So, yeah. This was written on my phone at about four in the morning. Which means the first section is really short. Let's see how this goes.

Also, this story just got added to a community. That means all my stories but one are added to at least one! lol, I feel special. xD

And okay, real talk for a moment: I know I've got a ton mistakes in this (most sentence structure mistakes are on purpose since it's borderline stream of consciousness) but for me that's kind of inevitable. I legitimately try to proofread but I must memorize my own writing or something because most go straight over my head. I've been like this since I was a kid. Like, to the point my teachers told my mom that I might be dyslexic until my second grade teacher realized I read the fastest in my class by a long shot. Logically, I know I should get a beta reader. Really, I do. But I don't trust people with my work. I've had too many "editors" try to change my story to their style to the point that my work will lose meaning. So please, know that I understand it and try really, really hard to fix it.

I apologize if that sounded mean.

Disclaimer: Just own the people not from the movie.

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Clint walks into his floor some time around one in the morning, carrying bagels because he passed a place that was open and he'll want to eat at one point in the normal-people morning, to find Briony asleep on the carpet. The television is on, playing reruns of Friends, and she has a text book in front of her. From this distance he can't see what it says, but he recognizes the letters well enough to guess it's German. Not wanting to wake her, he places the bag of bagels quietly (no easy feat, what with said bag being paper and crinkly) on the table before walking over. She's in a pairing of pajama pants and a shirt, with her hair strewn everywhere and a pencil in her hand.

He's done enough to things to people in their sleep that he knows how to move her without waking her up. Gently, he takes the pencil from her fingers and twists her slowly before picking her up. She's almost unnervingly light for a college freshman, despite being small and skinny and how it's pretty obvious in the first place. She mumbles something in Norwegian and snuggles against him.

He thinks mission accomplished when he manages to get her into bed, sort of under the covers, but as he goes to turn away, there's a tug on his sleeve and sleepy, "Bli her."

Unfortunately does not happen to know Norwegian despite living with one, so all he can answer is, "What?"

Brie rubs one eye. "Sorry," she murmurs. "I said stay." When he doesn't answer right away, she continues, "It's not like we've never done it before and I'm cold. Don't you dare say the joke I'm sure you've thought of."

God, she knows him too well. And while he's perfectly aware that he should be the responsible one and just turn up the thermostat, he finds himself consenting. "Let me just grab something that isn't jeans first."

She humans an affirmative and when he's back five minutes later, in sweats with the mandatory hygiene requirements filled, she still up and sends him a small smile. "Thanks," she says quietly before pulling the blanket up to her neck and curling into a ball.

A moment later she's asleep and he's out not too long after.

.

"Fury easily could've sent someone else to do that," Natasha says, tying back her hair, and Clint knew she isn't complaining about the work, just how insultingly easy it was.

Clint shrugs. "I think he wants to remind us that we're still agents or something," he answers, though he's actually pretty annoyed too. It was so easy that the entire mission took three bullets in total, and an hour of hiding out in a supply closet that was so far from an unguarded area that the two of them were able to talk the whole time. A talk that was strangely dominated by cats. "But really, France? What's interesting about France?"

"Nothing," she says, crossing her arms and he hasn't seen her this irritated about a job in a while. Then again, they haven't been this bored in a while. "He could've sent Maria or something. At least she'd have an excuse to stick around and visit her sister or whatever family member she has there."

"Brother-in-law, I think." Not that it really matters. He pulls out his cell phone to see if he has any missed calls. Though he finds none, the clock informs him that it was one thirty in morning and, oh yeah, it's a Friday, isn't it? "We haven't eaten in a day have we?"

"Unfortunately."

"Want to go to a diner?"

For a moment, Natasha looks at him blankly. Then realization dawns. "Sure," she says. "You haven't been there in a while."

"What's the point? I sort of live with her."

They changed directions, walking north. "How's that working out for you anyway?" she asks.

Even to Natasha, he doesn't want to admit everything. "Fine," he answers. "Definitely makes early mornings less boring, now that you spend it with your boyfriend and leave me all alone."

Since he totally did deserve it, he didn't dodge when she shoved him. She says, "Shut up, it's weird enough that you know already. Oh, and Pepper figured it out, too. I know I shouldn't be surprised, but it's just awkward."

"I get it," he says, and does. Though his friend's never said it out loud, he knows her well enough to see that she really doesn't like the woman. "Are you guys ever going to tell anyone else, or do they all have to stumble across it on their own?"

"Maybe. Are you ever going to tell your little girlfriend anything? Because watching you guys flirt is sort of like watching a third grader attempting to woo his crush."

Embarrassed now, he asks, "Is it that obvious?"

Whenever Natasha smirks, she looks evil, and he will stand by this view for the rest of his life. "Oh, absolutely," she says, and they turn on Eighth. Three more blocks and they'll be there. "Obvious enough that Bruce compared you to Steve in terms of relationship ineptitude. Thank about that for a moment."

