Hunched over in the study room, bright florescent lights flickering, Loki cradled his forehead in one hand, reading through the same paragraph he'd been 'reading' for the last three minutes. After the first two sentences his eyes blur slightly and they still move along the lines of text, but he has no idea what it says. He realizes it by the start of the next paragraph and goes back to start over. But it doesn't help. His eyelids droop so he tries to squeeze them tight and then open them like his sleep-depravity will somehow clear up in those two seconds.
He sighed and rubbed his eyes roughly, leaning back in the chair and groaning. He pulls his phone from his back pocket to check the time. It's late. Rather, early in the morning, earlier than Loki had expected, and it was no wonder he was exhausted. He flips the textbook shut, gathering his notebook and pens together in one pile and gets up, stopping at the door to the study room to sign the sheet, noting the time spent inside. The door clicks shut heavily behind him when he leaves and he slowly makes his way upstairs to the common area of the dormitory building. The common room is dark but for the televisions light throwing shadows around, a re-run of an old sitcom playing while someone slept on the couch, sitting up and head back on the rest. Loki goes over and sees that it's Bruce, and his girlfriend is lying on the couch with him, head in his lap facing the TV. He doesn't reach out to touch Bruce, but almost. The curly haired man never took well to being touched to wake up. Loki knew that after being punched in the face one night, something similar to tonight.
"Bruce?" he said gently, and got no response. He took the remote and turned down the volume of the show, quieting the raucous laugh-track. "Bruce."
Bruce's eyes flew open and he nearly gasped, jolting in his skin a little, enough to disturb the red-head in his lap. He looked up at Loki blearily and rubbed his eyes, getting the remote tossed in his lap between him and the woman.
"Let your girlfriend out before Maria catches you sleeping out here." Loki checked his phone again as he began to walk away to his room. "You have twenty minutes before she makes her morning rounds and restocks the coffee caddy."
Bruce groaned sleepily and thanked Loki before he went out of earshot down the hall. Loki didn't say anything, too tired to reply and he didn't need to anyway. Sometimes he felt like the dorm babysitter, giving warnings and sound advice, scurrying his peers away before the Resident Assistant could find them and write them up or whatever she did. A lot of angry glares and yelling.
Up another floor, Loki finally came to his room, and he stopped dead at the door. He could hear moaning. He sighed and listened, pushing out his lips as he wondered if it was coming from his room or not, but… it was of course. His roommate always had a girl over, and declined to signal the door any kind of 'do not disturb'. Loki put his ear to the door just in case, and heard another set of moaning through it. He backed away and grimaced, standing in the dark hall alone to figure out his choices. He wouldn't be able to sleep in the common room and of course not the hallway. But nobody ever said you couldn't sleep in someone else's room. Loki turned on his heel and meandered down to the other end of the hall, gently knocking on the door to 327. He wanted to lean his head on the door as he waited, so tired he could sleep on his feet. The door opened a moment later, revealing Tony in his lounge pants and wifebeater. He looked just as tired, but there was a faint bluish-white light of a computer screen glowing behind him.
"Hey," he greeted softly, a little confused. "What are you doing here? It's-" he glanced at his watch- "Five in the morning- Jesus, no wonder I'm tired."
"Sock on the doorknob at my place," Loki said with a sigh and Tony grunted in understanding. He opened the door a little wider and stepped away, welcoming Loki inside.
"You can sleep on his bed for now I guess." Tony pointed to the nicely made bed across from his own with his tablet pen. "I dunno where he is, but if he's not back by now then he's sleeping it off somewhere." He sat back in his bed, crosslegged and covers over him, but he pulled his computer close and grabbed a tablet off the bedside table, continuing whatever Loki had interrupted.
"He's not going to mind when he gets back?" Loki asked as he set his books down on the desk at the end of the room.
"Probably not- he sleeps in Bruce's girlfriend's dorm all the time. Sometimes she sleeps here."
"She sleeps here, as in this bed? Why not with Bruce?"
"He wants to make sure he's done with his therapy before they sleep together."
