining the way things worked - how people like Jon or Kelly would seek out the weaker lambs among the flock of the club, groom them, and bring them in for training. How they made money for every successful initiate they brought in, how they had to branch out here and there to defray suspicion, how they'd occasionally had to get rid of a few people who weren't pulling their weight.

"The real trouble is," she purred, scooting closer to him on the couch, "finding the right people to-- enroll into our program."

"On which side?" he asked, brushing her hair behind her ear in a move that would, in another situation, be called tender.

"Both," she grinned. "We need the right recruiters - getting rid of them is such a hassle, you know. And we need the right people at the bottom, if you will. We don't let anyone join the ranks without an initial-- deposit."

Clint swallowed and nodded, doing his best to play it off as arousal and not discomfort. He doubted EJ noticed - he would have had to be a person to her for her to notice his emotions, and he didn't think EJ saw anyone as a person, not anymore. She saw price tags on every forehead, the amount she'd have to pay before she owned them. Clint thought it was disgusting but he hid it, throwing his facial muscles into marveling at the way EJ managed to make the whole thing sound like an audition or a transaction, and not sexual slavery.

"What do you say, Mister Bailey?" she asked, running a hand up his arm. "You know anyone who might like a job here?"

Clint smiled his best predator smile, showing teeth and quirking his lip. "I might know a girl," he said, softly.

EJ gave him a hungry look. "And you understand what I'm asking? You know what you're giving her into?"

"Yes," Clint breathed. "Uppity little bitch needs a good fucking, don't see why she shouldn't get it from you, and earn me a little money on the side."

EJ offered him her hand and he shook it, schooling his face to neutrality as she used the grip to lean in and kiss him on his mouth. "You know, Colin," she breathed, her lips just centimeters from his. "If you try to screw me, I'll make you bleed. And not in the fun way."

Clint eyed her for a second, pretending a brave face over a latent terror. "Promise?" he asked, her hand hot on his thigh. EJ just laughed, and kissed him again.

---

"You sure you wanna do this?"

Natasha glared daggers at Clint. They were in the relative privacy of a coffee place not too far from Clint's cover apartment, on what was meant to be a date, for anyone from the ring who was watching.

"You're my partner," she said, laying her hand over his. It was an oddly personal gesture for her; usually Natasha avoided touching him if she could help it.

"Yeah, but-- but this is big," he sighed, taking a sip of his coffee.

"So?" She grinned, the kind of insane fucking grin she got when they were having an adventure, when they were under fire and her blood was pumping. "Let's kill some bad guys, Clint. C'mon. It'll be fun."

"You scare me," he said, rolling his eyes, but he was smiling at her, trying to put on a show for the tail they weren't sure was there.

Natasha laughed. "Then I'm doing my job. Let me play, huh? I promise to save a few for you."

Clint nodded, his heart heavy. She was so young, and so invincible. He wondered, sometimes, if he'd done the right thing by recruiting Natasha into the world of SHIELD, if she wouldn't have been happier being a shade of gray, rather than a force of good. If she wouldn't have been more content not having to spend so much time proving her goodness, her purity, to herself.

But it wasn't his choice to make, not anymore. Instead he softly touched the back of her neck, a possessive and sweet gesture, just in case anyone was watching.

---

A week after his promise to EJ, Clint stood in the bathroom of the little apartment he was staying in, the one he was sure was bugged and surveilled at most times. He stared at himself in the mirror, trying to get himself ready for what he needed to do, what he and Natasha were about to face. He'd already showered and shaved and managed to shimmy into the SHIELD-issue leather pants for what he hoped was the last time.

He shook his head as he pulled on the mesh shirt - also SHIELD issued, which was raising all kinds of questions in Clint's mind about the contents of their costume closet - and stepped into the bedroom, running over the plan in his head. It was a simple one - take Natasha in, sell her, tail her and free her and the others at the training facility. There was really no way for it to go wrong. He ran his hand through his hair one last time and went to find his partner in the bedroom.

Clint stopped short when he saw her, thoughts of the plan dissipating as he took in the view of Natasha, her back to him, putting on earrings in the mirror. It was something so mundane and domestic, but she still looked like a goddess doing it. Her hair was long and free, curling around her shoulders, and the dress she was wearing left just enough up to the imagination that Clint thought she'd have every one of these scumbags wrapped around her little finger before she walked in the door.

He took the collar off the bed, swallowing hard before grinning at her. "Wanna play a game?" he asked, sliding into their prepared script.

"I don't know," Natasha giggled, her voice high and sweet, almost alien. "What's the game?"