Getting compared to Steve was one thing, but having Bruce be the one to point it out makes it a thousand times worse. By now this conversation's dragging on too long for him to be remotely comfortable with it because Clint's never been the type to talk about his personal "feelings" or whatever. Even so, he has to know, so he says, "Do you think she knows?"

His friend stares. Then, "Wow, you're a fucking idiot."

But then they're in front of the diner, and Briony's turning around with dishes from group of business men in her arm. She noticeably brightens when she sees them, and Clint doesn't have a chance to answer. He'll want an explanation later, but as they push open the door, he's relieved the subject is dropped for now.

As she walks past them and pauses, Brie says, "Sit wherever, I'll be there in a sec. Do you guys want a coffee?"

"Uh, sure," he answers, and Natasha agrees. When she walks away to get the check from the cook or whatever she has to do, they snag a seat close to the door and proceed to ignore the Bonnie Tyler song that's played at such a low volume it's equivalent to white noise.

Before she can come back, dropping the check off to the business men and carrying two mugs of coffee, the other waiter - the Ellie woman, the one who has a thing for decrepit old guys - comes over. She says, "Hi, I'm Eleanor and I'll be your server today," and puts menus in front of them. When she looks up and realizes exactly who's in the booth she adds, "Oh, haven't seen you in a while."

Well, this is awkward, Clint thinks. "Well, you know," he answers, hoping she doesn't notice that both her and Natasha have guns at their hips (actually, in retrospect, maybe coming here when it isn't just Briony was a bad idea). "I've been busy with sleeping and all that. Very time consuming."

"It's nice to have you back," the woman says, taking out the order slip notepad thing and Briony is awkwardly standing behind her now, obviously trying not to laugh. She takes a glance at Natasha. "Is this your girlfriend?"

People were so nosy, but this is so ridiculous that he's having trouble keeping a straight face and even Natasha, whom he's explained the bizarre relationship to, seems to be struggling against a smile. "I'm his coworker," she answers. "In no way his girlfriend. And our coffee's sort of behind you right now."

Eleanor turns around, apparently surprised to find that their coffee wasn't just floating there on its own (okay, so that was mean, but Clint's never pretended to be a nice person in the first place). Briony shrugs to an unasked question. "Managed to take the order as they came in," she says. "You can do the rest if you'd like."

"You aren't supposed to take orders at the door, Fredriksen." She sounds almost accusatory. "You know that."

As she puts the coffee down in front of them, she says, "They sort of get friend privileges, sorry. I can sit down and make sure they tip generously since I've done the last two tables."

"They're your friends?"

"Mhm. So do you want the table?"

Surprisingly, the woman agrees, and Briony slides into the booth next to Clint while they order French toast to share (because, fuck it, it says French but it's American and they're up for a little irony). "I thought you guys weren't due back until nine," she says once they're alone.

"It was easier than we suspected," Natasha answers and just like that, she's back to being annoyed. "We figured we were hungry."

"But the flight from here to Paris is a little over seven hours."

Oh, yes, coffee, the greatest drink mankind has ever invented. He ignores that it's a little too hot because he needs it at the moment. "We were there three hours," he says. "That includes first stepping off the plane and first getting back on it. Sound about right, Tash?"

"Two hours, forty-six minutes actually."

"Well aren't you precise."

Briony snickers and Natasha looks a step away from rolling her eyes. Eleanor comes over with the French toast, and they give the mumbled, necessary thank yous. Clint asks, "What time to get out today? Usual?"

"Three, technically," she answers. "So, you know, at two. I have a Russian test to study for. Thank god my teacher's better than my last one."

"Oh, really?" he says, because the test was yesterday and she has no classes on Friday. "We'll leave like five to two. Meet you down the street?"

As Natasha strategically steals a piece covered liberally with more syrup than anywhere else because she can be a bitch like that sometimes, Brie says, "Sure. I have to pick up my paycheck, though, if you don't mind waiting an extra two minutes."

"Works for me," Natasha answers and the clock is ticking away towards two. Truthfully, Clint doesn't really want to go home because the dullness of the mission has made him antsy, but Fury told them that unless they fuck up badly, they aren't allowed to go to HQ to debrief until at least six, but preferably later. Why this, he doesn't know and he isn't sure he particularly wants to.

Knowing their luck, Fury's off doing something more interesting.

At ten to two, they call for the check, and pay in cash, following up with Briony's promise to tip a tad over twenty percent. He hopes she doesn't get in too much trouble when the woman later realizes that they only tipped twenty-one percent, but that's besides the point. Brie joins them not long after, envelope held in her hand.

.

Realization doesn't dawn on him until two days later, and when it finally clicks, he really does feel like an idiot. He's the hawk, the most observant one of the Avengers, if not the entirety of S.H.I.E.L.D. So how the fuck hasn't he picked up on it yet?

He decides to blame it on being too close. Ever since he was a kid, he'd always been good at seeing things from far away rather than up close, getting too caught up in the many little details rather than seeing all of those and the big picture. So really, it shouldn't be too much of a surprise that he was utterly clueless, and maybe he's in a little bit of denial too (he still can't get over that teen is in her age for another year and a half). But now that he sees it, it can't be unseen.

