It was late. Or early. It all depending on your point of view. As someone who was plagued with bouts of insomnia, your opinion on if 3:30 a.m. was late or early depended wholly on when you last had a good night's sleep. And lately you'd been sleeping like crap.

Usually, you knew what was causing the insomnia, because usually it had something to do with work. But for the past week you'd been bouncing between sheer mind-numbing exhaustion and so much energy you might just explode.

Tonight was one of those too much energy nights. After laying in bed for hours, alternating between tossing and turning and staring at the ceiling you gave up on the hope of sleep. Kicking your covers off you snatched up a pair of shorts and a white tank top that you thought was clean. Might as well make use of the excess energy in the gym.

You were absorbed in deciding on a playlist and if you were going to start with cardio or torturing yourself with weight training. At least that's what you told yourself was the reason you didn't realize before you walked in that Clint was already there. You stopped dead in your tracks five steps into the room and just stared.

He was stripped down to just a pair of athletic shorts, he wasn't even wearing shoes. You knew he did yoga, you'd caught the end or beginnings of his workouts enough times to know that much. What you didn't know was that apparently Clint was into the "twist your body into a pretzel" type of yoga. You knew you should stop staring but you couldn't tear your eyes away.

Clint was displaying a level of fluid grace and flexibility that you had no idea he had packed into his body. And it was making yours go absolutely haywire in response. Right now he was braced on his hands with his feet curled over his head.

"Are you going to just stand there or are you planning on working out?"

You barely registered that he was talking because he had planted his feet and curled his body around until he was standing up all in one fluid movement. The only thing you seemed capable of thinking was the fact that this man wasn't just fit but apparently more flexible than Gumby. And the stamina he had to have to do the poses he was doing without being even the slightest bit out of breath?

A sharp snapping sound brought you out of where your thoughts had hurtled. Blinking and shaking your head like Lucky did after a bath, you focused on Clint's face. There was a grin tugging at his lips and a glint in his eyes.

Ever the elegant one when yanked out of daydreams you definitely shouldn't be having, you said, "Huh?"

Now Clint did grin before walking over to a bench and picked up a water bottle and towel. He gestured at you as he wiped his face off and asked, "What are you planning working in today?"

Your brain was still a little muddled so you shrugged. "I hadn't decided yet. Didn't realize you were up."

"Couldn't sleep." Clint said as he dropped the towel and set the bottle down. Then he nodded in the direction of where he had been working. "Why don't you do some yoga? It's good to help relax the mind and body."

You felt you're eyes widen at the suggestion and you laughed. "Aw c'mon Clint. You should know I can't possibly twist myself into those positions. Hell I didn't even know you could."

He snorted. "Cupcake you know full well I was in a circus once upon a time. What do you think acrobats did?" He waved his hand before you could answer and said, "Whatever, I'm not sting you have to do it to that level. Just do it at whatever level you are at."

Your hands landed on your hips. "Clint, the only thing I know about yoga is that pose where your ass is in the air is."

"Ass in the air position? You mean downward facing dog?" Clint laughed, rubbing a hand over his face. "Well that settles it, class is in session, get over to the mat."

You giggled at him. He was standing there and point at the area he had vacated. Waving your hand you said, "No, Clint it's fine. I'll just do some cardio or something. You go on and do whatever it was you were planning to do after your work out."

"Do I need to use my bossy voice on you?" Clint asked, his head cocking to the side as his arms crossed over his chest.

"I—what? You don't have a bossy voice."

He stepped closer to you and you fought to keep your eyes on his face instead of dropping to his bare chest as he stared you down. "I absolutely do have a bossy voice. Now, take your shoes off and get over to the mat."

Even as your mouth opened to tell him to get bent you were towing your shoes off and moving towards the mat and mirrors. There was a low humming sound as Clint followed you over and when you had stepped into the middle of the area and caught his eye in the mirror he smirked and said, "Good girl."

Heat suffused your entire body as those two words hit your brain and sent your hormones galloping. This was ridiculous. Clint was your best friend. That's all he was. Your traitorous body needed to get back on the program.

You watched Clint's lips move in the mirror but didn't process what he said. "What?"

