#I CAN'T BELIEVE I MISSPELLED CLINT'S NAME

[curryalley]

I need Clint Barton to meet Dick Grayson.

I need Clint to roll into a SHIELD ops assignment meeting having absolutely not read the briefing materials before the meeting. I need Phil Coulson to explain that there has been a serious threat against the life of Dick Grayson. Wayne Corp is about to announce some new initiatives. Intelligence confirms a criminal syndicate plans to kidnap Dick Grayson to force Bruce Wayne to call off the plans. SHIELD needs Wayne Corp to go through with it (and kidnapped sons of billionaires are always a headache) so Clint, we've created an identity for you as a Wayne Corp employee to keep an on things.

And Clint has to be like, "Yeah that won't work."

The analysts immediately take offense. "It's an airtight identity, you've done worse undercover work than babysitting a billionaire's kid."

Clint interrupts. "I can't pretend to be someone else around Dick Grayson. I know him. Me. Clint Barton. We were friends when we were kids."

Everyone at the meeting is losing it and Clint stares at them all. "How many circus kids do you think there are? Haley's and Carson's didn't tour together but our paths crossed in the offseason."

That explains why during his afternoon walk home, Dick Grayson comes across his childhood friend, Clint Barton, wearing jeans and a purple tank top, juggling and doing tricks for cash on the street. SHIELD has adjusted Clint Barton's identity so he's down on his luck, busking for spare change because it's hard to get a job when you're a deaf former circus performer with barely a GED.

Of course Dick wants to help and they reconnect. Dick asks Clint to perform at a Wayne gala. The same gala where the goons attempt to grab Dick Grayson. Dick keeps trying to slip out and change into Nightwing but? Somehow? Clint is always behind him? They're both trying to fight off the goons, still in their civvies, each trying to rescue each other while also not giving away their secret idecities,

"Where did you learn to fight like that?"

"I used to be a cop. Where did you learn to fight like that?"

"Would you believe me if I said bar fights?"

When it's all over, there's some disagreement about who is walking who home but Clint insists since Dick was almost kidnapped. Clint gets into his Hawkeye gear and plans to spend the night watching Dick's building for trouble when he sees Nightwing go swinging away from it.

Naturally he follows. Nightwing is meeting with the bats to report on the kidnapping attempt when there's a wild bit of confusion and mistaken identity as one of the bats slams Hawkeye to the ground and demands to know why he's following Nightwing.

Clint's lying there partially stunned at being nearly splattered by one of the robins or something when Nightwing leans over him.

"Clint?"

"Hey, Dick."

Clint and Dick were already friends but that's the story of how Hawkeye meets Nightwing.

(In the sequel, Clint turns up outside Dick's apartment months later. He's wearing multiple bandages, drinking a coffee with the name on the cup horribly misspelled with a K and holding Lucky's leash. He looks at Dick and says, "The Tracksuit Mafia has moved to Bludhaven, you got any plans tonight?")

[weneverfreeze]

Sydney. My dear. I will love you forever if you write samnat for one of those au prompts you just reblogged (im feeling 1, 6, or 7 for them, but really any prompt is fine 😄😄)

Okay sorry this is late Mercedes! This didn’t get a reread, just so you know, and I started writing the ending at around 1 AM and it’s 4:30 (lolol it’s 4:47 now) in the morning right now, so yeah:

1.  I’m sleeping over at my friend’s flat from university after study group and just got woken up in the middle of the night by their roommate, who is sitting in the kitchen, listening very loudly to the dirty dancing soundtrack and crying. Like wtf, I didn’t even know they had a roommate and normally I would yell at you but damn you are cute. You really need to stop tho dude, its 4am, some people in this house want to sleep AU

6. We work out at the same gym and you are my declared rival because we have the same workout routine and you are always better than me and on my way to the locker room I passed you in the shower where you were singing the opening of hannah montana and I can still hear you and you switched to the lion king now and even though I hate you I think I am kind of in love with you AU

7. I’m hiding in the bathroom of a restaurant from a spectacularly awful tinder date and you are in a similar situation because a guy at the bar just won’t stop hitting on you and now we are planning an epic escape together even though we only met ten minutes ago AU

WC: 5747

There are two gyms on campus. Two gyms for nearly 40,000 people, so it stands to reason that you’d run into people very rarely. Two gyms, 40,000 people, seven days in a week, fourteen hours give or take each day when they’re open, four floors of exercise equipment and courts and weights and two pools per gym. This isn’t even factoring in her work schedule or classes, but somehow Natasha’s managed to run into this asshole every single time she goes to the gym. Out of both gyms and all the rooms and all the possible exercise routines. Every single time.

