Title: these are the days
Author: inkvoices
A Gift For: krilymcc
Rating: PG13
Warnings: this part: may be triggering for money issues or social anxiety
Prompt used: For ‘modern day no powers’ and ‘college’ and ‘normal people’ and “Oh hey I guess we’re roommates!”
Summary: Natasha came to Dunelm University with a plan. This plan did not include a roommate with no respect for privacy, an Olympic archer and his pizza stealing dog, or taking part in any crazy student fundraising.
Otherwise entitled: how Natasha survives her first year at university and learns not to let her degree get in the way of her education.
Author Notes: Dear krilymcc, This is a UK AU, because ‘write what you know’, and universities in the UK don’t have mixed gender rooms (although they do have mixed gender halls of residence or colleges), so Hawkeye is not Natasha’s roommate. The other Hawkeye is ;) I hope this meets with your approval.
Also, I’m afraid this is just a part one because unfortunately I haven’t managed to finish this for you (yet). It’s a pinch-hit that was meant to short and has really gotten away from me. I’m sorry; I promise there will be more fic with a lot more Clint, as fast as I can write it!
HUGE thanks to franztastisch, Dunelm’s Professor of Beta Reading and President of the Cheerleading Society.
Disclaimer: The university in this fic has an uncanny resemblance to a certain university in the North East of England. (The quote don’t let your degree get in the way of your education comes from an ex-Chancellor.) No affiliation or offence is intended. That said, this is work of fiction, so also I made a lot of stuff up ;)


these are the days

“Oh, hey, I guess we're roommates!”

The girl currently unpacking the first of five plastic storage boxes dumped on top of the bed nearest the window is slim, about a hand’s width taller than Natasha, has long, dark hair hanging loose past her shoulders, and looks younger than the eighteen years needed to be a first year university student.

“I’m Kate Bishop,” she says, leaning over the box and stretching out her hand to shake. “I hope you don’t mind that I took this bed. We can switch if you like?”

Natasha eyes the boxes, the large suitcase lying flat on the floor with some kind of equipment case on top of it, and the plastic laundry basket piled high with bedding and towels currently acting as a doorstop.

“Natasha. And no, it’s fine.” She shakes the offered hand and navigates her way past Kate’s luggage to the bed on the other side of the room.

“Sorry, I think I brought too much stuff.”

Natasha wants to agree, but she’s passed too many teams – of new students, their parents, and older students in volunteer t-shirts – carrying just as much stuff as Kate has brought and more. She’s seen someone with a television, someone else with a fancy office chair, and even two people struggling up a set of stairs with a steamer trunk, which she’d never seen before outside of a period drama.

She claims the other bed, near a double wardrobe and small sink, lifting her wheelie suitcase on top and shrugging off her backpack with relief. The other furniture consists of a bookcase next to the door and two desks between the beds, with mismatched wooden chairs and two cheap lamps. She just hopes her mattress is comfortable and the Internet speed is decent.

“So are you a Nat?” her new roommate asks. “Or a Tasha?”

“Natasha,” she says flatly, not in the mood to explain that ‘Natasha’ itself is already a diminutive.

Her tone doesn’t seem to affect Kate’s cheerfulness.

“I’m taking Combined Honours in Social Sciences. What about you?”

“Modern Languages and Cultures.”

Natasha unzips her suitcase and starts taking out her things, figuring she may as well get started with her unpacking and explore later when the mass move-in has died down.

“Cool. Which languages?”

“Spanish and Russian.”

“Did you take them at A Level? I did French, but I haven’t used it all summer. Plus Psychology, Law, and English Lit.”

Part of Natasha – a big part – wants to tell Kate Bishop to mind her own business, but she’s going to be sharing a room with her for a whole term and she doesn’t want the distraction of things being unpleasant.

She tells herself that it’s her own fault that she has a roommate. She could’ve picked a more modern university where they have halls of residence, but instead she chose Dunelm, one of the oldest universities in the UK. Instead of halls it has colleges dotted around the city, all different sizes and styles, some catered during term time and some self-catered, and most with at least some shared rooms. They all have their own societies, activities, and student councils separate to the university’s. Half of them are ‘bailey colleges’ located in the city centre, which is dominated by a castle and a cathedral in the loop of a river. The other half are the ‘hill colleges’, ten to thirty minutes walk from the city centre downhill and then back uphill again.

She’d picked one of the smallest hill colleges, tucked away behind the Science Site where the main library and most of the lecture halls are, hoping that it’d be fairly quiet. The price is that for at least one term in her first year she has to share a room, and she’d opted for it to be her first term to get it out of the way.

She just has to deal with Kate until Christmas and then she can have peace and privacy.

“I did Spanish, German, and English Language at A Level,” Natasha tells her, “but I’m bilingual, so I speak Russian as well. I’m taking Spanish as my main language option here, then I want to do the MA in Translation Studies for Spanish and Russian.”

That, she thinks, ought to be enough information to start.

“Wow, a girl with a plan.” Kate grins as she places the now empty storage box on the floor and pulls the lid off the next closest one. “Actually,” she says a moment later, with the air of someone imparting a secret, “I have a plan too.”

She abandons the box in favour of coming around to the other side of the bed and undoing the equipment case. Natasha pauses in her own unpacking to watch, curious despite herself.

“This,” Kate announces as she reveals the case’s contents, “is my bow. I’ve won every archery competition I’ve entered this past year. I’m good; I know I’m good.”

“Okay,” says Natasha, since this seems to require some kind of response.

“Do you know who goes to this university?”

Natasha blinks at the abrupt change in conversation.

