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Dating Clint, as Natasha had quickly learned, was not terribly different from being friends with him. The only major differences were the extended make-out sessions and fooling around. Tonight, however, they were spending quality time with their polisci notes and small arsenal of caffeine and junk food to keep them awake. They had managed to con the two newbies into taking their shift at the coffee shop so they could study for their midterm. As soon as they had arrived at the library, they found a corner on the ninth floor of the twelve storey building and settled in for a long night of cramming.
A few hours into studying, Natasha put her head down for a quick nap with her headphones in to drown out any noise (believe it or not, midterms and finals made the library kinda noisy). The next thing she knew, Clint was shaking her awake and it was dark. Really dark. She pulled one earbud loose to hear what he was telling her.
“Tasha, they closed the building,” he said, looking a little frantic.
“Sorry, what?” she asked, confused and still a little drowsy from her nap. “Didn’t they make an announcement?”
Clint shrugged. “I dunno... I fell asleep.”
“Great,” she groaned and leaned back in her chair. “So how are we getting out of here?”
The only idea they had involved going downstairs to ask the security guard to let them out, but he was nowhere to be found. What - or rather, who - they did find were Clint’s roommate, Thor, his girlfriend Jane, her friend Darcy, and Steve. Natasha had met Steve a couple times while hanging out at the apartment and he seemed like an affable guy. Somehow he had gotten corralled into evening up their numbers for Library Hide-and-Seek - a slightly illegal game that had been passed down through the years at the university. Natasha still didn’t know how the administration hadn’t found out about it yet.
The rules of Library Hide-and-Seek were simple: Get into the library and hide out until closing, break into two teams to play, and get out without getting caught. There wasn’t much light, so the game mostly resulted in bruised shins or other body parts from running into tables and chairs. Darcy begged and pouted until Clint and Natasha agreed to join them. On the bright side, Natasha always was good at hide-and-seek as a kid and could probably tuck herself away until the game was over.
Securing her messenger bag across her body, Natasha rushed up to the seventh floor and perched herself atop one of the bookshelves. They were all made of metal and anchored to prevent tipping over on unsuspecting students and made a pretty good hiding space where she could see anyone come up to the floor. Unfortunately, the tops of the shelves didn’t seem to get dusted regularly.
Minutes passed without any sign of either team but Natasha refused to budge. She knew that as soon as she moved, one of the guys would magically appear, and she wasn’t about to lose. Just as expected, the distant sound of voices drifted up the stairwell. The guys must have been on the floor below and were sucking at being stealthy about it. Flattening herself against the top of the stack, Natasha waited on the other team.
Clint’s voice was outside the double doors. “Guys, shut up! They’re gonna hear you!”
Natasha grinned and thought, Too late.
The group of guys quieted down when they walked in, the three of them splitting up to search for Natasha, Jane, and Darcy. Edging over to see who was near her, Natasha caught sight of Clint. Another way to pass the evening popped into Natasha’s head, one that would require her boyfriend’s involvement. A grin spread across her face as she formulated her plan. She waited until his back was turned away from her to push one of the books off the shelf below her. He nearly jumped out of his skin and gave her just enough time to climb down from her hiding spot. Clint startled again when she walked up behind him, covering his mouth.
“It’s me,” she whispered in his ear, immediately feeling him relax at the sound of her voice. “Go out there and tell them you didn’t see anything, then meet me on six after they go upstairs. Got it?”
Clint nodded and turned around to face her. “What are you doing?” he asked with a hint of a smile.
“You’ll see.”
Natasha made sure the coast was clear and dashed toward the stairwell. There was a spot just to the left of the doorway where she could keep herself concealed until Clint joined her. They still hadn’t seen the security guard making his rounds yet, so she wanted to make sure to avoid a run-in with him as well as the rest of the guys. She wondered where Jane and Darcy had managed to hide out - the building was big enough that they could be any number of places.
“Tasha?” Clint called in a hushed tone from the doorway.
“Over here!” she replied and stepped from her hiding place.
The moment he was within arm’s reach of her, she led him over to the stacks where all the Russian books were shelved. Natasha backed Clint up against the untranslated Dostoevsky and promptly kissed the hell out of him. He only looked confused for half a second before he caught on that they weren’t playing the game anymore. In the few weeks that they had been dating, they had pretty much perfected the stealthy make-out session during their late night work shift. Though doing it here and in Clint’s apartment afforded them a bit more time than at the coffee shop.