The first time she thought maybe it was just coincidence. It happens now and then of course, that someone comes in and has a similar routine to the one she’s perfected over the last six years. Last time it was Clint though, and that was first semester sophomore year, and that was only because Nat asked him. He’d complained the entire time about how hockey’s enough exercise for the both of them, and Nat I’m going to mess up my legs or my arms or my nose, okay, you remember how I got a concussion swimming. Clint came with maybe four times before deciding to do yoga by himself.

Since then Natasha had been alone in her workout routine. Thirty minutes on the bike, thirty doing weights, and thirty on the thigh machine downstairs on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Saturday’s for lazy laps in the pool when she isn’t making burritos at Chipotle. Her routine is simple and easy. In and out within 90 minutes.

But this asshole. Showing up all cocky and self-important. He’s been mirroring her pretty consistently the last month or so. At first it wasn’t that noticeable—he’s cute, maybe, in that sweaty sort of athletic way that she won’t pretend not to like, but she’s dated girls and guys like that before, so—just another body on the bikes a little down the row, or another person curling dumbbells, or another guy waiting for a weight machine.

Then it started being a thing. Nat had glanced over week 1.5 of this whatever-it-is at the same time he had, and they shared a nod and went back to biking. He seemed like an asshole even then. It was something, she figured, to do with how he wore cologne even when working out.

Then, week 2, it had been a very full Wednesday, and the only bikes were right next to each other. He was definitely looking at the display on her machine and she’d never tell Clint or Maria that that was the reason she was walking a little stiffly for three days afterward, because she definitely hadn’t been going a little faster than she should have been and checking his display as well.

Weeks 3 and 4 had been more of the same, except at week 3.5 she’d realized what exactly is so asshole-y about him: he doesn’t sweat, and he bikes further and can lift more than she can. (She’s better overall on the thigh machine, thank you, hockey.) Natasha would be over here straining to go up one last hill while he’d be pedalling easy as anything, scrolling through some article on his phone.

Natasha had been hoping when she walked in today that he wouldn’t be here, but no such luck, and he’d taken the machine she favors. She glances to her left; he catches her look, and raises his water bottle in an obnoxious salute. Inwardly she flips him off.

Only five minutes in. She readjusts her headphones. Five minutes in. She can do this.

The men’s and women’s locker rooms share a wall. Through numerous, painful post-workout showers, Natasha’s determined that unfortunately the wall must be dividing the shower sections of both locker rooms; someone’s been having a field day singing show tunes and pop music and rapping while she’s in the shower.

The variety, she thinks as hangs up her towel, is pretty impressive. Today the singer’s belting out Best of Both Worlds from Hannah Montana.

It’s not unpleasant today, which is surprising. The singer’s voice goes oddly well with the theme song.

The singer switches to Circle of Life. She joins in and they sing together until the water goes cold.

(It goes cold after six minutes.)

New Text Message

Clintyyy: Takeout?

Me: You’re buying

Clintyyy: Hey now, no

Clintyyy: It’s your turn

Me: Don’t make me bring up Budapest again

Me: You owe me

Clintyyy: ….fine

Me: Good

Clintyyy: Preference?

Me: Anything but tacos

Me: Chipotle has me sick of tacos

Me: You’ve never known true taco hatred until even just the smell makes you want to throw ingredients everywhere

Clintyyy: Please tell me you did not do that

Me: (read at 7:39)

Clintyyy: Tasha?

Me: (read at 7:43)

Clintyyy: We gotta pay rent still you’ve got a job right

Me: Of course I do

Clintyyy: Don’t do that to me

Clint’s got fried rice, lo mein, and crab rangoon waiting on TV trays in the living room when she shoulders through the doorway. Or, limps through; she’d done too much on the thigh machine again today, which she’s pretty sure Asshole Guy had noticed. Light from NCIS flickers over his face as he raises an eyebrow. A noodle is hanging out of his mouth.