He pointed to the ground. "Get on your knees."

Your voice went all high and squeaky as you gasped at him. "Excuse me?"

Clint's arms crossed and you were fairly certain he was teasing you on purpose. "Sit down on your knees. Feet under your butt, hands on your knees. It's called the Vajrasana pose. And it's where you're gonna start."

"Oh." Face feeling even hotter you avoided looking at yourself in the mirror and dropped to sit down on your knees. You made minor adjustments as he indicated them, breathing as he instructed.

"Now lean forward, still on your knees, head towards the ground, stretching your arms forward…"

Clint continued to instruct you through the next few poses. Occasionally his hand or his foot would move some part of you into the right position before withdrawing. You were thinking perhaps you were completely useless at this when he instructed you to lay on your back to complete a pose called the Setu Bandha Sarvangasana.

"I'm sorry the what now?" You asked from where you were sitting.

"Bridge. It's a bridge position."

"What?"

"Just lay down on your back you stubborn fool."

Rolling your eyes at him you did what he asked, laying on your back with your feet planted on the ground and your palms down by your hips. He had moved closer to you, kneeling as he instructed you to rise your butt and torso off the mat. As you rose up, his hands were suddenly there, steadying you as he told you to hold it and breath.

But you weren't sure you could remember how to breath right at that moment because all you could focus on was his hand flat against your lower back. To the heat of his skin on yours. Then his hand was gone and he pressed lightly on your stomach as he told you to put your back on the mat once more.

"Good. Good. Now, I'll show you some stretches you should do regularly because you work at a desk so much."

You moved to sit up but he stopped you, suddenly a lot more hands on as he pulled one of your legs straight and told you to grab your other knee with your hand. When you had, he guided it down in a twist while telling you to keep your back flat on the ground.

It was hard to focus on breathing and holding your position when his hands remained on you. With each new stretch he showed you, he seemed to find someway to do so. You knew he was just helping guide you through things, but your body was aching from want.

When you were back in the kneeling pose he originally started you out in, staring into his grey-blue eyes you blinked when his eyebrow raised. You realized he had asked you something again.

"What?"

"How do you feel?"

You took stock of yourself and realized that your body no longer felt like it was going to explode with unnecessary energy. And even your mind was relaxed better than it was. You were also very horny, but you weren't about to admit that. So, you nodded. "Better, much better. Thanks Clint."

He smiled and stood up, hold his hand out to you to help you to your feet. For a moment, he didn't let you go. He just stood there, inches away as he studied you. His hand squeezed lightly around your forearm and he said, "We should do this together regularly. At least until you get the hang of how to do it yourself."

"Um. Okay." You agreed before you even thought about the advisability of it. Clint's lopsided smile flashed and he dropped his hand and stepped away. As he picked up his towel and water bottle, he tossed out a good night at you as he left the gym.

You didn't know how long you stood there before you shook yourself out of your thoughts and made your way back to your room.

~*~

The next two months were weird for you. Because you could no longer pretend that you weren't in love with your best friend, at least not to yourself. And you couldn't, you shouldn't be. Not because he wasn't amazing. But because of the situation you were in.

Clint had come to you because he trusted you. He was in a bad spot and need his friend to help him. He was forced into and isolated by what amounted to a gilded cage. You worried that if you even tried to tell him that you thought maybe you felt like you wanted more than friendship, he'd agree just because he had no choice.

Many of Clint's choices had been ripped away from him. The last thing you wanted to do was to make him feel like this was being taken away from him too. Besides, his divorce wasn't even fully finalized yet. And he was still hurting over that.

No, if you and Clint could be something more than friends it would probably be best to wait until he was in a position where he never had to doubt it was what he actually wanted.

So, what did you do? You shoved the feelings down as deep as possible and tried to cover them with normalcy. You let him badger you into doing yoga at least three times a week, you continued to do the things you did with him before. The teasing, the casual friendly touches, watching tv and movies together. All of it.

The second to last thing you wanted was in for Clint to think you didn't want him around anymore.

It was starting to wear on you though. You thought you were hiding it well when you were awake. But at night? At night you found yourself plagued by dreams that more often than not left you feeling needy and desperate. You were starting to wonder if you had reverted back to being a teenager or something when you weren't looking.

