This is fluff. Just total, shameless fluff. After the past three chapters, I needed something happy. The entire thing is literally just the three friends chilling in the apartment, and I haven't decided yet whether or not it'll have any bearing on the plot.

Also, this is the last chapter before the pairing polls close, so please suggest! Though honestly I might scrap it altogether and focus on the fluff that is the three of them instead. And yes, I did just use fluff four times in the same author's note. xD

Disclaimer: don't own the characters.

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Math Help and Friends

Natasha looking like she was about to cry was not something either Tony nor Clint were used to, so when she came home on a Tuesday afternoon seemingly on the verge of tears, the two boys just stared at each other in bewilderment.

"Tony, I need your help," she said before either of them could do anything. "Like, right now would be nice."

He sat down at the table next to her as she pulled a textbook out of her messenger back and asked, "What's—oh."

"It's a fucking liberal arts college," she said as she flipped open to whatever the necessary page was. "Why do I have to taking calculus at a liberal arts college? I mean, sure, I was fine until now but after this I'm just filled with whats. Why can't I take that IQL thing that they have at your school, Clint?"

"Told you that should've gone with Suffolk," he said.

Almost miserably, she answered, "Emerson has a one hundred percent hiring rate straight out of college and I got a scholarship. I wasn't expecting this, though."

After everything he'd been stuck dealing with since that flashback three weeks ago, it'd completely slipped his mind that his friend, a journalism major, was stuck taking an advanced course in a subject she was okay in. "What're you on?" he answered, looking over at the book. "Oh, derivates."

"Read the explanation, Tony," she said, shoving it in front of him and considering that he was one of the few things in the world that could frustrate her, this had to be bad. "It's just confusing me more. I don't get it, I don't even know why I have to take this and God, I hate my admissions counselor so much right now."

Clint took a seat across from them. "You could've dropped the class when you got it," he pointed it.

"It wasn't hard in the beginning," she said, running her fingers through her hair, which was another sign of a how much this stressed her out and he'd pretty much forgotten that she sucked at this. English (ironically) and wheedling out information were her strong points. "At first the pre-calc I took in high school was harder than this, but screw everything, the only reason I passed that was because you could explain it better than the teacher who didn't understand the point of shorter ways to solve the questions. And right now it's like I have Laurel all over again."

"Just calm down, Tash." This felt so reversed because of what'd been happening lately. "You'll get it. And remember that after this, you'll never have to take another math course again. Unless you want a PhD, in which case you'll have to take the GRE, but that's beside the point."

She flipped open her notebook, which was a mess of cross outs and eraser marks. "Easy enough for you to say," she answered. "You're good at everything."

"That's not true. I'm horrible at creative writing and understanding Shakespeare, which you're great at."

"And cooking. You suck at that too."

"Oh, shut up, Clint."

Natasha managed a smile, but it didn't seem entirely genuine. "So you've got a point," she said. "But really. I have the next class two days from now and I still have a research paper to finish for tomorrow, so it would be pretty great if I could get this out of the way. Clint, go away, you're distracting."

He stood, taking his own textbook off the table. "I have to go to class anyway. But thanks, I feel so loved."

After a quick exchange of goodbyes, he left, and Tony focused back on the derivates problem. It was pretty surprising that he ended up friends who were an English person and a history person.

"Okay," he said, taking his notebook from her and going to a clean page. "I'll do the exact same thing I did last year."

She nodded, seemingly calmed down a little. "I understand everything up to the quotient rule, I think. I don't know, quick explanation maybe?"

Being needed again felt comparatively more awesome to the way things had been going recently, everyone treating him like he was made of glass or something when he wasn't going to break down if left alone for more than a couple of hours and all that. Unfortunately, the only time he ever wanted someone with him was on the T, but unless Bruce left at the same time, that was normally the only time of day when he was completely by himself.

The explanation took longer than it used to back in pre-calc, but considering that Natasha was wound up from stress, it wasn't all that surprising.

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"Why don't you guys ever go out with people?"

It was Saturday night and the three of them were sitting around the table eating frozen pizza while the obvious sounds of a party floated up from the floor below where four other college students lived. His two roommates looked at him blankly for moment before realization hit and Natasha said, "Oh," like he was being an idiot.

Clint answered, "You do know the two of us have social skills as bad as yours, right? Like, the only reason we're friends is because our parents pretty much forced us to get along when she moved to America. Perks of being neighbors."