“Don’t tell Steve,” she says. She plunks down next to him on the couch, pokes his thigh until he gives her more room.

He says, “That’d be embarrassing for you,” and she glares until he raises his hands in surrender. “I won’t, fine; just don’t kill me, okay?”

“Who am I gonna get to rent with me next year if I didn’t have you?” She opens the fried rice and quirks a smile and he bumps his shoulder against hers.

They’ve rented together for two years now after Natasha’s freshman year roommate gave her a photo album of her sleeping at the end of the first semester. She’d spent the majority of spring semester staying over at Clint’s room, which worked out nicely because Clint’s roommate Steve’s just about the nicest most stubborn guy she’s ever met, and he’d only asked them once if they were dating (they weren’t). Most other people have a look that says I don’t believe you when they say they’ve been friends as long as they’ve known each other, but Steve had just nodded and gone back to sketching his calculator.

“We should live with Steve next year,” she says, thinking; it’s October now, if they get a move on they should be able to get a nice place. She steals a bite of noodle from Clint’s container.

Clint pulls a face, but he holds the container closer to her. Nat offers the fried rice in return. “Nah, I’m good.”

She smiles. “To the rice or to Steve?”

He pretends to think about it, stroking an imaginary beard, and she leans into his side and waits. Onscreen Gibbs slaps Tony upside the head again.

“Both,” Clint says. She makes a face. “Kidding. Steve’s rooming with someone next year, they’ve really hit it off, so.” He tilts his head to the side like he’s deliberating and adds, “Or not kidding really, because that kid wheezes so much when he tries to sleep. Snores like you wouldn’t believe.”

“I was there, remember?” she says with a smile, checking the crab rangoon. “Do you want the last one or shall I?”

Clint waves it toward her and says, “What song today?”

She’s been keeping him updated on the gym since he refuses to go. He knows all about The Asshole and The Song Guy. He’s convinced that there’s a love story in the making between the three of them, but since she threatened him (half-jokingly) with a spatula, he’s been keeping that to himself.

“Circle of Life.”

Clint nods and shrugs appreciatively. “Good choice.”

She says, yawning, “Better than the week of Thrift Shop.”

“You love Thrift Shop.”

He starts playing with her hair and it’s so soothing she almost drifts off.

“I do,” she murmurs, yawning again—it feels really very nice—and curling closer. Clint unfolds the blanket along the top of the couch and pulls it over them. “That’s why it was so bad. He didn’t know all the words.”

Clint says something like “Neither do you” but she’s just about asleep now and doesn’t really hear him. Or at least, that’s what she’ll say if he mentions it in the morning.

New Text Message

1-347-867-5309: Hey Nat! Do you wanna study together Saturday?

Me: Who is this

1-347-867-5309: Steve

Me: Ohh right right

1-347-867-5309: You didn’t know it was me did you

Me: Of course I did

Me: I know everything

Steve: Sure

Steve: You’d think that

Steve: Since, y’know, we’re friends and all

Steve: You’d save my phone number

Me: Don’t be offended

Me: I’ve been friends with Clint for fifteen years and I only saved his number since coming to college

Steve: I guess that helps

Steve: Maybe

Steve: Not really. Anyway: study with me?

Me: Worried for the test?

Steve: A little

Me: Me too

Me: Where/what time?

Steve: My apartment? I’m off work at three, so four?

Me: Sounds good

Steve: See ya then

Asshole Guy isn’t there today. Today she’s got her machine again and the world is at peace once more.

To be fair, it’s Tuesday. She never knew for sure, but she strongly suspects Asshole Guy only works out Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, like her. But this week Fury has her working the night shift on the line, so Friday’s workout’s cancelled.

She probably shouldn’t be in today. Her inner thigh is still sore. Steve would kill her if he knew she was straining it—he’s a history and art double major, but, since his dad’s a trainer, he knows a fair amount of things. Including the fact that pushing a hurt muscle is a terrible idea.

Natasha knows that too, though, and it’s starting to hurt more than it had, so she sighs and lets the weights down gently.

“You alright?”

She whips around, ready with a snappy retort for another dude bro trying to tell her how to do her workout. It dies in her throat. Two gyms, 40,000 people, seven days in a week, fourteen hours, an entirely different day, no less, and yet.

