Chapter Text
“The Captain wants you in his office,” Hill said, dropping down into her chair at the next desk over. “He said it was an order, not a request.”
Phil looked up from his computer and rubbed the back of his neck. “Did he say what it was about?” It was always better to be prepared when summoned to Fury's office. Even after more than a dozen years of working together and serving together in the Army before that, Nick kept him on his toes.
Hill shrugged. “Pretty sure he's about to assign you a new partner. He was on the phone with Captain Rawlings over at the 40 th in the Bronx. Sounded like there was another sub that,” she made little air quotes with her fingers, “just wasn't the right fit for those guys.”
Phil sighed, “Let me guess, another sub didn't get on their knees fast enough for Garrett. I can't believe IA hasn't busted his ass yet.” Shit, Phil and John Garrett had gone through the academy together way back when, even been friends of a sort until Garrett started using his position as a dominant to coerce the submissive detectives he was partnered with on the job. None of the submissives would press charges or even speak a word against Garrett, but the man burned through them like wildfire.
The Submissive Rights Act had been on the books for decades now, requiring, among other things, that each police squad partner a dominant and submissive together. All too often, submissives were either the witnesses or victims to crimes and the wrong dominant detective asking the wrong kind of questions or pushing too hard resulted in a complete shutdown of information or the submissives saying whatever they thought the dominant detective wanted to hear. Most submissives who had been victimized responded much better to one of their own. This was especially true in Phil's department, the Manhattan Special Victims Unit.
He pushed back from his desk and headed toward Fury's office. He'd been partner-less since Bruce transferred out a few months ago and had been rotating through some of the other subs in the department in the meantime when he was on calls. He'd known that dark eyed, gentle-souled Bruce wouldn't last long working sex crimes, but Phil had hoped he'd make it a year. Bruce was across the hall in white collar crimes now and thriving, so Phil couldn't begrudge the loss of another good partner.
He knocked on Fury's open door and stepped inside when the Captain waved him in. “You wanted to see me?”
Nick sat back in his office chair and steepled his hands together. “I've got another one for you, Cheese.”
“Why do I feel like I need to sit down for this one?” Phil made himself comfortable in one of the overstuffed seats on either side of Nick's desk.
“Look, I know I promised you no more difficult subs after that shit storm with Ward, but this guy is a special case.”
“Another one of Garrett's burnouts?” Phil asked. “Because the number he did on Pepper… fuck, Nick, the guy shouldn't have a badge. He should be in Rikers right now with those other sub-abusing scumbags.”
Nick shook his head and slid a file across his desk to Phil. “This guy had some run-ins with Garrett but didn't work directly with him. He was partnered with Sitwell.”
Phil considered that; Sitwell was a good guy and had a decent reputation. He flipped open the file and scanned through it, there was no picture but plenty of paper work. He read key points out loud, “Clint Barton, submissive, made detective relatively young, commendations for bravery scattered in with numerous disciplinary infractions. Let's see, Sitwell's notes say brilliant, wasted in his current position in narcotics, but trouble with authority, doesn't play well with others, mouthy, attitude problems, dynamic struggles. Suspended for,” Phil paused and looked up at Nick, “striking a superior officer. Doesn't say who though.”
Nick shrugged, “Yeah, I called Captain Rawlings but that fucker danced all around it. He's not a fan of Barton, but hell, you know he's old school, doesn't thinks subs should be on the job at all. Truth be told he probably thinks I should be riding people up and down in the elevator like my grandfather because my skin's the wrong color. Basically we take Barton on or he's gonna be farmed out to Staten Island. I wouldn't push him on you, but Sitwell's a good man and if he says Barton's brilliant and needs a second chance, I say we give it to him.”
He tapped his fingers on the desk and looked at Phil. “You need a sub partner, Barton's a sub in need of a good dom partner. You've saved the careers of difficult subs before. Hell, look what you did with Romanov, she's about to make Senior Detective and when she partnered with you she was two minutes away from being fired.”
Phil nodded, Natasha had been difficult but worth it. As a beautiful female sub, she'd spent the first few years of her career being underestimated, belittled, and systematically torn down by the doms she'd been partnered with. By the time she was partnered with Phil she was a walking attitude problem. It had taken months for her to trust him, even longer before she started opening up to him and then things had clicked and they'd become unstoppable. If she hadn't transferred to help set up Brooklyn's fledgling SVU, they would still be working together.
She had become one of Phil's closest friends and they still met for lunch whenever they could find the time to make it work with their schedules. It was Natasha that had kicked his ass when he blamed himself for Ward. But Phil couldn't let himself think about that catastrophe right now, not when Nick was watching him with his one all too knowing eye.
