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Henry has everything under control.
One might suggest otherwise, if they saw him. Bound to a chair with his hands behind his back, most of his weapons in a pile on the floor, surrounded by a group of men who would very much like to kill him, in an abandoned nightclub no one knows is open.
Yes, he can see how it might look. But Henry is fine. He’s had worse evenings.
“Now, one more time,” says one of the men in front of him - Henry has taken to calling them goons in his head. “You’re going to tell us who hired you.”
Henry laughs, but this is the wrong thing to do. The man backhands him across the face, his heavy rings scoring his cheek painfully - he spits out blood.
“Tell us who you work for, or we smear your brains across the floor, you English asshole!” The goon who hit him is getting agitated now, upset at his silence. Henry decides to throw him a bone.
“I work for Elton John,” he slurs, “He has the finest pension plan.”
The goon pulls a knife. Henry avoids the urge to roll his eyes. These people are so pedestrian. He is - vaguely - concerned about them carving up his face. He’s not so bothered about it himself, but he knows some people happen to enjoy his cheekbones.
“Pick something more original,” he says, as the knife comes into contact with his throat. He feels the cold steel break the skin, the bite as it draws blood. As the goon is about to draw the knife down, start wearing him down by carving up his skin, there is a clang from the entrance at the end of the room. The men all turn, taking their eyes off Henry.
There is a shadow leaned against the closed door.
“Who the fuck’s there?” says one of the men, “Show yourself!”
The shadow moves, slinks across the floor on silent feet.
“Manners,” the shadow drawls in an accent that is as thick and smooth as molasses, “Maketh. Man.” The shadow’s head is bowed, but as he struts into the light, Henry can see he has one hand on the rim of the dark coloured Stetson he wears on his head. “D’you know what that means?”
“Who the fuck-” a man on the right starts forward, but the shadow moves lightning fast and the butt of a gun collides with his chin in a sickening crunch.
“Why don’t I translate for ya?”
“What the-” two other goons go down before they can take a step, tranquilisers in each of their necks. The shadow slides over to the last man, the one who hit Henry, and he finally lifts his head, giving Henry a glimpse of dangerous brown eyes under the rim of his Stetson.
“Messin' with the wrong English asshole, son.” He grins, his smile furious and terrifying and beautiful. The goon barely has time to blink before he’s on the floor. Henry’s saviour, the most gorgeous man in existence, steps over his body, putting his gun back into the holster on his hip and staring down at Henry with that smile still on his face. “In a bit of a bind, sweetheart?”
“Whiskey.” Henry blows hair out of his eyes, while Whiskey raises his eyebrows. Whiskey, his incredible, gorgeous, maddening American counterpart. “Do you have any idea what the word undercover means?”
“I know it doesn’t mean letting some fuckers rough you up, Lancelot.” Whiskey sounds annoyed now, as he bends down to take Henry’s chin between his finger and thumb. “Look what they did to your pretty face.”
Henry’s cheeks pink, but he still rolls his eyes. “I had to let them think they had me. I’ve had the situation entirely under control this whole time.”
“Not from where I’m standing.” Whiskey is still inspecting his face, dark eyebrows drawn together in an adorable frown.
Henry gives him a smirk, and raises his hands to show him that he is free of his bonds - he freed himself four minutes before Whiskey even got in the door. He wasn’t made a Kingsman for his ‘pretty face’, after all. “From where I’m standing, I believe I’m in the clear.”
Whiskey’s eyes are molten as Henry rises from his chair, dusts himself off. He adjusts his cuffs, straightens his tie, and goes to retrieve his weapons from the floor - the ones his kidnappers found, at least. Whiskey is still watching him when he turns around, biting his lip. To curb the indecent, practically filthy thoughts that spring to mind from that, Henry busies himself with pulling out his handkerchief and mopping the blood from his face.
“Well, I gotta say, Lancelot,” Whiskey sticks his thumbs in his belt loops and ambles over, reaching his thumb up to catch a smudge at Henry’s lip and making Henry’s heart stutter in his chest, “Even when you’re a little roughed up, you still look damn good.”
“Yes,” Henry clears his throat awkwardly, “Well.” He strides out of the club, not waiting to see if Whiskey is following him. He knows he is.