It doesn’t help that The Asshole has nice eyes this close. He clears his throat, and that’s when she realizes he’s wearing the khaki pants, blue shirt, and red backpack of a student trainer. He says, “It’s Tuesday. You don’t usually—I mean, this isn’t your max weight, and you usually lift longer than this.”

He’s been watching. Nat raises an eyebrow. “Observant.”

“Part of the job,” he says. His cologne is sharply out of place with all the sweat in the air.

“You work here.” She regrets it the moment she says it; his eyebrows shoot straight up, then settle again. Of course he works here. No one wears khakis to a gym.

Instead of answering he plucks at the hem of his shirt and moves on. “Are you okay? I have to ask when someone lets the weights down like that.”

“Didn’t realize they were that loud,” she says, to have something to say. “I’m fine. Little sore from yesterday.”

The Asshole sets his backpack down and kneels to sort through it, all the while asking about her hydration and whether or not she’s eaten and you know, you’ve gotta rest between these kinds of things, you can’t do the same exercises back to back and expect to be totally fine.

This rubs her wrong. “My work schedule’s different this week,” she snaps. “I’m not an idiot.”

“Sorry,” he says mildly. He hops back to his feet holding a blue crinkly something. Natasha glares up at him and he holds his hands up before saying, “I know you’re not an idiot, just needed to say that. Job description and all that.”

She’s got her arms folded, so when he tosses the crinkly something at her she’s completely unprepared. It bounces off her elbow before she catches it, somehow, on the rebound. It’s a Nutrigrain bar. She stares at him.

The Asshole rubs the back of his neck and says, “It’s blueberry, not too bad if you—I dunno, if you eat that sort of thing.”

“Thanks…?”

“Sam,” he says, starting to walk away.

She says “Natasha” and Sam smiles and walks out of the weight room.

There is a profound silence from the men’s locker room. Today the water stays warm for exactly eight minutes before threatening to crystalize on her skin.

When she’s dry, she squeezes her hair with the towel and dresses. The Nutrigrain wrapper’s in her pocket when Nat pulls on her jeans. She’s not sure, really, why she’s still holding onto it.

New Text Message

Steve: Hey were you working out today? At the Heli?

Me: Yeah, why?

Steve: No reason

Steve: (Steve sent an emoji)

Me: The halo’s not reassuring Rogers

Steve:

Early Wednesday morning she wakes up in Clint’s arms while Tangled plays for the third or fiftieth time. Squinting, she looks up to see that Clint’s awake and bedheaded as ever; she’s still not sure if he styles his hair like that intentionally or if, thanks to the innumerable naps he takes, that’s just the way his hair grows.

She pulls the blanket over her more and Clint starts. “Sorry,” he whispers, grabbing for the remote. He mutes the TV (Rapunzel and Flynn are just about to be trapped in the mine) and Nat closes her eyes again.

“S’okay,” she says sleepily. “How long’ve you been awake?”

“Somewhere around Flynn finding the tower.” He stretches carefully, rests his arm around her again. “You were saying something about Sam? In your sleep.”

“Mmm. No.”

“I think so. Fell asleep with my hearing aids in, so.”

“Your hair’s stupid” is all she says. He lightly pulls on one of her curls, and they drift off again.

Steve has to poke her six times to stay awake in lecture around noon. She’s lucky to have him there; Clint would’ve let her sleep and drawn mustaches on her with Sharpie. It’s especially important to be awake today because they’re reviewing for the exam, and she’s got a 93% right now and this test could solidify or jeopardize that A.

That doesn’t mean she’s not leaning on Steve right now. She’s lucky she’s on her left because she’s right handed, and even though he is as well he’s not the type to complain when he’s helping someone. Plus his right arm is ever-so-slightly more muscular than his left, so it’s somewhat more comfortable to lean against.

He’s really bulked up in the last two years; freshman year Nat used to be able to fit his wrist between her forefinger and thumb. Not so much now. He has a Russian pen pal according to Clint—kept in touch since they were five apparently—and they’ve been FaceTiming and working out together. She and Clint aren’t really sure what exercises they’ve been doing—or how you can work out with someone over FaceTime—but it’s working for Steve at least; they’ve doubled their efforts to get him on their hockey team.

Steve pokes her again as Professor Stark rambles on about medical experimentation during World War II.