“Sure, I'll take him on.” Phil said, getting to his feet. “But remember, Banner was pretty much the ideal sub partner, so it's entirely possible that I've lost my touch with the not so ideal ones.”
Nick nodded. “Duly noted, now get your ass back out there and brush up on your interpersonal skills. Barton will be here in the morning.”
Phil stopped midway to the door and looked back over his shoulder. “I never had a say in this at all, did I?”
Nick laughed. “Hell, Cheese, you always were a soft touch when it came to a troubled sub. I knew you wouldn't say no.”
Phil spent the next forty-five minutes on the phone, trying to run down a lead on a particularly brutal sexual assault case. It was the third one this month, at least the third one with this level of aggression. The sub victims had been left traumatized physically and emotionally to the point that the were either unwilling or unable to describe their attacker or give more than the haziest description of their attack. Phil was almost positive they were looking for the same perp, based on the similarity between the wounds.
He paged through the file, taking in the distinct pattern of bruises and small puncture wounds around the victim’s thighs, ankles, wrists and necks. He had seen plenty of restraint marks before, both those resulting from safe consensual play, some of them his own handiwork, and the not so nice ones that his work exposed him to. These had him stumped. The ligature marks didn't look like they'd been made from rope, leather, cloth, bondage tape, or any of the usual material used for binding.
He had picked the phone up to call back down to forensics with another question for Simmons when he heard shouts from the hall.
He glanced around the nearly deserted squad room but Hill was on the phone and Sam Wilson and Melinda May were busy playing good cop/bad cop with a suspect in one of the interrogation rooms. The shouts were definitely coming closer. Phil pushed back from his desk and was on his way to investigate when the double doors swung open and Rumlow from the anti-gang task force came tumbling through to land on his ass at Phil's feet
“What the?” Phil started, offering Rumlow a hand. The guy was a hothead but even he wasn’t known for fighting in the precinct halls.
“You little shit. Fucking sub cock tease,” Rumlow scrambled up, ignoring Phil's outstretched hand and pushing past him. “Somebody needs to teach you your place.”
He was directing his comments at the – whoa, really attractive man standing in the doorway with his hands on his hips. He had on dark jeans that clung to muscular thighs, a thin black sweater that pulled tight across a broad chest and a dark brown leather jacket. His face was rugged, with messy dark blond hair and gorgeous blue green eyes. His mouth was twisted into a half smirk, half sneer as he faced down Rumlow.
“Well, it's not going to be you now is it, motherfucker?” Hot Guy said. “Or do you need another lesson on how to keep your hands to yourself?”
Rumlow tried to go for him again but Phil muscled him back, putting space between them. “Let me go, Coulson.” Rumlow huffed, letting out a wince when Phil twisted his arm behind his back and shoved him up against the wall.
“Yeah, Coulson,” Hot Guy said. “Let him go. I'd love an excuse to break his nose.”
Phil narrowed his eyes. Hot or not, the guy's taunting was not helping the situation. “That's enough from you. We've got things under control here, don't we, Rumlow?” He pressed his free hand against the back of Rumlow's neck and pushed hard until the other man's face was grinding against the wall. “Don't we?” He hated these fucking dominance game with other doms, but sometimes it was the only thing that got through when tempers flared.
“Yeah, yeah. All right.” Rumlow said, the tension leaving his body. “You can let me go now.”
Phil gave it another few seconds, his shoulder pressing hard into Rumlow's back, before he loosened his grip on the other man and stepped away. “Anybody want to tell me what exactly is going on here?”
By this time they'd drawn a crowd. Hill was standing at Phil's back, her hand resting casually on the butt of her service piece. May and Wilson weren't far behind.
“Sure,” Hot Guy said with a sneer. “Your boy here thought he could grab my ass because I smiled at him in the elevator.”
“It was more than smiling,” Rumlow protested, rubbing at the rapidly swelling lump below his eye where Hot Guy had evidently punched him. “You were flirting and you know it.”
Hot Guy smirked, “I don't care if I was eye-fucking you, you piece of shit. You don't get to touch me without my permission. What is it with you dom cops, anyway? A sub smiles at you and you think it's okay to put your hands all over them. Newsflash douchebag, I smile at everybody. I'm one grade A friendly guy. I flirt with everybody. Hell,” he motioned toward Phil. “Blue eyes here looks pretty damn hot in his suit, I'd probably be smiling and flirting with him if not for your sorry ass.”
Phil flushed, Hot Guy was hot. He couldn't imagine how hot Hot Guy would be if he stopped snarking and started flirting. “How about you,” he pointed at Rumlow. “Get out of here before I call HR and you end up in another Submissive Equality in the Workplace Seminar. And you,” he turned toward Hot Guy. “Where are you supposed to be?”
“He's supposed to be right here, Coulson.” Fury's voice boomed across the room. “Meet your new partner, Detective Clint Barton.”