In your office, working, you realized you had once again drifted off in your thoughts. Sighing, you rested your face against your hands. Pushing your fingers into your eye sockets as you muttered darkly to yourself, "Get a grip. Fucking ridiculous."

"What's ridiculous?"

You jolted in surprise at Clint's voice from the doorway. Whirling around you found him leaning against the frame and wearing jeans, a white tee shirt, one of his light flannel unbuttoned over it, and bare feet. It was one of your absolute favorite looks of his. It simultaneously made your mouth water and dry up with arousal and nerves.

Shrugging as casually as you could manage you said, "Just work shit. You know how it is."

"Ah. I see. Anything I can help with?" Clint had started helping you more and more lately with work. In the beginning you constantly told him he didn't need to do that, but he kept offering and eventually you realized he liked to help because it gave him a sense of doing that he was desperately trying to fulfill.

"Oh, no, it's just mind numbing at times you know."

"Sure. Which is why you're done for the night."

You blinked at him in surprise. "I am?"

Clint came further into the room, leaning over your chair and hitting the keys to save your work and then shut down your system. Your nose was flooded with his familiar scent and you had to swallow thickly over the lump in your throat so that you could say, "Hey! Who died and made you the boss?"

His face turned toward yours, a scant few inches away as he grinned. "No one. But I'm the boss of you today babe. We have plans."

When he straightened and stepped back you turned back towards him. "What plans?"

"It's our anniversary." Clint said seriously, his hands tucking into his back pockets.

"Our—what? Excuse me?"

Clint's eyebrows shot up, likely due to the fact that your voice had climbed several octaves. "I moved in a year ago today."

"Oh. Yeah. Right. Totally forgot." Your breath gusted out. Of course that's what he was talking about. What else would he have been. You told yourself to get a grip as you stood up, raising your hands above your head in a long languid stretch. You'd been working for nearly 10 hours in front of the computer today.

Clint grabbed your hand and tugged you out of the office, keeping you from disappearing to your room as he said, "I ordered pizza. It will all be here in ten minutes or less."

Pretending to drag your feet you put up a token protest about wanting a shower. It caused him to grab your hand again and tug you along down to the first floor. The doorman buzzed as you reached the floor and Clint pushed you towards the living room as he went to meet the delivery girl. You were eying the things laid out on the table when he came in with the boxes.

Gesturing towards the coffee table you asked, "What is all this I thought we were gonna watch a movie or something."

"We do that any old time. Tonight's a celebration isn't it? So we are gonna play some drinking games."

He flopped down on the floor and flipped the top on the pizza box he set on the couch. Biting into a slice he wiggled his eyebrows at you and you rolled your eyes. But you joined him on the floor and grabbed your own slice.

You'd each had several slices, Lucky had two, before Clint pushed the boxes away and gestured you to the end of the coffee table. "Go on take your position."

He moved quickly setting up the pieces of paper he had drawn a grid on and putting a divider up. Then he lined up seven shots on each side before sitting down across from you.

"All right it's time for battle shots."

"Battle shots? You mean like battle ship?"

Clint grinned already placing his shots behind his divider and out of my sight. "Yep. Line up three for the battleship, 2 for the destroyer, and the last three are each 1 shot each per ship."

You hummed as you stared at him with narrow eyes. "Barton are you trying to get me drunk?"

"If we play right we will both be drunk by the end. And besides, we can't play anything that takes accuracy because you know you don't stand a chance against me cupcake. Now, I'll let you go first."

Rolling your eyes and shaking your head, you nonetheless did what he said. After all, how could you deny him a night of silly fun?

You won the first round and Clint immediately called for a rematch. He took the second and by that time you were both quite sloshed. Having both won a round, you were trying to decide on a tie breaker—you were both competitive after all. Leaning against each other a little as you debated what to do, you both ended up giggling like a pair of idiots as Lucky gave you a look that showed he didn't necessarily approve before he wandered away and flopped down in the corner.

"Okay okay." Clint waved his hands wildly, over balancing a little and nearly knocking you both over. He scrambled up and disappeared into the kitchen before coming back with several bottles of beer and setting them on the table.

