darcy/nick gant (push)
The casino--and Darcy used the word extremely loosely; 'gambling den' was probably more accurate--was packed with all sorts of shady-looking characters. She'd dug the heel of her stilettos into the toes of more than one drunk, handsy gambler while she circled the room looking for her target. She found him near the back, playing roulette with a cigar in one hand, a shot glass in the other, and girl who looks like she could be his daughter sitting in his lap.
Piotr Karakoff was a trafficker of anything and everything--legal and illegal drugs, weapons, people--but he had a particular weakness for young, busty brunettes. His predilection was the main reason Darcy had been sent on this op, even though she still had three months of training left before she reached probationary agent status. But Karakoff didn't often come state-side, and his appearance in New York the day before had left SHIELD scrambling for the appropriate bait. So Darcy was it.
She knew there were about fifteen fully-trained and fully-armed SHIELD agents stationed around the room, but it was still difficult to screw up her courage to walk up to the table and take the empty seat between Karakoff and a scruffy younger man. She ignored them both and slid a stack of bills toward the dealer in exchange for chips. "Changing ten," he said, and she nodded, accepting her ten thousand dollars worth of green chips.
Karakoff leaned over to her and smiled. "You like a drink?" he asked, in heavily-accented English.
Having read his file, it was difficult for her not to react with disgust, but she just cocked her head and gave him a blank face. "No," she answered, and turned back to place her bets.
The man on her left, at the seat closest to the wheel, snorted.
"You think is funny?" Karakoff growled, his cheeks reddening with anger. The girl in his lap squeaked as he squeezed her arm.
The man shrugged, and Darcy angled her head so she could study him without being too obvious--something she'd learned in her SHIELD training. She wasn't quite able completely hide her shock when she got a good look at his face; he could easily pass for Captain America's twin. His hair was several shades darker, and the facial hair was obviously different, but they had the same strong bone structure and jawline. It was eerie, and Darcy had a churning feeling in the pit of her stomach as she thought of all the horrible things that governmental agencies might have gotten up to with all the blood and tissue samples they had of Steve's over the past seven decades.
"No more bets," the dealer crooned, waving his hands over the table.
Darcy sat there for the better part of two hours, alternating between ignoring Karakoff and flirting with him just enough to keep him interested. The man on her left--Nick--had won more often than he'd lost, and she wasn't the only one who'd noticed. The pit boss, or whatever they called the burly man in the suit in a place that wasn't really a proper casino, was taking a hard look at Nick and his pile of chips.
As he started toward their table, Karakoff's half-empty bottle of vodka tipped over into his lap, seemingly of its own volition, and the drunk mobster, who had lost nearly a hundred grand in the time Darcy had been sitting next to him, decided to take offense at the table. He jumped up with an angry roar that had her diving for cover as he flipped the table and jumped across to strangle the dealer. Nick grinned at her, and in the confusion, swept several stacks of cash into a nylon bag he pulled from his pocket. Darcy watched him duck the security goons and SHIELD agents who rushed to subdue Karakoff, throwing punches that seemed too strong for his frame, and disappear out the back door.
After the debrief, she went home and was sliding out of her jeans when she felt the sharp edges of a business card in her pocket. She frowned, and pulled it out, rolling her eyes when she saw a phone number with a hastily written 'Call me. -Nick' on the back. She set it down on her dresser and stared at it.
"What the hell," she muttered, and picked up her phone.