"Ah," Loki hummed, kicking off his shoes before lying back on the borrowed bed. He opened his phone and set an alarm- he'd be tired but it would be early enough to go back to his own room, get a couple more hours of sleep, and then get to class. Thankfully he had no morning classes on Wednesdays. He wriggled into place on top of the covers, not wanting to invade further by putting his body in someone else's bed, and he pulled at the pillow, stuffing his face into it happily when he found that it was a feather pillow. His eyes stayed open for a few more seconds to watch Tony work diligently on his tablet, drawing, it seemed, and every now and then stopping to check something on the laptop, making a couple clicks and then going back to the tablet.
"What are you working on?" Loki mumbled sleepily.
"On the tablet or the computer?"
"Both."
"Well, I'm making an intelligent computer system on the lap, and designs for battle armor on the tablet."
Loki snorted and it came out as a sniff of laughter. "Battle armor?"
"Purely for welding and shop class."
Loki hummed knowingly as he drifted into sleep.
The dryer beeped loudly through the laundry room, almost echoing in the empty space. Sitting on top of the dryer in only his shorts, Clint turned down the corner of a page in his book and hopped down, wriggling his toes unhappily on the cold tiles. He snapped open the dryer door and stuffed his clothes into a mesh laundry bag, pulling the drawstrings to close the top and flinging it over his shoulder as he grabbed his book and padded out into the halls. The rest of the dormitory wasn't too cold, just the laundry room, but he was still in nothing but underwear, so it was chilly enough. He shook himself out of a shiver and sniffed, thumbing his book open to read as he walked through the building. There wouldn't be anyone up at this hour yet, except for the RA, and the pathways through the common rooms and halls were kept clear of shit to trip on, so he could read as he went. The lights were on in the kitchen as he walked by, and glasses clinked, pots gently clanged like someone was cleaning, and Clint poked his head in to find the RA stacking up mugs and setting up the coffee maker. He started to walk away, greeting her as he left.
"Morning, Maria."
And she greeted him in turn curtly but nicely, continuing on with her morning rituals. He trotted away and continued reading, climbing the stairs to his floor and going to the end of the hall. He opened the door to his room without preamble, and greeted Tony quietly. He wasn't surprised he was still awake, he had trouble sleeping most of the time and worked constantly instead. When he turned to his bed, ready to drop his bag of clean clothes on it, he froze at the sight of a dark silhouette there.
"What the fuck? Who is that?"
"Hm?" Tony was always immersed in his work.
"Why is there a person in my bed, Tony?" Clint wasn't angry about it, just confused.
"Oh, his roommate put a sock on the door, so- I didn't know where you were, I told him it was cool."
"I was washing my clothes- I've only been gone for an hour and a half."
Tony squinted and looked up at the room, unsure. "Really?"
Clint sighed and sat on the edge of his bed, shaking his head and tossing his book on the nightstand, covering the phone he didn't realize was there. Tony had no concept of time when he was working on something. He decided not to give a fuck, kicking his bag of laundry down the bed and lying down on top of the covers beside his bed-stealer.
"Who is this dude?" he asked and yawned.
"Guy from one of my classes. Lives down the hall with his brother."
"How'd they manage that?"
Tony hummed and glanced up at his laptop, squinting at a line of code before going back to his drawing. "I don't think it was intentional- he hates it."
Clint hummed and sighed, turning onto his side facing Tony and closing his eyes. There was just no room for the both of them without spooning, but this was Clint's bed and he'd make sure he had room. He pushed the other into the wall a little more harshly than intended with his ass, hearing him thunk against it and wake up some with a sharp inhale. He waved a hand behind him to swat at Clint weakly, cuddling closer to the wall to get away.
"Back off, Stark," he rasped tiredly. "I told you I'm not sleeping with you."
Tony snickered and drew on his tablet some more and Clint sighed.
"Really?"
Tony made no effort to answer, just smiling and drawing as Clint went to sleep.