Clint reversed their positions so that Natasha’s back was against the shelf and dove in for more. He seemed to have picked up on her subtle invitations to be manhandled like that. It was rare that he did something she didn’t like or got too handsy without her say-so, and Natasha really appreciated that. Too many guys in the past had overstepped their boundaries with her, and she shut down on them. With Clint it was different; it was like second nature, and Natasha was ready to progress their relationship.
Unfortunately, they were in a library and that wasn’t exactly where she had imagined their first time.
“You okay?” he asked, noting the change in her demeanor.
“Just thinking,” she said.
There was that stupidly adorable smile of his again. “You do that a lot.”
“Yeah,” Natasha said and played with one of the buttons on his overshirt. “I want to have sex with you.”
The smile quickly changed to a look of utter shock. “Oh,” he said, recovering quickly, “we can definitely do that.”
Natasha couldn’t help but laugh at his reaction. He searched his pockets for a condom and sighed dejectedly when he couldn’t turn one up. Running her fingers through his hair, she brought his mouth back to hers for another kiss.
“I didn’t exactly mean right now, Clint,” she said. “Soon, though.”
“I can do soon,” Clint replied. “Consider me on-call for sex. Just give me the word and I’ll show up ready to rock your world.”
Natasha grinned, raising an eyebrow. “That’s a pretty lofty aspiration. You better not disappoint me.”
“I’ll practice extra hard,” Clint said in a very convincing serious tone.
“Yeah, I bet you will,” she snorted.
Not moving on to any kind of penetration didn’t rule out the other stuff Natasha enjoyed. They took turns sucking and biting at each other’s necks, ensuring that there would be some sizable marks the following day. Natasha couldn’t help but imagine Clint marking her on other, more hidden areas of her body and shivered. As they kissed, she threaded her fingers through his hair - something she had quickly grown to love doing whenever they made out. She rocked ever so slightly against him, sucking on his tongue. His hands slid up beneath her shirt, cupping her breasts through the satiny material of her bra until they were both groaning.
“I told you they snuck off to fool around!” Darcy’s voice said.
Both jumped, turning to look at their unexpected audience. The whole gang was there watching with varying expressions of amusement and surprise on their faces. Natasha glanced down, seeing that her shirt was hiked up just above her bra with Clint’s hands still plastered to it, and hastily corrected them. Smiling sheepishly, Clint rubbed the back of his neck.
“Next time you should hang a bookmark on the door so we know not to disturb you,” Darcy teased, grinning at both of them.
All six of them went silent upon seeing a flash of light emanating from the stairwell doors - the guard. They didn’t have enough time to climb up on the shelves and that wouldn’t have done much good for Thor or Steve considering their bulk. Instead, they all made themselves as narrow as possible at the end of each row of shelves and hoped that the guard only gave the floors a cursory look. Natasha could see each of them from her position with Clint being the closest to her. They exchanged nervous smiles, trying not to laugh at how ridiculous this situation was and how close they were to trespassing charges.
The guard’s flashlight illuminated each row, following the line of them toward the back of the room. Natasha watched the beam get closer and closer to her position and held her breath when it lit up the rows on either side of her. She plotted out their options, but it would be hard to communicate with them without breaking their silence and drawing unwanted attention.
Please, take your sweet time, she thought, watching the flashlight’s beam go down the rows.
Tension curled up the back of her spine as she planned her next move. The guard doubled back without heading to the other side of the floor and slowly returned to the stairwell. Natasha gestured to Clint to stay where he was before following the path the security guard had made to the stairs as silently as she could. She eased the door open and listened to the guard’s footsteps up to the next floor until she heard the door slam shut.
Adrenalin surging through her, Natasha ran back to the group and rushed them out to the stairwell. They couldn’t go running down the steps due to the incredible echo that the guard would undoubtedly hear. She kept an ear out as they edged down the stairs and for any sounds the rest of the group might make that would draw attention to them. There wasn’t any way they could leave through the front door, but Natasha remembered that the windows on the first floor were old and could be opened.
What felt like hours passed as they made their way down to the ground floor. Natasha led the group over to the windows she had recalled and discovered a major problem: they had been replaced with new ones that did not open.
“What do we do now?” Jane asked. “We can’t wait here until they open up at 7.”
“Can one of you MacGuyver us a way out?” Darcy chimed in, looking at Clint and Natasha.
