5. Chapter 5

In the same way Barney believed he was smarter than he actually was, he also believed Clint was stupid. Most of the time that opinion surfaced during disagreements about politics or cars, and Clint just waved it off as Barney being an annoying asshole. This time, however, Clint was glad to be underestimated.

From long training in a bad home life and then in the circus and then as a car thief, Clint knew how to wait, watch, and spot patterns. Over the following two weeks he kept an eye on the flow of cars and people in and around his garage. He was settled deep in the heart of "Little Moscow", a section of town that had been home to Russian immigrants since the 1970s, and it put him in the perfect place to note who was active and who wasn't. When the gossipy, pretty wives came in for an unnecessary oil change and tried to flirt with Clint as they all did, he charmed them with bad coffee and his near-fluent Russian until they gave up secrets they didn't know they had. Clint found out who was "out of town" (in the slammer) and who was "away on business" (actually away on business), as well as tidbits of what constituted office politics in the Russian mafia.

A picture was starting to form, and it was giving Clint a migraine.

There was another player in the game, some organization from "back home" that no one knew anything about but had more on the agenda than money laundering. Grigory was working with them, but apparently against his will—they had something on him that was big and scary enough to make the most powerful crime boss in the tri-state area go against his own interests. If Clint was a betting man, he would have laid money down on the mysterious organization taking Grigory out soon.

That was all surprising but not worrisome. What bothered Clint was the way Phil was shaping up to be the fall guy, and how many strings Barney was pulling. Barney threaded in and out of every conversation Clint had with people, whether they knew it or not. Clint knew Barney was at least smart enough not to think he could take over the Russian mob, but Clint also knew that Barney was stupid enough to back a legitimate challenger to Grigory if he thought it would pull him up the ranks after the firefight was over.

Sometimes Clint wondered why in the hell The Godfather was his favorite movie as a teenager.

He waited a few more days, but nothing came up that changed his conclusions. He even milked Barney for information during their weekly breakfast, and he actually got confirmation of a few suspicions that way, although Barney was determined to play his cards close to his chest. He probably thought it was to protect Clint, which was almost naïve of him. If Grigory thought Barney had turned on him, he wouldn't stop with just killing one of the Barton brothers. Clint knew his life was on the line as much as Barney's. Or Phil's.

Phil showed up a couple of times for minor things, and Clint looked forward to that a little too much. The guy was smart and had a dry sense of humor when you dug for it, and often they would banter about seemingly nothing while Clint worked on the car. Phil was always stylish in a tailored if unassuming dark suit, professional in appearance and polite in manners, but he moved with precision and he was strong. When one of the wheels fell off a car that Sammy was working on one bay over, Phil calmly turned around and caught nearly sixty pounds of bouncing tire and rim without a sound. Sammy had stared at him wide eyed, and even Clint was struck dumb for a moment.

Phil eased the wheel onto the ground. "Didn't want it to hit my car," he explained, actually looking slightly embarrassed about it. Sammy sidled up and snatched the wheel, rolling it away quickly. Clint wanted to stare at Phil for a long time, but the heat that pooled in his groin was going to have to wait for a very private shower later so he got back to work.

If he took to always wearing a beat-up, too-small tank top whenever Phil was around, well, no one could ever claim that Clint "Hawkeye" Barton was shy about his blessings.