And honestly, it kind of scares him.

Though he can't trace exactly when it started - for either of them - he knows that he never seriously considered he and Briony as a...well, as a them. But now she's his roommate, she's kissed him, they've been in bed together at least a dozen times, and it turns out what he's incredibly stupid sometimes. Go figure.

"Are you okay?" she asks him after he spends a moment too long just staring into space, something that he doesn't normally do, looking up from her book because all the girl ever does is either work or study.

"What?" he answers. "Oh. Yeah. I guess I'm just tired."

"Then go to sleep," she says, and goes back to her homework, underlining something in her book. It's Brave New World, something he once tried to read out of curiosity and couldn't make it past the first twenty pages.

Maybe tired wasn't a good excuse, especially since he's actually awake to the point that's he's getting jittery. "Tired but not that tired," he says. "Don't you have Lit on Tuesday?"

"Yup."

Jesus, he knows her schedule too. And her birthday, and her favorite color and fears and what her facial expressions mean and fuck it if they aren't practically together anyway. So how the hell didn't he notice it?

"You can wait you know."

She shrugs and chews on the end of her pen. "I've got nothing else to do," she says. "Everyone's busy, I don't have work, and I'm out of books. So, homework. Unless you want me to annoy you."

"If you haven't notice, it's kind of hard to do that," he says, then pauses. "Except for Tony, but he seems to have a gift for being frustrating."

She smiles at him over the top of her book. "I -" she starts, but is cut off by her cell phone beeping. "Oh, it's Katie. I better go."

Leaving. Right, that might be a good thing, Clint decides. He needs time to think, to figure out what to do because he's never been in this situation before. It's not something he'd ever been trained to deal with, and it isn't the sort of thing that just clicks for him. Not in the way it does for Natasha. He brain just doesn't work that way, which isn't normally a problem. Briony stands, slides Brave New World onto the coffee table, and he catches sight of her feet, which before had been buried under the couch cushions.

Against his better judgment and despite his confusion, he laughs.

Startled, she stops, looking at him before following his gaze down to her socks, and he can count on one hand the number of times he's made her blush. "My mamma made them for me for Christmas," she says. "I figured I'd wear boots and no one would see - they're just penguins, Clint!"

"Yeah," he answers, "I'm calling bullshit on that one that. They look like deformed s'mores if you took away the gram crackers and added a candy corn."

"It was her first attempt at making anything that wasn't a scarf or a hat," she says. "I felt obligated to wear them at least a few times...Do they really look like s'mores?"

He nods and she rolls her eyes. "Nice. Okay, leaving now. Naturally you had to come back right before someone's schedule opened it."

"Wait - what?"

With a shrug, she answers, "I've know you for what - five months? - and honestly, you're better company than anyone else I've met in college. Don't know if you feel the same way, but it's true. Anyway, see'ya."

There's got to be a hidden meaning folded up somewhere in there, he thinks, and if Natasha hadn't pointed it out, he wouldn't have noticed it. "Yeah," he says, standing up too because sitting and looking up feels awkward. "And I mean yeah I do, not yeah I don't. I should shut up now, shouldn't I?"

She blinks and he realizes, oh, she gets it too. It hasn't crossed his mind that she was just as clueless as he was. Then she says, "I thought you liked Natasha."

Something shifts. "She's like a sister," he answers, "and there's something going on between her and Tony, which I definitely should've just said but whatever. Kind of disturbing actually..."

"Damn. I'm an idiot."

"Yeah, I'm feeling pretty stupid here too."

For a moment they stand there awkwardly. She tells him, "You know, Katie's blown me off so many times that I think I can do it to her for once."

Normally he'd say that he didn't mind, but this situation just got weird. Whether it's in a good way or a bad way he hasn't figured out yet, but maybe he should try being optimistic. "This isn't like a rebound thing, is it?" he asks. "Because, um, I kind of twenty-seven."

"Not a rebound," she says. "Definitely. Wouldn't be here if you were. And so? It's not like I'm a high school student. So is this really a - a thing or not?"

A thing isn't really the way he'd describe it. "I don't really think I can say no by this point," he answers as she texts her friend, "but there's a pretty distinct possibility that I'm more surprised than you right now."

Again, she shrugs. "Probably. You aren't going to change your mind tomorrow, right?"

"If you haven't noticed, I don't operate that way."

"Great."

There's a pause, then he adds, "This has to be the most uncomfortable asking out ever."

"Sounds about right."

And since there's nothing else to do, he leans down and kisses her.

.

I really hope this chapter isn't too short. I've never really written romance before and my personal relationships have pretty poisonous, but I've watched a lot of people fall in love in my life (including my brother, which was weird as fuck because it was a girl in my grade who I'm half-friends with) and for a guy, cluelessness seems to be the norm.

...I probably shouldn't have told you that.