“Maybe if I use one of those chairs,” Clint said.
Natasha stopped him. “You are not breaking a window.”
Obviously there had to be some way of evading security and getting out of the library or else the game would have died out years ago. Then again, it could have been easier with those windows, Natasha figured. They needed an escape route and fast because the guard would be coming down sooner or later. Something that didn’t involve property damage, preferably. She wasn’t about to spend seven hours in the library avoiding a security guard.
No one else seemed have a brilliant plan either. While the others argued over whose idea was the better one, Natasha had a lightbulb moment when Steve suggested the fire exits.
“I agree with Steve,” she said, “it’s really our only option at this point. Grab your stuff and when you get out that door, just run and don’t stop.”
The others stared at her for a moment, seeming to consider the idea, and then looked up at the sound of the elevator chime. All six of them made a beeline for the nearest fire exit and left the alarm shrieking behind them. Natasha ran south toward her apartment building without looking back until she had made it off campus. Pure acid pumped through her veins and her lungs burned with every breath even after she had stopped running. The building was just two streets away; she could see the sign with the name of the apartment complex from where she stood. A hand touched her shoulder and Natasha almost jumped out of her skin.
“It’s okay! It’s just me,” Clint said.
Natasha turned around and punched Clint in the shoulder.
“Ow! What the hell?!” he exclaimed, rubbing the spot where she’d hit him.
“Don’t. Scare. Me. Like. That,” Natasha said, punctuating each word by swatting him on each arm.
Before she could hit him again, Clint grabbed her wrists in a light hold and looked her in the eyes. Natasha relaxed and promised not to cause him any bodily harm. Off in the distance, they could hear police sirens wailing and decided that it would be a good idea to get to her place as quickly as possible.
Once they had gotten to her apartment, Natasha locked the door behind them and flicked on the lights. Her place was a studio where the bed doubled as a couch and her kitchen table was a tiny square thing from Ikea with an impossible-to-pronounce name and matching chairs. She wasn’t much for entertaining guests. In fact, this was the first time she had ever let Clint into her apartment. Prior to this moment, they had kept their interaction exclusively outside of her space.
“You can make yourself at home, if you want,” she said.
Nodding, Clint wandered over to the bed/couch and sat down on the edge of the mattress. Natasha hung back, watching him for a moment before she walked over and joined him. For a while, they both were too tense to even sit back and enjoy each other’s company, both too paranoid that they would hear a knock at the door. It would be hard to prove their involvement, but that fact didn’t factor in. As they waited, Clint received text messages from his roommate saying that everyone had managed to make it to their respective homes without the cops catching them.
“You have to admit, that was kinda fun,” Clint said, tucking his phone back into his pocket.
“Which part?” Natasha asked and leaned into him. “The game or what we were doing?”
“Well, the game, but now that you mention it...” he trailed off, too busy kissing her to finish his statement. “Did you still want to... y’know.”
Unfortunately, in that same moment, Natasha’s body decided that it was time for sleep and would not be convinced otherwise.
“I swear I’m not doing this to drag it out, but I am really fucking tired,” she said with a sigh.
“Hey,” Clint reached up to touch her cheek, “I wasn’t trying to pressure you. I only want to do this if you do.”
Natasha smiled and kissed him again. “I do, believe me. Just not right now,” she explained. “We can still sleep together though. Sleep sleep, that is.”
“Sounds good to me,” Clint said.
Opting to sleep in his undershirt and boxers, Clint made himself comfortable in bed while Natasha changed out of her own clothes behind the four-panel room divider she had near her closet and dresser. Too tired to go through her usual routine, Natasha just ran a brush through her unruly locks and braided it all back into something more manageable. The bed was nice and warm when she finally laid down in it - a welcome change from the usual. She curled up into Clint’s warmth, wrapping herself around him and smiled against his chest when she felt his arms around her own body.
They lay there for a while, listening to the sounds of each other’s breathing. Natasha liked being able to share this kind of intimacy with someone without benefit of sex prior to it. His body was firm beneath her and she imagined what it would feel like against her bare hands. Unable to resist, Natasha ran her fingertips over the little patch of exposed skin where Clint’s shirt had ridden up and found it shockingly soft. Feeling his skin against hers only made her want him more. Looking up at his sleeping face and fought the urge to kiss him awake, overcome by everything she felt for Clint. Natasha knew she was ready to move their relationship forward.