"And the only reason we became friends with you is because you didn't think we were freaks or anything," Natasha added. "Basically, we don't like people same as you."

That was something he never understood: the opinions of their old classmates. For the most part, they had a surprisingly non-clique-ish school despite it being in the City, but (apparently, he never really paid attention until they somehow became a group) a neighbor/classmate of theirs caught Clint sitting on the edge of his apartment building's roof and automatically assumed he was suicidal even after he insisted that he just liked high places. Natasha was simply antisocial and introverted but lost the ability to not be noticed after a senior harassed a girl in their in the gym class she and he shared when they were freshman and she freaked out on him to the point that the guy couldn't even look at her. Tony had a similar reputation on the grounds that he was the youngest by three years and still conveniently small for his age, had the highest GPA in the school, along with legitimate social problems.

Yeah, maybe that was a pretty stupid question. But that didn't he was able to be okay with it.

He said, "Isn't the point behind college to meet new people?"

The two exchanged those frustratingly unreadable looks that he'd learned to hate over the past could of years. "For me the entire point is to get a degree in annoying people," Natasha answered. "Are we really having this discussion?"

He picked at his pizza, eyes focused down, feeling embarrassed but still thinking they were lying. Earlier they made it pretty clear that they weren't leaving him alone and while what they said here made sense, he still felt like it was his fault that they weren't going out and being normal college freshman. He'd acknowledged the moment he got his grudging acceptance letter that this was impossible for him since he looked his age so he couldn't do anything in the first place and was getting his Bachelor's by seventeen, Masters' by eighteen unless the whole being held hostage thing fucked that all up.

Suddenly, Clint said, "It's supposed to storm tonight," like he was hit by a realization.

Tony looked up. "What?"

"Yeah, really," his friend said. "Full on thunderstorm. First of the season. It hasn't rained since we were here, has it?"

"Drizzled that one night in September," Natasha answered. "Think that was it though. I hate thunder, I can never sleep."

Thunder—? Oh god, just like that he was embarrassed again. But he was forewarned right now, so nothing was going to happen. " Let's get a bad indie film on Netflix or something. With the party downstairs, I don't think any of us will."

An hour later the three of them are collapsed on Clint's bed, sharing a carton of orange strawberry sherbet they got from Faneuil Hall, watching a movie about a killer tire named Robert, and Tony had to admit that he had some pretty weird friends.

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Sunday morning found the three of them tangled up on Clint's way-too-small bed, woken up from a particularly loud bang of thunder and bright flash of lighting. Tony's eyes shot open, but any flashbacks were immediately stopped because what he was lying on something soft, Natasha's arm was slung over his shoulders, back against his other friend's, and he could clearly hear rain against the window. And the awesome part about that was that it doesn't rain in the desert, and this was officially his new favorite type of weather.

He was eye to eye to Natasha and after a moment of doing nothing, she suddenly started laughing (or more like giggling, but she'd kill him if he ever pointed that out), followed by Clint sitting up, at little dazed, and Tony by this point had no idea what was going on. They sat up too, and she said, "Who knew a movie about a killer tire could act like a tranquilizer?"

Clint shrugged. "Wasn't have bad, either. I—"

Before he could finish, Tony cut in, "I call first shower!" causing a glare and a mumble as he headed out. He'd barely slept since that day with the anti-anxiety medication, and even though it had probably only been about five hours, that was five hours straight, and he felt better than he had in a while.

He traded off showers with Clint, who then traded off with Natasha and proceeded to look for breakfast as Tony stayed away from everything. He could use the toaster and the microwave, but his friends determined that he had to stay away from gas stove and gas oven because he would undoubtedly find a way to kill anything that was not electric. How, he wasn't exactly sure, but he knew he could probably do it anyway and decided it was in everyone's best interest for him to just never go near anything.

"I'm so not going out today," Natasha said when she joined him at the table, wearing a pair of Batman shorts and shirt that Tony was pretty sure was his, as Clint set down eggs and coffee (he worked as a waiter for a while, so he could balance everything like professional) and half-flopped into the chair. "Aw, thank you, wifey."

"You do realize that would make you hubby or whatever it's called, right?"

"So? Always knew I wore the pants in this relationship."

