A/N: Points if you know where the title comes from. No idea where this sprung from, but hey-ho, here it is.
Lance was pulling at the restraints on his wrists and muttering to himself about not taking drinks from kindly old women who owned bars in the middle of fuck-knows-where, Nevada, when his ex-wife burst through the door.
"Hunter?" Bobbi took a second to rub at her eyes, gun still raised at him, despite it becoming painfully obvious at each look at Lance that any threat was now long gone. "What the fuck?"
"Admittedly, this probably does not look good-,"
She scoffed and continued to glare at him.
"-but, I promise you, that this was not my fault. This time. This time it was not my fault."
Bobbi didn't lower the gun.
"How about we put the firearm away, eh, love?" Lance attempted to gesture, but with both wrists bound above his head to the headboard with deceiving strong silk scarves, the action simply showed as a pathetic spasm.
At this Bobbi holstered the gun. He suspected that he looked pitiful enough that she was beginning to go a bit soft. The expression on her face melted from livid and reformed itself as vaguely amused, which Lance knew from experience could be even worse for him. Bobbi cocked an eyebrow evilly.
"Care to explain your way out of this one, honey?" She smiled, eyeing the ball gag he'd managed to spit out after waking up in a drug-induced haze.
Lance sighed heavily and the ball gag fell around his neck to rest on his bare shoulder.
"I thought, the cop, was a prostitute."
"This is not the first time you have said those words to me." Bobbi deadpanned.
"Please help me, Bobbi." Lance could hear the pleading tone in his voice and didn't even attempt to mask it. "I'm lying on an elderly dominatrix's bed, completely starkers, except for my socks, and somehow the fact that she left my socks on is more mortifying that than the fact that my beautiful ex-wife is the one who had to find me in this situation…again."
"Aww, you thing I'm beautiful." Bobbi teased, but began undoing the binds on Lance's ankles with a surprising gentleness.
Hunter rolled his eyes. "Darlin' you're the most gorgeous woman I've ever laid eyes on, but right now it would be much appreciated if you could free me and find me a pair of trousers."
Once his ankles were free, Bobbi moved up to where Lance was attached to the reinforced headboard by his writs.
She struggled with the knots for a few seconds before whipping a dagger from Lord knows where and simply cutting him free. Slicing the strap on the ball gag as an afterthought. "Jesus, this old lady sure knew how to tie knots. What was she? A boy scout?"
"No." Hunter said, sitting up and rubbing at his aching arms. "A professional dominatrix."
"Hey," Bobbi nudged Lance's shoulder, "did you see where she put your clothes?"
He rubbed a fist over his stinging eyes and shook his head. "Can't remember anything past the pint in the bar." Lance glanced up to see her rummaging through the old woman's wardrobe at the other end of the room. "She must have spiked it."
"She did." Bobbi turned on her heal and strode over to him, holding out his clothes. "She was a nutcase with access to alien medicinal herbs, but also sentimental, apparently." Bobbi watched as Hunter pulled on his jeans and t-shirt. "Or just crazy enough not to trash your clothes."
"No shoes though." Hunter grumbled, standing so he could fasten his jeans.
"No, sorry."
"S'not your fault." He shrugged, and perched back on the edge on the bed.
Bobbi frowned. Finding Lance naked and tied up was not by any stretch of the imagination, the worst way she had walked in on him, and yet, he seemed far more affected by this than anything else. Although, this was perhaps the first time he couldn't remember what had transpired. That thought made her feel sick.
"You okay?" she prompted, sitting down next to Lance, close enough that their thighs were pressed together.
He grinned an awful forced smile that didn't reach his eyes. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine, just tired, y'know. Being drugged does that to a bloke."
"And being violated can do that to a guy, too." Bobbi said quietly.
Hunter scoffed and looked away from her. "Bob, she was a seventy-odd year old woman who knew how to spike a drink. I was not violated."
"Hunter?" Bobbi placed a hand on his knee and he jumped. "Lance?"
He turned to her.
"What, Bob? What do you want from me? Eh?" Lance stood up, running a hand through his hair. "Hmm? You want me to admit how horrible it feels to know that someone had complete control over me, and there was absolutely fucking nothing I could do about it?"
Bobbi stood, too, coming to stand in front of Lance and pressing her hands into his shoulders until he stopped pacing and finally looked at her.
"Hey. It's okay-,"
"It's not okay, Bobbi!" He shouted. "It-it's horrible and I feel…I feel horrible-,"
"Lance. She didn't do anything to you."
"How would you fuckin' know?" Hunter tore himself away from Bobbi and kicked the lower bedpost.
She wrapped her arms around herself and gripped tightly at her elbows.
"How do you think I found you?"
"Dunno." Hunter mumbled, still facing away from her. "Probably just followed the smell of shame and cheap larger."
"Skye hacked into cams. Lady's got them everywhere in this place." Bobbi looked poignantly at one particularly less-then-subtle camera above the bed, and shuddered. A rush of protectiveness swelled inside her and she walked over to Lace, wrapping her arms around his waist. "We saw her come in here with you. One of her goons carried you." Bobbi bent and pressed her cheek into his back. "We set off an alarm in the bar when she started undressing you and she left. That's when I came to find you."
Lance coughed, and when he spoke, it was so quiet that Bobbi had to rely on the vibrations through his back as much as the sound of his voice, to decipher the words.
"So she didn't, erm, do anything, anything else? She didn't…" he trailed off and Bobbi tightened her grip.
"She did too much just by drugging you and stripping you."
"Except my socks." He chuckled.
She ignored him. "But she was distracted by the alarm before she could do anything else. Plus, I beat the shit out of her in the bar before she could even contemplate coming back in here."
Hunter turned in her arms and smirked. "Bob, she was in her seventies. You could've killed her."
"So? She hurt you, so I hurt her."
Hunter smiled, properly this time, and dropped his head into Bobbi's neck, hugging her tightly.
"Thanks for saving me. And not for getting mad that I accepted a drink off a stranger."
"You're welcome, but when we get home, we are having a long discussion about stranger-danger. I'm this close to making you watch an after-school special about not getting into vans with dudes with candy." She pulled back to kiss his lips softly. "I'm mad at you for being stupid," she kissed him again, "but what that woman did was wrong, so wrong."
"I love you." Lance snuggled into her neck again.
"I know." She replied, kissing his temple.
"Bobbi." He whined.
"Fine." Bobbi grinned. "I love you, too, you idiot."
"That was almost nice of you, love." Lance said, pulling away but keeping a firm grasp on Bobbi's waist.
"I'm feeling generous. Now come on. May's waiting for us in the bar."
Bobbi grabbed his hand and began dragging him out of the room. Hunter let her lead him for a few paces, until he stopped dead, causing Bobbi to turn around. Horror overtook his face.
"What's up?" Bobbi frowned and held his hand tighter.
"Please, tell me May didn't see me naked and tied up." He begged.
The sound Bobbi made was sympathetic. "If it helps, the whole team saw you naked, not just May."
"Actually, Bobbi. That doesn't help, funnily enough." Hunter groaned as she began once more pulling him through the halls to the bar. "This is the last time I take anything from a strange old woman. I should have learned from Snow White!"
A/N: Review, please! I love reading them and checking out like-minded writers, especially if anyone out there is writing Huntingbird, there's not enough Huntingbird out there!