“I’m awake,” she says. Their redheaded neighbor, Pepper, hushes them, and Nat sticks her tongue out at her. Quieter: “I’m awake.”

“I know,” Steve says, “you snore.”

“Hey!”

“Shh!”

Steve holds up a hand to stop either of them from saying anything. He whispers, “Did you meet Sam? At the Heli?”

Natasha stares at him. “How’d you know that?” Their prof changes the slide and she hurriedly copies down the information.

“He told me,” Steve says. “Ran into a redhead on the weights, said it wasn’t abnormal but for the fact that you don’t work out Tuesdays.”

“I don’t, it’s be—”

“Because of work, yeah.”

Nat worries her bottom lip. “You know him.”

“From high school,” Steve says. He nudges her and winks when she glances up. “He’s a good guy.”

She elbows him back, but she’s blushing a little. “You can’t be too sure. He wears cologne to the gym.”

Steve throws his head back and laughs so loudly that Stark stumbles over his lecture and stares, aghast.

“Excuse me, in the back; do you find this subject funny?”

Steve’s really doing an admirable job of biting back his laugh, she can almost see it straining to chime out. He hangs his head in the model of a subdued and solemn student. “Of course not, Professor.”

Stark narrows his eyes and resumes his lecture, casting dark looks at them from time to time. Steve whispers, “Cologne? Really?” and Natasha barely stops herself from laughing too.

Clint leans in her doorway while she ties her sneakers. “C’mon, Tasha.”

“I go to the gym on Wednesdays,” she says, sighing a little when she stands; her inner thigh muscles still hurt from yesterday.

What Natasha means is, Sam goes to the gym on Wednesday. She’s been thinking about him almost all day. She got on the wrong bus this morning because she was trying to remember the shade of his eyes. She’s even—it hurts to admit this, even to herself—she’s even bought him a blueberry Nutrigrain bar.

Clint knows her well enough and is, in general, smart enough to hear what she isn’t saying. “I get that, believe me I do, but. You’ve gotta rest up. You can go back to kicking butt and showing off next week if you want, or Saturday, but you’ve gotta rest.”

If she had enough momentum, she’d be ducking under his arm and in the hallway and on her way. Clint catches her stare and shifts into a more solid stance, the one that makes him look intimidating in his hockey gear but right now makes him look bedheaded and earnest and like her best friend.

Nat says, “I don’t really wanna go, but I do,” and Clint smiles with half of his mouth.

He looks up and runs a hand along the doorframe like it’s the most fascinating thing, still smiling like it’s just for her. “Wanna get out?”

“Where?”

“Dunno,” he says, and shrugs.

Their university does movies for free at the Union, so that’s where they go. Every Wednesday through Saturday at 9 PM whoever’s in charge of the videos cycles through blockbusters that came out earlier in the year, usually on a few month’s delay. It’s always very energetic; the room seats 150 people, give or take, and that many college kids in a room tend to laugh and talk to the screen now and then in very audible whispers.

It’s Moana tonight. Natasha buys the popcorn and Clint does the butter and salt in an easy routine that they’ve established over the last decade and a half, one born from Natasha having a job and but sense of what to do with butter and Clint not having a job but the amazing ability, somehow, to properly flavor even the vaguely cardboard-y popcorn served outside the theatre.

She’s checking his work—flawless, as always; he can’t seem to miss the mark—when he says, “Oh, hey Steve.”

Clint takes the popcorn back, which is good because she almost drops it. Steve smirks at her but she barely sees him; Sam’s leather jacket is filling up her field of view.

“Hey Clint, Nat,” Steve says. “Nat, I think you know Sam?” Nat glares at him and he shrugs in an I’m sorry kind of way, which would’ve been fine if his eyes weren’t plainly amused.

Sam says, “We’ve met. How’re your thighs?”

Clint makes a noise that sounds like he’s got popcorn stuck in his throat at that. “Her thighs?” Steve doubles over, laughing a little breathlessly.

“Fine,” Nat says, ignoring Clint and Steve, but it’s okay because she and Sam have both gone red now. “Just. Taking a day off. Rest day.”

“Good, good,” Sam says. He’s wearing what Natasha thinks is his my best friend is an idiot expression; she recognizes it because she makes the same face about Clint.

