It hadn't started weird. The kinda cute in a generic way girl at the jConvenience Store by Gym had greeted him with an enthusiastic "Hi! Nice day isn't it?" And Clint had kinda agreed he guessed as he got a blue flavored slurpee to mix his morning Food-flavored Protein Powder in it. That sort of thing happened all the time.
It had gotten a little weirder as he settled in at the gym. It was one thing the chipper "Hi! Nice day isn't it?" from the desk clerk when he came in. And he supposed a little small talk was reasonable when someone came up to ask how long you were gonna be on the power deck. "Hi! Nice day isn't it?" was a little bit too much a life story for that kind of interaction, but he knew his way around a gym and gym rats enough to salvage the interaction. "Hi! Nice day isn't it?" wasn't even the weirdest chat up line for approaching someone in the shower, but happening twice in a shower was unusual. But together it was a weird level of friendliness unless this gym was a cult or something. Which wouldn't have been the first time.
Clint kind of made note of that to bring up later, and then realizing the time, put a pin in it as he was late to work. He rushed across town onto a bus where the bus driver greeted him with a "Hi! Nice day isn't it?" As he fumbled for exact change and into the dining room of Pizza Ristorante with half a care for the "Hi! Nice day isn't it from the back of house manager, a large Italian named Tony who gestured him to the deliveries already piling up.
From there it was easy to fall into the shift of that. The interactions were the same. All too similar people showing up at doors after about 42 seconds with a "Hi! Nice day isn't it?" and tipping the same 3.25 Currency on the delivery. With that, the next delivery address would pop up on his car's map directing him the serptine roads to the next pizza house until he ran out and had to go back and get more, which were there, stacked and ready. And that was the job, food stuff always kind of blended together, Clint remembered that from concessions at the circus.
But today it was getting to him. In the third hour, he started testing it. Switching boxes for deliveries, removing a slice from one and delivering it, even delivering one upside down. He got the same blandly friendly greetings and tips and no complaints back at the restaurant.
At the fifth hour, he showed up to an empty back of house. That was weird but at least Clint was relived there was no one here to greet him and comment on his day. He took some of this rare alone time to functionally snoop through the kitchen. It wasn't an alien place to him but he also hadn't really made the opportunity to root around. One of the tables had been moved since he left earlier, and there was a wedding ring near the drain, but it wasn't Tony's.
When he found the computer, the first thing he noticed was the orders he was supposed to be delivering sitting there, blinking and waiting with red warning exclamation signs next to them. There was nothing really tying him to this job, with its obvious weirdness and flaws, except that others seemed to be counting on him to do it, and doing it meant less time to think which this week--this place--had already been providing too much of. Wherever Tony was, Clint guessed that was why he didn't have deliveries, and not really seeing signs of any harm coming to Tony in the kitchen, Clint decided he'd just get to making these ones. Clint had watched it all a thousand times, from throwing the dough to spreading the sauce, to adding the toppings. Clint may not have gone to Pizza College like some chefs, but he was an avid consumer of the art.
Large sausage extra cheese. Easy. Large pepperoni. Beyond easy. Medium Margherita. Shoot They were out of tomatoes.
Clint picked up the empty tomato container to head back to the walk in freezer to get some more. He hoped they were pre-packaged. Slicing tomatoes felt like one of those Pizza College skills. But he supposed for today's customers, bringing pizzas with whole tomatoes probably worked the same. He might have reasoned that it was about standards when opened the door to the freezer and immediately slammed it shut.
There had been tomatoes in there, but there had also been a body hanging from a meat hook in the roof the freezer.
It had been clear to him that he was definitely working for a mafia place from about two minutes after he and Bucky had scoped this place out on the first day, but that could have meant anything. And as a New Yorker by practice if not by birth, Clint was aware of what could go down in restaurants like this. But he also knew that there were a lot of different types of mob businesses and maybe he had deluded himself that this was just a money laundering place. Or that sometimes the strangely light, weirdly expensive garlic knots he delivered weren't bread. But with crime organizations, it never was just one thing really really.
Great.
Were Clint the more forthright sort of hero, he might have left then, gone to the police or the press or Natasha. But as it stood he was the only person in a building with a body and he'd been there for half an hour. He didn't mind the guys he worked for, other than the part they were criminals who at minimum were storing a body here. But Clint had been there, hell maybe he'd never left. He slumped against the the cold steel of the outer door of the walk-in as he gave himself a minute to work this through.