"You wear this to the club tonight, and I tell everyone what a good little kitty you are."

The script made Clint want to vomit, honestly, the idea that Natasha was nothing more than an object he'd sell, a sub-person to be manipulated. But he was a professional, and he slipped into Colin Bailey as they spoke, his smarm and arrogance like a loose-fitting suit.

Natasha agreed, finally, as she was always going to, and Clint fastened the stiff leather around her neck before clipping a leash to the o-ring in the front.

"Ready, pet?" he asked, blinking twice. It was their sign, the one to convey that everything was all right. Danger was three taps of a middle finger against anything, but he didn't choose that, didn't pull out. She blinked back.

"Yeah," she grinned, leaning up to kiss him. It took him by surprise, but he kissed her back for a moment, enjoying the soft warmth of her body against his, before pulling away and heading to the door, her leash still clenched in his hand.

---

Clint led Natasha into the club, every inch of his body on high alert. As far as he could tell, Natasha was loving it - she liked the showing off, the strutting, the attention. He wondered, idly, if it was her first time being sold like this, or if it was another facet of her Red Room days coming into play in a strange and unexpected way.

He caught the bartender's eye as he pulled Natasha to a sofa- it was soft, black leather, like most of the furniture in the club, and it took no time for Clint to get comfortable. A waitress put a drink in his hand as Natasha kneeled restlessly at his feet, every inch the newbie she was playing.

Kelly approached them first, her sharp fingernails painted an arterial kind of red. She made a show of admiring Natasha, calling her pretty and sweet and good. The kind.of thing a real sub might like from their dom, but Kelly oversold it, overstepped the boundaries a little. Clint assumed that it was a test, that they were trying to make him balk, if he was gonna balk. He just smiled sweetly at Kelly and winked.

"Did you want a turn with her?" he asked, softly stroking the back of Kelly's hand. "She's a good lay."

Kelly nodded, which was what Clint was expecting. He stood and tugged Natasha's leash once. "Come," he snapped, as she scrambled to her feet, still maintaining her innocent facade. It was an impressive show, really, for a woman like that to pull off "driven snow".

Kelly didn't lead them to the playrooms; Clint was half expecting her to actually want to fuck Natasha, but he was relieved they wouldn’t have to play that scenario. Instead she steered them back to EJ's office, through the dark and musty back corridors.

EJ was behind her desk when she waved the three of them in, but she stood and approached when she saw Natasha. "Is this our girl?" she asked, reaching for the leash.

"Yeah," Clint said, letting her take it. "This one's for you."

Natasha shot him a look that, to the untrained eye, might signal distress. But Clint counted the blinks and marked the stillness of her hands. It was the go-ahead, no matter how he might feel about it.

"What is this?" Natasha asked, sounding small and frightened.

"Hello, pet," EJ said, cupping Natasha's chin. "I'm your new master."

Natasha was a pro: she managed to fight just enough to be believed, but not enough to get away. "Colin!" she sobbed, fear taking over her voice. "Colin, what's going on?"

"It's been nice knowing you," he said softly. "But Nadia, darling? You'll see me again."

Natasha continued to blink at him, feigning confusion. EJ reached out and gripped Natasha's chin, turning her head so they made eye contact. "Your Colin there?" she said, her voice oil slick and nightshade, almost the exact voice Clint had heard Natasha use on marks before. "Your boy there sold you. To me. And I'm gonna train you up pretty, so when you see him, all you'll want is to be mounted and bred. You got me?"

Natasha burst into tears on cue, playing the lamb to EJ's wolf like it was the role she was born for. EJ bared her teeth and motioned to Kelly, who was still standing, motionless, in the corner by the door.

"Binder," EJ snapped, and Kelly grabbed an arm binder from the wall as Natasha unhooked the leash and tried to flee. Clint caught her and held her wrists even as he felt a jolt of panic go through him - they'd not been planning on this. The plan had counted on her to be able to help from the inside. The arm binder was new, and it set him on edge. He tapped his finger three times against her wrist, but she just blinked back at him, her eyes bright with unshed tears, as he held her and Kelly laced the binder up her arms.

"Colin?" Natasha asked again, and he just shook his head.

"You can call me Master," he spit, letting his lip curl in disgust. He roughly tangled his fingers in her hair and yanked her head back so she had to look at him. "Now, be a good girl. Or, you know, don't. Up to you." He leaned down and kissed her, letting the other women see his teeth pull at Natasha's bottom lip. "Be seeing you," he growled, blinking at her to indicate his acceptance.