As Clint threw a stray pencil at her face, whacking her in the forehead, Tony asked, "Wait, then what would I be?"

Simultaneously, "The kid."

"Can't I be the awkward neighbor or something?"

Natasha shook her head and stabbed her eggs with a fork. "Nope," Clint answered. "Totally the kid. But I'm still not the female here. I'm too awesome for that."

"I want ketchup," she said. "I heard it's good, but I've never tried it. Why don't we have ketchup again?"

What the fuck were they even talking about, Tony had to wonder, but he really didn't care. "Because none of us like tomatoes until it involves French fries or pizza," he said. "That sounds gross, anyway. Ketchup and eggs?" She shrugged. "God, you're weird."

Finishing his plate, Clint pointed out, "And you don't eat unless we remind you, so I don't really think you have the right to talk. According to your mom, you also ate cream cheese and peanut butter sandwiches when you were like six, which sounds a lot worse."

"Wait—what? How do you know that?"

The smirk Natasha sent his way could be described as nothing short of evil. After finishing her breakfast too, she gathered their dishes in a decidedly wife-like way the Clint proceeded to point out. All it earned him was a smack on the head and Tony a glare because naturally he had the audacity to snicker. He asked, "When's it supposed to stop?"

Rather than either of his friends, JARVIS answered, "Not until nine, sir, though weather men have a tendency to be incorrect."

"Thanks, JARVIS," he said as Clint frowned. "What?"

"Finally found a way to get on the roof," he said, and Tony remembered that he'd been looking for it for a while, since they was one of the reasons they got the top apartment anyway. Not that any of them really minded heights anyway and back in New York they used to chill at his place all the time. "Wanted to finally check it out, but guess that isn't happening until this stops. And I definitely don't want to just sit around today. You inventing anything right now, Tony?"

He finished his last project two days ago—something for school that took about half an hour and Erskine told him that the recent switch in his medication was going to screw with his creativity for about a week so he was coming up with blanks—and shook his head. Natasha came back over, sitting down, and said, "We can play cards or something and make s'mores with the stove because, come on, how have we not thought of that yet?"

Eating more than about a meal a day was unusual for him, but he'd dropped three of the four pounds he'd gotten back so something sugary probably wasn't the worst idea in the world. "Later for the s'mores," he said before seeing that the clock about the microwave said it was a little after noon already.

"'Course," she said. "Chocolate and marshmallows after eggs is worse than my mom's attempts at Spanish cooking. Hey, do we have the ingredients for it anyway?"

Obviously saddened, Clint answered, "No."

"I'll go out and get it!" Tony said quickly because being out in the rain for even the ten minutes to took to get to and from the market sounded fun.

"You'll catch a cold, sir."

"Quiet, JARVIS, I'll be fine."

With a frown, Natasha said, "You're so not going on your own. Clint, go with him."

"What?"

"I just conditioned my hair, I'm not going to get it wet with rain water!"

His friend shrugged, not having much of a problem with it, and about seven minutes or so later, the two of them were in the small, family-owned market, soaking wet despite having theirs hoods flipped up because it wasn't like they owned any umbrellas. There was an incredibly bored looking girl behind the counter who brightened noticeably when she saw them.

"Hey!" she said, ringing up the marshmallows, Hershey's chocolate, gram crackers, and coffee like it was totally normal for two guys to come in buying ingredients for s'more when the sky was practicing for the apocalypse. "You're that Anthony Stark kid, right?" After a moment where he didn't answer, trying to figure out how this girl would know him by his full name, she added, "We have Hammer's and Selvig's classes together. Just, you know, you sleep through one and I sit behind you in my uncle's class, so I guess I shouldn't really be surprised that you don't know who I am. Jane Forster, by the way."

"I prefer Tony," he answered, watching her bag the stuff. "I remember your name from roll call first day. This is my roommate—"

"Clint Barton," his friend said. "I go to Suffolk. Freshman or sophomore?"

"Sophomore," she said. "Freshman?" He nodded. "I thought Suffolk had compulsory dorming. Total's seven fifty-six."

As Tony handed over a ten, Clint said, "If they did, then they got rid of it. Nice to meet you, Jane."

"You too," she answered and the three of the them exchanged goodbyes before the boys left and Tony could properly make fun of his friend because he finally realized that Clint was right, and his social skills really were that bad.

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Like I said, last chance to suggest pairings.