His eyes snapped open at the sound of an alarm blaring loudly. It was't his alarm, he knew that, but he couldn't move, shocked awake and confused by the noise. He stopped breathing for a moment as an arm came over him, slapping at the tabletop for the phone that screamed to be thrown against the wall. The hand knocked Clint's book to the floor and grasped at the phone, clicking the snooze button and then going limp, hanging over Clint's shoulder. It was a new experience for Clint to wake up with someone in his bed, a male someone and not his best friend anyway. He didn't tend to bring conquests home to his room, preferring to use theirs or- outside was good too. Or the floor. Or wherever.
The arm slithered off him after a moment, and the body behind him pulled away, quietly shimmying down the bed and getting up. The alarm went off again and Clint hit the snooze button before the other could reach it, and he yawned and sat up, scratching his scalp and finger-combing his sandy-blonde hair tiredly. He looked up finally at his tall guest, who stood frozen near him, and smiled lightly.
"Hey."
"Hi."
Clint held out the phone for him to take and got up, stretching and then holding a hand out in greeting. "Clint Barton."
His bedmate hesitated a second before shaking his hand, and it occurred to Clint that he was in nothing but his shorts and the other was fully clothed. Awkward.
"Loki Odinson."
"Well, Loki," Clint sighed as he moved around the bed to find his laundry bag. "Sleep well?"
"I did, though I am going to sleep more in my own room right now- I'm sorry to have stolen your bed. Tony said you wouldn't be back."
"Yeah I was actually just doin' the laundry- Tony doesn't listen when he's in the zone." Clint found his jeans and started shoving his feet into them.
Loki sat on Tony's bed and pulled his shoes on, snorting at the sentiment. "He's very involved in his work."
"That's a nice way of saying he doesn't care about anything but himself."
"It is," Loki chuckled as he stood. He took his books and pens from the desk and held them at his front, and Clint sat on his bed, looking up at him and trying to hide the growing interest on his face. Loki took a deep, nervous breath and sighed.
"Well, thank you for letting me… sleep with you…" He furrowed his brows at how strange that sounded.
"No problem. I'll see you around."
He watched Loki leave, and let his body go slack when he was alone, resting his head in his hand and yawning again. He checked the time on his phone and scoffed, falling back onto the bed and rolling over, going back to sleep.
Loki wandered back to his room, dodging the peers in the hall that were trying to make it to their classes, or the ones that just now made it back to campus after a night of partying. Sometimes it was hard to tell them apart- they all looked tired and rumpled. He stopped and listened at his dorm room again, just in case, and heard nothing, relieved, he went in and closed out the noise of the morning commuters in the hall.
"Hey, where were you last night?"
Loki scoffed and put his textbooks on his small desk, putting the pens away in the desk caddy. "Does it matter- you spent the night having sex, so I couldn't sleep here anyway." He turned to his brother who sat at his own desk, laptop open to the school's email system.
Thor pursed his lips, becoming sheepish, and he sighed. "I'm sorry, I didn't think about that."
Loki just hummed and turned to his bed, toeing his shoes off again and starting to unbutton his pants, intent to be in his pajamas for a few hours before having to face the day.
"Well, I slept in Tony's room, and thankfully his roommate is a decent and forgiving guy. I had to sleep in his bed."
Thor went back to his computer while Loki changed, typing his password into the system to get to his email. "Bruce?"
"No, a Clint Barton."
"Hmph, never heard of him."
"Well, this is a school of thousands of students," Loki pointed out as he crawled under the covers and set an alarm on his phone. "I'm not surprised." He sifted under his pillow for his sleep mask and strapped it around his head before turning over to face the wall. If he had his way they would foil the window and keep it perpetually dark, but Thor preferred sunshine. So they did it his way.
"Are you not going to class?"
Loki sighed, exasperated. "It's Wednesday- I have no morning classes. Don't you ever look at the calendar? That's why we have it; that's why our schedules are on it."
"Well I forgot- would you stop biting my head off?"
"You don't want to see me biting your head off. Now please shut up and let me sleep!"
Thor huffed and shook his head, relenting the argument to get peace and clicked through his emails quietly.
I have no idea how big this thing is going to get. It will probably be a lot of oneshots in the same universe, but maybe not all in the right order, get me? I'm having fun with this one.