"Fuck you," she spit, fighting - ineffectually - against the binder and her captors. EJ reared back and backhanded Natasha after a moment, sending her sprawling. Clint's heart rate spiked at the cruelty. Even though he'd seen Natasha get out of worse, the hopeless sobbing she was putting on was pulling a heartstring or two as Kelly yanked her to her feet and bustled her out the door. Out of Clint's sight.

EJ smiled like a snake, her tongue darting out to wet her lips. "Well?" she asked, cracking her fingers loudly. "What do you think, Colin?"

Clint narrowed his eyes and smiled at her. "In for a penny, in for a pound," he said. "Speaking of which-- when do I see return on her?"

The woman touched his chest through the mesh shirt, her fingers cold on his skin. "As soon as she starts work and recoups the cost to train her -- with a firecracker like that, it might be a few months." She laughed, like it was funny to sell humans, and Clint joined her, keeping up the facade. He wanted to run -- wanted to walk out, get away from EJ and everyone else like her. But he had to give Natasha time to get to the compound, time for his team to track her. So he gave EJ what she wanted, the thing she'd been crowding his space for. He leaned in, swallowed his disgust, and kissed her full on the mouth.

"You wanna have some fun?" EJ grinned when they broke apart, her tone suggesting anything but, that this was a test, that this was her way of seeing what he'd do for her, for the ring.

"What kind of fun?" he asked, trailing his finger across her lips. "Cause I was thinking of going down on you for like, an hour to thank you for the opportunity."

EJ regarded him thoughtfully. "I was thinking more accessories, but-- yeah," she nodded curtly. "Why don't you stay and play with me."

Clint's brain was spinning. The binder, and now this - if he made excuses, it was going to be too suspicious, look too much like cold feet. But he knew Natasha could take care of herself - was aching to prove that she could. The room was bugged and she had a subdermal transmitter, so even though it seemed like Clint wouldn't be able to follow, she'd still be tracked and, hopefully, the team would get there before she had all the fun.

---

Natasha worked fast - less than two hours after she was removed from the office, Clint was awoken by the sound of boots. EJ, still recovering from the post-coital sedatives he'd slipped her, didn't wake as he handed her over in a grim echo of Natasha's scene earlier.

It was all he could do to pull on the bondage outfit one last time, and let the sniggering commandos take him back to base.

---

His first stop was the showers.

The spray was hot on Clint's face, but not nearly hot enough to make it worthwhile. He stretched an arm out to rest against the tiled wall of the gym's showers, wishing there was something hotter than water, something better than soap, to take the filth of this mission off of him.

He didn't mind the sex-- it was part of the job. But the cavorting with known traffickers, the women and men who had passed under his nose while he was cozying up to Jon and Kelly, trying to get an in. It was all under his skin in a kind of itchy way, one that made him scrub harder with the soap, bereft of any real sense of getting clean.

It didn’t help that the SHIELD base had a truly filthy locker room, the detritus and sloughed skin of a thousand missions swimming around Clint's feet. He was pretty sure nothing even close to cleanliness had ever been achieved in this room.

Clint heard the door swing open and counted the footsteps, judged the gait. It was an agent, he knew that from the clipped sound of the heel, and someone who sat at a desk, if the slight brush of a cuff on the floor was anything to judge by. No one who had any business being in the locker room in the middle of the night.

"All right, Barton," Sitwell sighed, crossing his arms in the open doorway to the shower. "Are we gonna debrief, or you gonna stand in here and weep while you pleasure yourself?"

Clint actually bit out a laugh and flipped Sitwell the bird. "You need me to put on pants?" he asked, striking a pose he thought really accentuated his package. "Or, can we do this here?"

The eye-roll was auditory, the long-suffering sigh the work of a master. "Despite what you like to think," Sitwell said, his voice dark with sarcasm, "not everyone who works here wants to see your junk."

Clint nodded. "Well, yeah. And some people don't want to sleep with me, but it's such a small number--"

Sitwell actually threw up his hands in frustration, which Clint thought was a long time coming for the two of them. "Look, if I release you to medical, will you write me a fucking report before Friday?"

"Yeah," Clint said, turning to actually look at Sitwell. The other man looked ragged, worn, tired. It occurred to Clint that, just maybe, it was as hard for him to watch the proceedings in that place as it was to live them. "Hey," he said, stepping out from under the spray. "You should get some sleep."

"Sure," Sitwell said, his voice heavy with exhaustion. "So should you, buddy. But-- check in with medical. Natasha-- she kicked some serious ass, and she's asking for you."