She looks at them—they’re not paying attention anymore, Clint’s showing Steve something on his phone—and then back at Sam and says, halfway between annoyed and flustered, “Wanna find a seat?”

And he says, “Absolutely,” and they sit next to each other and, in the dark, she imagines that this is, maybe, a date. A daydream ruined when Clint and Steve stumble over them to get to their own seats and spill Steve’s drink all over the floor, flooding over the tops of their shoes and making the floor obnoxiously sticky when they shift their feet.

New Text Message

Steve: yknow tht Sam liks you

Me: Are you drunk?

Steve: cant get drunk rmmber

Steve: scince

Me: That’s not how science works

Me: Are you okay? Do we need to come get you?

Steve: nahhhhh

Steve: mfine. got Sam

(Steve added Clintyyy to the chat.)

Steve: CLINT tell her

Clintyyy: What’s with the caps man?

Steve: phone bein weird

Steve: does that

Me: Are you sure you’re fine?

Steve: i am not Sam he’s in lov

Steve: *live

Steve: *lpbe

Clintyyy: We got you

Steve: you knoe what I mean

Me: He’s drunk

Steve: mnot

Me: Like Budapest all over again

Clintyyy: Ah the memories

Natasha has twelve missed calls from Steve when she wakes up. She checks through them, straining to separate the synth in the background from Steve’s slurred speech, and makes a mental note to make Steve the DD from now on. Boy can’t handle his alcohol very well.

She also has a series of quick texts from a number she doesn’t recognize, and she smiles when she sees them: Got him home safe, don’t worry. Got your number from his phone. Don’t forget to hydrate.

Clint walks with her to the bus stop, very blatantly reading over her shoulder. She lets him. “‘Don’t forget to hydrate’?” he says, one eyebrow raised.

Nat just shrugs and shows her ID to the busdriver. Clint follows behind her. He wants to ask something, she can tell, so she waits and leans the back of her head against the window. He pokes a hole in the knee of her jeans.

The bus slows to a stop by the main lawn five minutes later and they get up, sling backpacks over tired shoulders. Nat’s class is a little bit of a walk from the stop but Clint’s is in one of the old buildings ringing the lawn, so they hug and go on their way.

But he’s running after her a beat later, and he asks, winded (he should, she thinks, probably come with her to the gym), “You like him?”

“Maybe,” she tells him.

Clint studies her with the certainty and ease that comes from knowing someone for awhile. “You do,” he says, like he’s found something worth finding.

She says, “Yeah,” and they smile at each other.

New Text Message

Clintyyy: Still up for it?

Steve: Yessss

Me: Why not

Loud, overly flirtatious and forward drunk frat guys. That’s why not.

Thirsty Thursday is always a little over-the-top, but somehow, today, it’s one hundred percent worse; they’ve walked the entirety of College Ave. looking for a bar that wasn’t overflowing but still quality. There are approximately seven different bars within feasible walking distance—that is, within the distance that a still somewhat hungover Steve, an exercise-loath Clint, and a Natasha in relatively high heels would be willing to walk to. Seven bars for 40,000 students, maybe only half of whom can (legally) drink, maybe only half of that half who don’t have classes Fridays and would be out around this time. And, apparently, all of those students are tipsy frat guys.

They don’t say anything to her, per se, never do, but they’d said things to each other about her when she and Steve and Clint walk by, and once was enough for her to dislike them on principle.

The three of them had planned for eight. Eight was a dumb idea, evidently, because the bars they would have no trouble getting into Monday through Wednesday at eight o’clock are filled with lines a block long.

“Should we just call it?” Clint asks in frustration. They’re at the sixth bar on the list.

Nat shakes her head. “Let’s try the next one. We’re out, we’re cute, we may as well. And I really have to pee.”

“Well said,” Steve says.

The seventh bar is called The Triskelion for reasons Natasha hadn’t cared to ask about. The logo is the same curving lines as her boss’ tattoo, and Fury never struck her as the type of person to welcome questions about it, so she’d shelved her curiosity.

It’s a little, low lit dingy place with graffitied walls and peeling paint. But the bar is clean and so are the tables, and there aren’t as many frat guys here—there’s a few other people at the bar and one or two couples who seem to be on dates, but no Greek letters—, so Nat thinks it’s perfect.

“What can I get you all?” the bartender asks.

