8. Chapter 8

Two weeks later Clint was working late in his office, alone. Business had taken a dive given the political pressures going on all around, and Clint was trying to figure out what he could siphon off into his secret account without arousing suspicion. He knew the shop's days were numbered, and his goal was to make sure his weren't numbered along with it.

The office door was open, because the place was empty, or at least Clint thought it was until he looked up.

"Holy FUCK! What are you doing?" He yelled at the red head. She looked at him pointedly and he sat back down, switching to Russian. "You are Phil's wife, yes? Look, this may sound like a great idea right now but it is not. Just turn around and walk out and it never happened."

She lifted her eyebrows and answered in perfect English. "You think I'm here to seduce you?"

Caught flat footed by that, Clint shrugged with one shoulder. It had happened before, because some girls loved trouble as much as their men did. Clint always turned them away, and had lucked out that none got hard feelings over it.

"I need to know where your brother is."

"Fuck, lady, that's even a worse idea. And I don't know, anyway."

She stepped into the room and the atmosphere changed. She moved with a quiet grace that he'd never seen on her before, and her whole attitude was full of controlled fury. Suddenly, she was dangerous and Clint stood up slowly, his hands out. "Whoa, whoa, let's talk."

"Where is Barney Barton?"

"If he's not at his house, then I honestly don't know. I'm not his keeper and he's not mine, at least not since I turned fifteen."

She frowned, but there was more frustration there than anger. She looked up Clint for a long moment, seeming to weigh his character in her eyes. Finally her shoulders dropped, and while Clint figured out that nothing she did wasn't premeditated it was still a sign of trust.

"He grabbed Phil."

"Phil's not his type…wait, what?" Clint derailed. "Why? What the hell is going on?"

"According to Phil, you know exactly what is going on." She folded her arms and glared at him.

"Generally speaking. Phil's supposed to take the fall for the change of command. Whether that means setting him up for murder or what, I don't know, but kidnapping him doesn't seem to fall into that."

She ground her teeth for a second. "Things didn't go as planned. AIM is out for Grigory, Grigory is out for blood, and Barney thinks he can save his skin by trading Phil in to Grigory."

"That would only work if you guys work for AIM, if I'm reading this right. Whoever they are. The overseas connection, I take it?"

She seemed to be surprised by that, then grinned. "So Phil wasn't just besotted. You are smart."

Clint ignored that. "Both of you?"

She nodded.

Clint sighed. "Damnit. Right under Grigory's nose. That wasn't too smart, lady."

"Natasha."

"Your real name?"

"It is," she said, nodding once.

Clint paused, looking over at his cluttered desk. This was the moment he had expected and dreaded, the point in time when he would—once again—have to walk away from everything he had worked so hard to build. He would miss the shop, the guys, and everything he had built there. It had been a lonely life sometimes, and Clint thought longingly of Phil, realizing that if Phil worked for an international organized crime syndicate then chances were good that he'd never see Phil again anyway.

But this was what the spare bank account was for, and the complete alias waiting for him in a duffle bag in a rented locker at a boxing gym he never visited on the other side of town. Clint was not born to have a settled life, or a real home, and he knew that.

"I honestly don't know where Phil is, but I know Barney's habits and bolt-holes. Give me a second." He stepped out of his coveralls and pulled out his spare jeans, throwing a heavy sleeveless shirt on over his tank top. He walked over to his girls and touched each one in goodbye, before strapping on his wrist and finger guards and picking up his beautiful purple recurve. He checked his assortment of arrows – some old fashioned wooden ones with flint arrowheads which he had made himself and the rest the high-tech carbon fiber beauties he spent far too much money on. He put on a heavy leather jacket, shouldered the quiver and finally turned around. "I'm ready."

Natasha gave his bow a very doubtful look, but didn't argue.

She was driving a car Clint did not recognize, a non-descript sedan that could fit in anywhere. The first two places they checked were dead ends, but when they hit the industrial park on the south side of town, Clint got goosebumps. There were cars staggered around sparsely, parked to look inconspicuous even though they were patently out of place. "This is it. Don't know which warehouse, though,"

"I'm parking here," Natasha said, killing the engine as she glided in to hide behind a dumpster. "Stay, and be quiet." She didn't even wait for Clint to agree, just quietly slipped out of the car. A second later, it was if she didn't exist at all as she slipped into the dark.

Clint gave her five whole seconds before ditching his jacket, grabbing his gear and following.

He managed to stay close enough to see Natasha disappear into a building through a small, high open window with a move that looked more like ballet than gymnastics, and she earned Clint's respect for that alone. He decided to go top side, and while his own gymnastics skill set was rusty, his body remembered knew what to do. Crawling in through a vent grate near the roof line, Clint resettled his bow on his back with his quiver and walked the metal beams of the roof until he got where he needed to be.

Which was right over Phil, who was tied to a chair with a gag in his mouth. Even in his trussed-up state, he looked more annoyed than worried.

Barney stood next to the chair, jittery and probably high as a kite. He had a gun in hand but nobody was pointing their weapons at that stage. Clint could not hear what was going on, but there was Grigory and four of his goons on one side, Barney and some other guy whose name Clint couldn't remember on the other. Clint watched for a second, trying to figure out who the most dangerous person in the room was. Then he saw Natasha creeping up some boxes back around Barney's position.

She stopped and looked directly up at Clint. It was eerie the way she pin-pointed his location, but Clint had no time to be spooked so he simply gave her a small salute with his bow. She rolled her eyes and then went back to sneaking around.

When it happened, it was like a bomb going off. Grigory raised his hand, a mocking look on his face, and his goons brought up their weapons. Only in that moment did Barney realize that he had set himself up to be taken out with Phil, and he started yelling before turning to run out.

Clint fired three arrows before anyone could pull the trigger. Grigory and the two to his left dropped dead. Clint managed to take out the third goon easily given the fact that the guy had turned to shoot up in Clint's direction, making him a broad and easy target. The fourth one gasped before he fell over, a knife sticking out of his chest coming from Natasha's direction. Barney's companion was already face down, blood spreading wide and dark from his neck. It all happened so quickly that Clint kept sweeping the place with his bow, an arrow notched, but everyone was dead except Phil and Barney. Natasha was undoing Phil's bonds, and Barney was simply gone.

Long gone, if Clint knew him, because he was pretty sure he wasn't the only one who had kept a backup plan in place. He sat on the cross beam, trying to reconcile what was below him with the knowledge that he was never going to see Barney again. He took a few deep breaths before resettling his bow and then went back out the way he had come in. He stood outside the warehouse for a moment, thinking of Phil, wondering who exactly Natasha was, and what they were doing. He wondered for a brief moment if Phil had been telling the truth, and if he really believed he could pull Clint out of this mess.

But he knew better. He knew there was no one to offer him sanctuary after putting an arrow into Grigory, and everyone who was anyone knew Clint's history and the rack of bows in his office. The line of arrows from Trickshot to Grigory to Clint was a fucking neon sign. Nothing and no place was safe. Worst of all plans was to run into the arms of an international crime syndicate's hit man in the hopes that the guy wouldn't just shoot Clint and take credit for cleaning the whole mess up.

Clint ran for one of the (now) abandoned cars. Even modern cars and their many electronic protections were not safe from Clint's experienced fingers and skills, and he was flying out of the industrial park within five minutes, headed for his locker and then, possibly, some big city to get lost in.

Maybe New York.