Clint just stared at him, unsure what he was actually trying to say. Sitwell didn't offer anything else in the way of explanation-- he just nodded at Clint, and Clint returned the gesture before he shut off the shower, feeling a little more adrift than he had been before.

---

"Nice job," Clint said, sliding into the bedside chair and grinning at Natasha, the t-shirt still sticking to the water on his back. "I hear you kicked ass out there."

Natasha laughed. She looked more like herself, less mousy and unsure in the thin fabric of the hospital gown than she had been in the club clothes, and Clint was glad to see the strength again, glad to see his friend.

"You, too," she said, something sparkling in her eyes. "It was-- the ground work was solid."

Clint nodded. "Tell me about the binder?" he asked. "That thing made me itchy."

"Oh," she laughed. "I-- the guy in the car with Kelly. I think she called him Jon? Your buddy?"

Clint nodded, though he could already see where this was going.

"He started pressing me about you-- about Colin. How did I know him, when did we meet. He just genuinely didn't trust you," Natasha rolled her eyes at the idea. "Can you imagine?

"No," he grinned. "Not trusting a spy, really?"

"Anyway, I played pathetic. Sniveled, sniffled, begged. They'd already tied it too loose - I could get my arms out, but I wanted to save that for if I needed it, you know? So they take me into the facility, and Jon starts really grilling me." She laughed, the joy splashed across her face reminding him of the coffee shop, of her desire to act. "That's when he threw me around a little, and probably where the concussion is from"

Clint nodded, his stomach churning a little at the thought of her getting thrown around.

"So I slipped out of the binder and took him out, and the team stormed the place. There were thirty people in the compound, did you hear? Thirty-- victims," she smiled again, looking pleased with herself. "This-- this was a big ring."

Clint nodded and took her hand. "You were-- that was fucking brave, you know? You could have-- they could have really hurt you."

She squeezed his fingers gently. "No," she said softly. "They could have tried."

Her eyelids were drooping a little, so Clint just returned the squeeze. "You know, in any given fight, I'd always put my money on you."

Natasha nodded. "I know. Same."

Clint resisted the urge to kiss her forehead - it felt too intimate, like he was her boyfriend, and still somehow paternal, like he owned her, and he was pretty sure they'd both had enough of that for a while. Instead he just ran his thumb over her knuckles, which were split but healing. "Get some rest," he said. "You earned it."

She grinned sleepily and let her eyes drift closed. "Hey, Clint?" she asked after a minute, her voice colored with fatigue.

"Hey, yeah?"

"You ever-- stuff like today really sucks, but-- you ever like the feeling that there are worse things than you out there?" she asked.

Clint thought for a minute before making an affirmative noise. "There are a lot of worse things than me," he said. "I mean, worse than you, too."

She yawned and nodded. "Like what?"

"Like," he thought for a second. "Like moldy orange juice," he said. "Like Ben Affleck, and people who protest at funerals and the Ten Rings." He took a shaky breath. "Lots of things."

"I'm a pretty bad thing," she said, her voice small.

"You were," he agreed. "But you're working on it."

Natasha seemed to think about that for a long time. He'd started to give up on her, thought she must be asleep when she cracked an eye. "Hey, Clint?"

"Hey, yeah?"

"Can I ask you something?"

He nodded, giving her hand another squeeze.

"Will you be here when I wake up?"

"Do you want me to be?"

"Yeah," she breathed, and the look she gave him was somehow inscrutable. He thought, dimly, that if it were any other woman, she'd be looking at him with love, maybe with desire. But Natasha wasn't any other woman. She was his partner, with all that entailed.

"I'll be here as long as you want."

"So," she whispered, scooting over in bed. "Be here."

Clint stared at her for a long moment, trying to parse the last few hours. "Natasha--"

"Shut up," she said, annoyance curling her words at the edges. "Stop-- stop thinking for two seconds, and just-- you know, just do."

Clint blinked, but he toed off his boots and climbed into the bed next to her, his back stiff and his heart pounding.

"Relax," she sighed. "I'm not gonna hurt you."

"Bet that's what you tell all the boys," he laughed, stretching his arm out so she could pillow her head on his shoulder.

"Yeah," she said. "But you know, you might just have to put your money on me one more time tonight."

Clint let out a breath he didn't know he was holding, her attempt at humor disarming him into relaxation. "Go to sleep," he said, poking her in the side. "And if I don't wake up, I'm gonna be pissed."

Natasha laughed and tilted her head up to kiss him on the cheek, her lips burning like a brand. Clint schooled his face into impassivity, not knowing how to react or what it meant, but enjoying the sensation of having her there, warm and whole next to him.