Working with the Statesmen, the American sister agency to Henry’s Kingsmen, has always come with challenges. The most agonising of such challenges happens to be how distracting Agent Whiskey’s forearms are with his sleeves rolled up, and how his voice sounds when he calls Henry ‘sweetheart’. The situation is… harder to control than a kidnapping, which is to say it’s damn impossible.
Henry’s been a goner on Agent Whiskey’s curls and eyelashes and fucking everything since the day he waltzed into his life with a gun, a penchant for making enemies, and an accent that makes Henry want to sin.
“My cover is blown,” he says, checking that the coast is clear, “I’ll need to find somewhere to lie low, so that these blokes’ friends don’t come after me. Know any good spots?” They blend into the street, mingling with the party-goers out on a Saturday night.
“I might,” Whiskey says, strutting alongside him, “Long as you don’t mind- shit, on your six, Lance.” Henry turns his head, sees a group of menacing, hulking figures, pushing through the crowd.
“Get behind me,” Henry says, adjusting his signet ring; one tap, and it will deliver a dangerous electric charge to its contact. But Whiskey grabs his tie and yanks him down the alley to their left, pushes him against the wall.
“Are you out of your damn mind?” he hisses, shoving at Henry’s chest, “You wanna cause a scene in the middle of the street?”
“What else would you suggest?” Henry says.
“Gotta blend in with the rabble, sweetheart.” Whiskey whispers as the men following them pass by the alley, sniffing around. Henry is suddenly, wonderfully aware of how close their faces are, how stunning his eyelashes are, before Whiskey’s lips are crashing up into his, and his brain shuts off.
Henry melts, he can’t do anything but. He wraps his arms around Whiskey’s shoulders, cannons bursting in his chest as Whiskey slides his hands up his sides. Whiskey has an incredible mouth, soft and firm, with a plump bottom lip Henry can sink his teeth into to make him groan. He tugs Whiskey harder against him, eager to lick into his mouth and pull his hat off his head to get fingers in those curls.
“How is it,” he gasps against his lips, “That you always manage to find a way for our missions to end in this?”
“Don’t know what you’re talkin’ about, Lancelot,” Whiskey breathes back, “This was the best way to blend in. No one likes to focus on the pair being sweet on each other in the corner - we could be anyone.”
And they could - here, in this alley, bodies pressed against each other, they aren’t Whiskey and Lancelot, intelligence agents for the two most top-secret agencies in the world. They aren’t even Henry and - well, he isn’t sure of Whiskey’s real name. They’re just two men in the dark, holding onto each other and mapping out the taste of each other’s lips.
He thinks the goons have moved on. He can’t really determine much of anything, when Whiskey’s brown freckled nose is nudging his cheek.
“I believe,” he says shakily, “You were saying something about a place for me to lie low.”
Whiskey pulls back and grins. “Yeah, there’s always my place. It’s a bit cramped - you’ll have to be fine with getting a little…cosy.” He punctuates his words with a squeeze to Henry’s hips.
“Lord,” Henry sighs, “I think that would be…adequate.”
Whiskey huffs a laugh. “Adequate, he says. Baby, I could show you a whole lot more than ‘adequate’.” Henry’s entire body shivers, but it isn’t because of the name, he swears it isn’t.
“Will there be…” he hesitates, gesturing between them, “More of- this?”
Whiskey grins, wide and bright and stunning. “There’ll be whatever you want, sweetheart.” His lips brush Henry’s jaw, making him hum.
“Well,” he says, “Yes. More- more of this.”
“You got it, gorgeous,” Whiskey whispers against his ear. Henry feels his smile. “How would you like to ride home on a real cowboy? I got a pack of cold ones on ice and my roomie’s out all night, so you can scream my name as loud as you need to, sugar.”
Henry’s vision goes fuzzy, then. He makes a very high pitched noise he’s fairly certain intelligence agents do not make, as his head thunks back against the wall, heart doing damn somersaults while Whiskey is still smirking against his jaw.
“I don’t know your name,” is all Henry manages to get out. “Unless you want me to scream ‘Whiskey’.”
“Oh.” Whiskey pulls back then, eyes liquid and warm. “It’s Alex.”
God. The most beautiful name in the world. Of course. He smiles. “Henry.”
“That’s a damn sight prettier than ‘Lancelot’.” Whiskey captures his lips in another quick peck. “But I think ‘baby’ suits you just fine, too.”
“You’re a demon.”
“I’ve been told.”