Well, hell.
Clint openly checked out his new partner’s ass on the way to his desk. He wasn’t lying - he really would have picked him to flirt with had that handsy asshole not gotten in his way. Detective Phil Coulson was way hotter in person than Clint was prepared for; that short exchange in the hallway, watching him press that asshole dom against the wall had been enough for Clint to mentally mark him down on his ‘would totally blow’ list.
He wasn’t about to offer to help move all the guy’s crap off of his new desk, though. Flirting was one thing, but if he started serving people they’d start taking that shit for granted. He'd learned that lesson the hard way, back before he ever left Iowa. Sex was sex, going to his knees for pleasure was something he was good at. He was the kind of sub doms liked to get off with before they moved on, not the kind they wanted to build a future with. Take it beyond the moment, try to extend his "good boy" desires and need to please beyond the fuck/suck moment and it backfired every time.
He leaned against the edge of the desk and watched as Coulson tossed things into the trash and scooped files together before piling them on top of the heaps on his own desk.
“Sorry about all the mess,” Coulson said, stepping away and pulling the office chair with him so Clint could sit down. “I would’ve tidied earlier but I’ve been wrapped up in a case. Weren’t you coming tomorrow?”
“Wanted to catch you unawares,” Clint smirked, taking the seat and turning to his new, empty desk. The truth was, time off was boring; Clint really just wanted to get to work. He turned back to Phil, who was now sorting through the stuff he’d hastily added to his messy desk. “So, what case were you so absorbed in that only a damsel in distress could tear you away?”
Coulson arched an eyebrow at him. “Damsel in distress? By the looks of things you could more than hold your own out there. Rumlow’s going to have quite the shiner.”
“Always nice to be saved by a big handsome dom, though,” Clint said, and actually batted his eyelashes and bit his lip.
His overt display of cartoonish flirtation didn’t quite have the desired effect, as Coulson just kind of frowned at him. He pulled out a file from the middle of the desk and handed it over, but didn’t let go when Clint went to take it from him.
“You don’t have to do that,” Coulson said quietly but firmly. “I know what it’s like in some precincts, but here, you don’t need to play power games, and if anyone around here does try anything with you-“
“Then you’ll shove ‘em up against a wall for me?”
Coulson’s nostrils flared, but he didn’t look away, and Clint couldn’t help but smile. “Alright, boss, I get it. No games.” Coulson nodded minutely and let go of the file. As he did so, Clint added, “at least not til we know each other's safe word.”
Coulson sighed and raised his eyes to the heavens.
Yeah, Clint was gonna fit in here just fine.
Coulson gave Clint a quick tour of the office, introducing him to May, Wilson, and Hill along the way. He explained the pairings and gave him a rundown on who was who. He seemed to be well liked amongst the rest of the staff, and Clint got the feeling that the place was more like a family than the team he’d been stationed with back in the Bronx. Sitwell had been pretty cool, but the rest of the doms had been more of the old school variety that thought submissives should just be eye candy or fucktoys.
“That leaves just a few you won't meet today. Fitz is Hill's partner, he's out on personal leave for the next day or two. I'll take you down to forensics to meet Simmons and Mack later. They're technically not in our division, but so many of our cases are time sensitive that we get a little special treatment and they pretty much always move our stuff to the head of the line.”
Phil took Clint to the basement to meet the weapons officer and then up a narrow staircase to what seemed to be an attic space set up like something out of the Matrix, computer equipment and screens on every possible surface. “Skye's been called over to assist with Brooklyn SVU on a case this afternoon, but she's based out of here too. With the increase in computer-related crimes of a sexual nature she's on permanent loan from the Cyber Crime division at HQ.”
They finished up the tour in the break room where Rumlow was leaning against the counter, nursing the black eye Clint had given him with a bag of ice. “We share the break room with a couple of other divisions, white collar, anti-gang mostly. You two have already met, but this is Brock Rumlow, he works in the anti-gang division.”
“Nice to meet you,” Clint said, holding out a hand. Rumlow looked at Clint and then at Coulson, who just smiled pleasantly, before shaking Clint’s hand with the strongest grip he could muster before slinking out of the room.
“Nice guy,” Clint said, and he was pretty sure he saw Coulson smile as he opened a cupboard to pull out a couple of mugs.
“I think that’s everyone who’s here today,” he said. “I just need to know one thing: how do you take your coffee?”
Huh. Clint schooled his expression so as not to seem too surprised that his dom partner was about to make him coffee rather than shooing him off to the kitchen with his own drink order. “Black,” he replied cautiously. Best not to get too used to anything.
Coulson winced. “Are you sure?” he nodded towards the percolator, which looked like it had been installed along with the rest of the kitchen in the 1970s. “It’s pretty terrible coffee.”