Somehow he was interrupted. "Hi!" A forgettably faced man in a medium suit popped up in front of him and Clint nearly jumped out of this skin. People didn't get the drop on the seasoned sniper unless they were seriously talented or he was way more out of it than Clint had realized. "Nice day isn't it?" Clint's eyes narrowed and his hand, lacking any improvised weaponry curled clawlike and bracing against the freezer door.
"Uh.. you're not supposed to be back here"
"Oh." The man smiled, seemingly unphased. "Well it's ok. I'm here for a surprise health inspection." He flashed a badge that under normal circumstances would have been almost laughable in cutting the tension, but with a pretty flagrant violation in the freezer he was standing in front of amped it up. Clint offered a few more arguments: the boss wasn't in, it was the dinner rush, even though the same three waiting orders seemed pretty static, but the inspector was undetered. And in a way, maybe this bureaucrat only doing his job made Clint's decision for him.
"Yeah, I guess..." He let the man have what he came here for.
They somehow got an 88. Which if that was the sort of mob this place was run by, Clint was so beyond fucked.
It didn't make that decision any easier though. And he couldn't justify why he went back to making pizzas (there weren't any new orders since the last time he saw the overdue ones) but that it was something to do while he worked through what exactly he should do here. In the scheme of things, a mob murder in an Italian restaurant was pretty small potatoes, except that now he was caught up in it. And he was supposed to have been a good guy at one point in his life (whether that had ever really been true). And when he thought of what Steve would do, or Natasha, or Bobbi, or Kate, or any of the smarter, better people he knew, he wasn't sure any of those solutions were really great either.
He wasn't sure he really wanted to close down this place if he were truly being honest. And from a survival standpoint, nothing really was the smartest plan. He was here for four more days and it wasn't his business or one he had any stake in. But there was a dead guy in the freezer someone would be missing, and ignoring that fact just meant he'd been right all along about himself. This kinda felt like a what would Reed Richards do sort of situation. And that made him beyond beyond fucked.
So instead, when he went out on his next pizza run, he stopped by the police station. He wouldn't get complaints for being late, he didn't think. And they only made him wait a medium amount of time. But when Officer came back to talk to him, she walked into the room. Her face was forgettably attractive and she gave him a smile. "Hi." She offered. "Nice day isn't it?"
Abort.
Clint hadn't factored in that these people--basically everyone but maybe Tony--were whatever was going on today. Maybe even the dead guy was. Clint muttered something about leaving something in his car and left without looking back or waiting for a response that wasn't a generic greeting.
When he made it back to Pizza Ristorante, the kitchen seemed back to normal. Clint spared a glance towards the walk-in but didn't dare walk in. He thought he saw Tony watching him in the moment of that glance. "Hi." He tried to redirect, offering conversation or an attempt to blend in. "Nice day isn't it?" That seemed to placate the back of house manager for now. Clint fell back into the routine for the rest of his shift, internally freaking out until it was time to finish his shift.
As Clint clocked out, he made a comment about leaving before Tony broke the script and told him to stop. "Boss wants you to help take out the trash."
So that was how he wound up on the shore of the Water River at 3:30 at night, stuffing the man from the walk-freezer into a barrel. He slipped his phone in as well, as old as it was, it wouldn't signal long, but if anyone came back to find him, at least they'd have a place to start. Even though it was kept refrigerated, he had been longdead long enough that he was difficult to bend as much as they needed.
So when the light from the bridge above shone down on them from the dock behind them. It was obvious what they were doing. It came closer and Clint could make out the female form in the approaching light. He recognized her immediately, if vaguely, as the cop from earlier. He couldn't tell from her vacant expression if she recognized him. "Hi." Her voice was theoretically warm. "Nice night, isn't it? Do you need help there?"
It was a weird day and Clint had no idea who to trust on this.
After they'd dumped the body with the assistance of law enforcement, there hadn't been any awkward threats or shuffling or even comments about how nice a night it was. Everyone just kind of disbanded. Which wasn't great because that included Clint's ride, but was ok because he was pretty over people if that's what they were. So he walked aimlessly. Despite spending days driving around the cities, he wasn't really sure aim would have helped him anyway. It was all about intent it seemed. And Clint's was....?
Intent drove him to Convenience Store and intent led to him purchasing a case of Domestic Beer at about six am. It was too late to go to Varric's bar, too normal to go to the apartment, he didn't have a phone to contact anyone to see if they were up and he had to start the whole cycle again in like six hours again. He wasn't sure if he wanted to. So instead, he decided to take the day off, away from people, and with something that made sense. He and his beer wound up at Storage Facility, the locker turned munitions factory which Steve Rogers was renting him for the week.
He'd figure the rest out in six hours. Or something.