Natasha looks and Clint and says, “Surprise me,” and heads off to find the bathroom.

“I got you,” Clint calls. She raises a hand to say she heard.

It’s surprisingly clean, the bathroom. It’s unisex, so there are urinals and stalls, but there isn’t as much pee everywhere as she’d expected for Thirsty Thursday. She’s washing her hands when the door slams open.

“—right back,” someone says, talking to someone outside, and then: “Shit fuck.”

Nat glances to the door and immediately wishes she was back at the bar. “Hey, Sam.”

He smiles weakly, rubbing the back of his neck. “How you doing?”

“Fine. You alright?”

“You, uh. Heard that, then?” Sam says flatly. She nods, waits. He sighs. “It’s my date.”

Now she really wishes she was back at the bar. The sentence bounces around her head a moment before settling uncomfortably on her stomach.

She says, “Sorry,” and pinches off bits of her paper towel.

“Yeah. Don’t know what I was expecting, it’s just,” he says, and now he throws up his hands, “everything’s gone wrong, she told me that I was ‘just the sweetest thing’ and ‘so soft’ and that I remind her of her dead chocolate lab, and she didn’t answer if I asked if it was because I’m black. I mean, I was kidding, but not now, clearly.”

“She sounds interesting,” Nat says carefully. “I’m sorry.”

“‘Interesting’ is a little milder than I’m thinking,” he says. “It’s my fault really, it’s Tinder and I was gonna call it off, but she sounded so sad in the messages.”

“What’re you gonna do?”

Sam looks around the bathroom and says sheepishly, “I was going to pop open the window, actually. But there isn’t one. So.”

“I’m sorry,” Nat says. On an impulse she takes his hand and squeezes it. “You can do this. It only has to be a one-time thing.”

He squeezes her hand back. “I’ll try.”

New Text Message

Me: Abort

Nutrigrain Bar: What happened? Are you okay?

Me: Frat guy at the bar hitting on me

Me: buying me a drink npw

Me: Steve and Clint in bathroom

Nutrigrain Bar: One sec

“Hold on, I gotta tell Clint and Steve, they worry,” Nat says a little breathlessly, leaning against the brick wall of the library. Sam starts to back away but she catches his jacket sleeve as a sort of tether. She sends her text one-handed and pulls him closer, and the second kiss is as nice as the first, and the third is better.

New Text Message

Nutrigrain Bar: I had a very, very nice time last night

Me: Me too

Me: It’d be a shame if

Me: You know

Nutrigrain Bar: If it happened again?

Me: Exactly

Nutrigrain Bar: Well

Nutrigrain Bar: We’ve always got out standing date at the gym

Me: That’s a good start

Nutrigrain Bar: Well hopefully we’ll have a good middle too

New Text Message

Stevie: Told ya

Me: I know

Stevie: For the record

Me: I knowwww

Stevie: ;)

Me: Shut up

“Details,” Clint says, his arm a dead weight around her shoulder; they’re both still feeling last night.

The NCIS opening credits play, but they’ve got the sound off. This is one of Clint’s favorite things to do, sit around and read the lips of the actors on TV shows. Nat’s favorite part is when he gets bored of it and starts making up his own lines.

She tucks her knees close to her chest and leans closer to Clint. He mumbles Gibbs’ line, “Grab your gear,” and she says, “Doesn’t count.”

“Does so.”

“He says it,” and here she yawns, “every episode.”

Clint tugs on her sleeve. “It counts. It’s like the free space in Bingo.”

“Gonna pretend you didn’t say that, Barton.”

“Gonna pretend you aren’t dodging the question, Romanova.”

“You didn’t,” she says, yawning again, “ask me anything.”

“Don’t be a McGoofus, McGee” is what Clint says next. Then: “Fine. Details?”

Remembering it gives her goosebumps. She smiles. “About?”

Clint groans and buries his face in a cushion while she laughs harder than she would normally. His voice is muffled as he says, “The kiss, Tasha, the kissing, the Frenching, snogging, whatever.”

“You mean like, how was it?”

“Yes.”

“Good.”

“Tongue?”

“Maybe.”

New Text Message

Steviesteviestevie: Okay I’m presentable now

Steviesteviestevie: Are you almost here?