Clint nodded. “I kinda like precinct coffee. There’s something about it you just don’t get with Starbucks.”
“Yeah, that burnt rubber flavour really brings out the wet cardboard undertones.”
Clint laughed and was pleased to see Coulson’s smile as he poured them two cups. He doctored his own with milk and way too much sugar before handing a cup to Clint and clinking it with his own. “Welcome to Precinct 18, Detective Barton.”
Clint lifted his mug and took a sip, letting the predictably acrid coffee fill his mouth, feeling Coulson’s eyes on him the whole time.
“That’s delicious,” he choked, and Coulson laughed before leading them back out to their desks.
Later, Clint had set himself up at his computer terminal and called through to the badge department, and Coulson had given his desk a thorough straightening, ending up with four stacks of files.
“Alright,” Coulson said once Clint had finished his call with someone who he wasn’t entirely sure wasn’t a robot. He was leaning against the desk and Clint couldn’t help but track the length of his legs in those perfectly fitted trousers. He’d taken off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves during his tidying, and Clint had been a little distracted. Well, he’d played it up as best he could, anyway. Coulson didn’t seem to bat an eyelid, though. Maybe if he could get Rumlow to hit him again…
Oblivious to Clint’s thoughts, Coulson continued. “These are ongoing,” he said, placing his hand on a stack of files about five inches tall. He moved onto another heap that was perhaps two inches taller than that. “These are semi-cold, mostly waiting to get signed off and filed as unsolved.”
“Assholes,” Clint muttered in their direction, well familiar with annoying cases that just wouldn’t play ball. Still, he was excited to sneak a peek the next time he had a chance; there was nothing quite as exciting as cracking a cold case by spotting a detail no one had noticed before. Didn’t make him many friends but hell, Clint didn’t care.
“And here’s this week,” Coulson picked up the smallest heap of all, just three thin files.
“What about that one?” Clint asked of the fourth heap.
“Oh, they’re just projects. Couple of cold cases.”
Clint waited for Coulson to elaborate, tell him about the one that got away, or the legendary case that no one could solve, but nothing was forthcoming.
“Did you take a look at the files from the active cases I gave you earlier?” Coulson said after a protracted silence.
Clint nodded. The files were on a series of subs who had shown up out of the blue, a couple of weeks apart, bearing similar kinds of ligature marks all over their bodies. They were all young but nothing else seemed to relate them. “Right. I glanced through it pretty quickly but nothing jumped out.” He turned to grab the file and flip it open before placing it half on Coulson’s desk, half on his own. “Any of the witnesses give up anything?”
Coulson shook his head sadly. “No, but we should go interview them again at some point, see if they’re in better shape than when we first found ‘em. This kid came in off the street, didn’t know what city he was in.”
“Shit. Who talked to him?”
“Just me. It’ll be good to have you around for some of this stuff. How good are you with witnesses?”
Clint half shrugged. “Good with victims, especially subs, not always so good with asshole doms.”
Coulson nodded and wryly said, “that’s a surprise.”
They went through the file and Coulson filled Clint in a little about some more of the details, like how the victims were uniformly dazed and confused but none of them seemed to have drugs in their system. “Brought down hard and kept there,” he said at one point, and judging by their pictures, Clint could well believe it. "All three remembered smelling perfume or flowers or something like that but couldn't be more specific."
“And then they just walked in?”
“This one did. This one,” Coulson flipped back through the file to another victim, “was brought in by someone who found her in the street. And this one was found in a church.”
Clint studied Coulson’s face the way he would if he were interviewing a suspect or a victim. Looking for traces of fear, pain, worry. All he saw was sorrow and a tinge of frustration.
Coulson caught him looking and said, “What?”
“You care a lot, huh?”
Coulson snorted and flipped through the file again, not meeting Clint’s eye. “I already have one mother telling me not to let the job take over my life, I don’t need another one.”
“No, caring’s good. I mean, this job’ll chew you up if you let it, but,” he shrugged. “I care.”
The way Coulson looked at him then, Clint suddenly felt the very real dominance he must be able to exude when he wanted to. He didn’t shrink back in his seat but it was a conscious decision not to.
“Maybe I get kicked out of every precinct I go to, but I do care, Coulson.”
Coulson checked himself and the intensity of his gaze softened. Clint had a vision of him interrogating suspects and hoped he might get to see it someday soon. Hopefully whenever they caught whoever this serial abuser was.
Clint flipped back through the file again and looked at a closeup of the marks on one of the victim's wrists. The paperwork said the binding was still unidentified, but Clint tapped his pen on it as he cast his mind back to a barn in Iowa…
“Barbed wire,” he said, looking up at Coulson. “They were bound with barbed wire.”