"Okay what?"

"Let's play truth or drink. Switching to beer because we don't been alcohol poisoning." He pulled his phone out and clicked on it until he found what he wanted before he wiggled the phone. "Got the questions. Who's gonna go first?"

You eyed his grin and then shrugged and grabbed one of the bottles. "Alright, you go first."

"Okay." He set the phone between us and poked the 'draw' option.

How would you describe your nipples to a blind person?

You read the question and then looked up at Clint, his eyes were sparkling and he was smirking. Rolling your eyes, you took a drink. Clint cackled and poke the screen of his phone again for his question.

Have you ever been injured while having sex? How?

This time you laughed. "Even if you drink, I know full well you have definitely injured yourself during sex at least once."

"Oh yeah? And what makes you so sure about that?"

"Because bird brain, I know you." You said with a lavish wink.

"Fine. Okay yeah. I have. I once managed to sprain my wrist when my legs got caught in my pants as I was trying to kick them off and I fell over."

You dissolved into giggles as he flipped you off before poking for the next question.

Describe your sex life with a song title."

"Are these all sex questions?" You demanded. Clint shrugged and pointed out the word 'random'.

"Well, are you drinking or answering?" He asked.

"You can't always get what you want." You blurted out.

Clint's eyebrows winged up but he made no comment as he poked his phone. The game continued and you each had finished two beers each. You turned towards Clint to ask if he wanted more only to find him staring intently at you with a dark look.

Your heart tripped when his eyes dropped to your lips before returning to your eyes. For what felt like an age you both sat there, leaning slightly towards each other, staring into each other's eyes.

Then you were both moving into each other.

The kiss was inelegant. All teeth, tongue and desperation. Clint hauled you right into his lap, one of his hands diving into your hair as his other slid up your spine under your shirt. Your arms had locked around his neck, fingers tugging at the hair at the back of his neck as you pressed against his lap. Feeling him straining against his jeans under you.

Clint's mouth raced over your face before he was tugging your mouth back to his, his tongue delving into your mouth to dance with yours. You felt like you couldn't pull enough air into your lungs. Tugging on his hair a little harder, you broke the kiss, moaning when his fingers dug into your hip over the soft pants you were wearing.

"Clint wait—I—wait…" the words panted out of you as your body and mind fought with each other.

He let out a frustrated groan, his arm pulling you tight against him as his forehead pressed against your neck. "Shit. I'm sorry, I thought—I didn't mean—"

You realized what he was saying. He thought you didn't want this, didn't want him. You shook your head, "No, it's not. Clint fuck. Just…"

Backing off his lap, you shifted over to the side and sat on your knees. Clint dragged a hand through his hair looking decidedly embarrassed, "I'm sorry. I just thought that you—that we—"

Your hand snakes out and you covered his mouth. His eyebrows contracted as he looked at you. Fighting through the fog that alcohol and lust had left behind you took a deep breath. There was no point pretending. Not any more. Slowly you lowered your hand.

"Clint it's not that I don't want this. Because I do."

"Yeah?" His face looked eager and his hand reached for you once more but you snagged and and shook your head, "No. Clint. Not like this. Not when we are both like this."

"Why?" He seemed genuinely confused again.

Sighing a little, you leaned forward until your forehead was resting against his. "Because I want to make sure both of us want it 100 percent when we are both stone cold sober. I want to know that it's not just—not just the alcohol and loneliness making you want this."

He kissed you, his fingers twisting in your hair to keep you from pulling away until he left you breathless and had your resolve nearly crumbling. When he let you go, you both were panting and you knew he was no less affected than you were.

"Okay. Okay. But as soon as we both are sober? I'm finally getting you naked and under me." There was a dark and hungry look in his eyes that had your stomach clenching and your resolve teetering even closer to the edge of giving in.

Clint stood suddenly, reaching down and helping you to your feet. You both were more than a little unsteady, and you clung to him as you waited for your equilibrium to settle so you could walk. Before you stepped away, Clint's arm slid around you and he kissed you deeply once more.

Pulling away, his nose brushed yours as he muttered, "I'll see you for our date as soon absolutely possible tomorrow."