Me: Just got off the bus

Me: Be there in 5

Steve flings the door open wide and drapes himself against it, saying, “Welcome to my humble abode.”

He’s ridiculous. “You’re always so dramatic,” Nat says, laughing in spite of herself. She crosses the threshold and Steve closes the door behind her.

She’s never been in Steve’s apartment before. It’s about what she would’ve expected for a student on a college budget: small living room with a small TV and bookcase, small kitchen, small bathroom with a corner of the mirror missing. A hallway leads off the living room and has three doors, one being the bathroom, one Steve’s room, and then a closet, maybe.

He spread out cool ranch Doritos and Oreos and lemonade on the counter. After handing her a (paper) plate, Steve piles huge handfuls of the Doritos onto his own plate and sits.

The Doritos are now half empty. “You should’ve just taken the bag,” Nat comments. She deliberates for a second and then just takes the Oreo tray to the table.

“There’s time,” Steve says. “We’ve got a lot of studying to do.”

Nat plunks her notes and books onto the table. “That we do.”

Two hours later, Natasha hits the wall.

Thirty minutes after that, Clint texts her about an NHL game, so she commandeers Steve’s TV and watches that. Steve abandons his homework and joins her on the couch and they yell at a few missed calls, and she finally gets him to agree to join her and Clint’s team (thereby allowing her to win a twenty dollar bet).

Around nine, a Mythbusters marathon starts. Natasha and Steve have a competition to see who can stack and eat the most Oreo filling. Steve wins, but only because his mouth his bigger.

At ten Steve’s Russian pen pal FaceTimes him, and, after exchanging hellos in Russian, Steve introduces him to Nat. Steve’s pen pal has long hair and the unlikely name of ‘Bucky’ and is surprised when Natasha takes to him exclusively in Russian.

Sometime after that Natasha’s alone on the couch, and while the Mythbusters team blows stuff up onscreen, she falls asleep.

She hears it and holds a pillow over her head in sheer stubborn refusal to be awake. When she moves, her arm threatens to fall off; sleeping on the couch never really works out for her unless she sleeps on someone.

The lights are off in the apartment. Careful to keep her ears covered, she peeks at the TV and sees that someone turned it off. The singing’s coming from the kitchen, then. If she focuses extremely hard she can just make out the pitch on the voice, and from what she knows from several painful karaoke nights, Steve’s voice isn’t this nice to listen to. Even if it’s waking her up at—she checks the clock on the bookcase—four in the morning. She blearily considers the possibility that Steve’s being robbed.

Whoever’s singing (a musical burglar?) is getting into it. Their words filter through the pillow now: “Just remember, you’re the one thing I can’t get enough of”.

That’s it. She throws the pillow across the room and storms into the kitchen.

“What the hell are you—” That’s when she sees Sam.

He stops midword in surprise. “Nat?” he says, uncertain. “Why’re you here?”

She crosses her arms. “Why’re you here?”

“I asked first,” he says, yawning.

“Studying.”

He says, “Sleeping.”

This more than anything annoys her. “Trying to,” she says pointedly. “Was sleeping.”

It seems to take him a moment to put together what she’s saying. “Oh. Sorry.”

“Your turn.”

“I live here?” He raps his knuckles on the back of a chair.

She’s not awake enough for this. “Here?”

“Steve and I are roommates,” Sam says.

“I thought—” she yawns “—thought he lived alone.”

Sam says, in a tone too bright for this time of morning, “Nope.”

“Why Dirty Dancing in the kitchen? Can’t you practice in, I don’t know, the car? The shower?”

Sam looks at her oddly. “Yeah,” he says. “I do,” and this time it’s Nat who takes a moment to understand what he’s saying.

And then she puts it together. “The gym.”

He nods, smiling slightly. “Thought you knew.”

“No,” she says, rubbing her eyes. It’s too early for this.

“Shame.” He looks very determinedly at the ceiling. “I was trying to woo you.”

She laughs. “Through the shower.”

“Wasn’t sure what else to do,” Sam says, shrugging. But he’s smiling, and she thinks that maybe she’s found something worth finding.

“You’re an idiot,” Nat says.

He says, hopeful, “That mean it worked?”

“Maybe,” she says.

New Text Message

Me: Made it back fine, thanks for asking

Nutrigrain Bar: Good :)

Me: And it worked

Me: How’s Wednesday?