“Clint Barton,” Kate tells her when she doesn’t answer, eyes bright with excitement.

Natasha just raises her eyebrows, having no idea who that is.

“Oh, come on! Clint Barton,” Kate repeats. “The Olympic archer? Just missed out on the gold medal two years ago?”

“Sorry, I’m not really into sport.”

Kate laughs, thankfully unoffended, and fastens the bow case back up again.

“Fair enough. But he’s here, at Dunelm, and I’m going to ask to train with him. I want to compete in the next Olympics.”

Natasha turns her back and rummages through her suitcase to hide her frown. The last thing she wants is a roommate who has no interest in studying.




Natasha finally gets to explore later that night and learns that the college is set out in interconnected blocks that have anything from one to four floors. Each floor has twelve rooms split into two hexagonal ‘landings’, with doors to six rooms, and a middle section with shared bathrooms, kitchen areas, and, on some floors, a laundry room. Except for when there’s a square block, or floor that only has one landing, or there’s a dead end, or there’s a set of blocks connected in a way that sends her in circles…

When she gets lost she makes her way to the ground floor and the front of the college, where she finds a large (hexagonal) bar area, a library, a small gym, the dining hall, and a room with a TV, pool table, and table football. Then she tries to make her way back to her room again.

It’s confusing, especially for such a small college, but she kind of likes it. For every landing that has all the doors propped open and first years sitting on the floor drinking, playing games, chatting, and getting to know each other, there are quiet, out of the way spaces that no one else has gotten to yet.

She manages to avoid most of the Fresher’s Week activities, just showing up for the talks on how to use the facilities and how the JCR works – otherwise known as the Junior Common Room; the undergraduate student council that makes a lot of decisions around the college. Not to be confused with the Middle Common Room which is for the postgraduates, or the Senior Common Room, which is for academic staff and alumni, or the team of adult staff, with titles including College Principal, Secretary, and Bursar, who’re actually paid to run the college.

The point of Fresher’s Week, other than socialising, is to have the time to get organised before their courses properly start. Signing up for modules can be done online, but Natasha still has to queue for two hours to have her ID checked and student card issued, and she has to check in at the University Surgery to make sure all her details are correct and that she’s had all her vaccinations. She has; Kate isn’t so lucky.

“Too many new people, sharing space and swopping saliva,” her roommate says with a sigh when she shows up for lunch with plasters over her puncture wounds and that makes Natasha laugh.

While most people are busy drinking and socialising Natasha also gets herself a job at one of the local supermarkets, applying for weekend and late shifts. Once she knows her academic timetable she hopes to work some mornings and afternoons too but, as welcome as more money always is, she wants to make sure nothing clashes with her lectures. It helps that she has three years working in the real world under her belt; something that she doesn’t want to disclose to the other first years for fear of standing out but happily mentions here when she knows it gives her an advantage.

Then at the end of the week they have Matriculation at the Cathedral, which Natasha has never heard of but is apparently a ceremony that’s like graduation only for starting university instead of finishing it. They have to wear black robes like in Harry Potter and she buys hers second-hand through the JCR, digging through a pile of them for one with as few suspicious stains as possible. It comes down to her knees and doesn’t have any collar or extras; an undergraduates robe she’s told. Looking at the robes the Lecturers and Professors wear, with all the silk, fur, and daft hats, Natasha figures that the higher up in academia you go the stupider you’re made to look, maybe to remind clever people to stay humble or something.

They walk to centre of the city, over one of the bridges and then up the hill, first year students from other colleges joining them along the way; tributaries of black-robed figures coming together to form a river as wide as the one they cross.

Natasha ends up sitting behind a pillar, so she can’t see anything, but she can hear the Chancellor over the speakers.

“I can’t believe we get Angie Martinelli as our Chancellor,” Kate whispers. “You know who she is, right?”

“I don’t live under a rock,” Natasha whispers back, nudging Kate with her elbow to make her shut up, because she might not know much about archery and sports in general but their Chancellor is a household name film star who’s won three Oscars.

The boy sat on her other side keeps messing with his phone and isn’t paying attention, to either them or the Chancellor, but Natasha listens to the speech about studying hard and also living life to the full – “don’t let you degree get in the way of your education” – and when they file out, officially students, she does feel encouraged and optimistic.

That might be part of why she goes along with Kate when her roommate suggests, “We should go to the Fresher’s Fair.”

Kate pulls on the sleeve of her robe to get her attention and then links their arms together. She has two guys in tow that Natasha recognises from college and even as she speaks to Natasha she’s waving at another guy further ahead.

“It’s on tomorrow as well, but we should do it in our robes. It’ll be fun!”

Kate thinks a lot of things are fun, most of which Natasha really doesn’t think are fun, but she figures she’s already walking around looking foolish in an outfit she had to pay for the privilege of looking foolish in, and Kate has been mithering her to do things all week that Natasha has found excuses to avoid, so she gives in.

“Did you know you can climb to the top of one of the towers? Of the Cathedral?” says one of Kate’s followers as he catches up with them.

“This is Billy,” Kate tells Natasha. “The tall one’s Teddy and the one in front is David.”

“They shut it before exams,” Billy continues, pink-cheeked and pushing his mop of hair back out of his eyes as the wind messes with it, “and it’s bad luck to climb it in your final year until after you graduate, so you’re supposed to do it after, or in first or second year.”

“It’s probably so no one jumps,” says Teddy, but quietly like he doesn’t want to intrude on Billy’s excitement.

“I’ll do that after graduation,” says David. “Let’s not tempt fate.”

Kate tilts her head back to stare up at the Cathedral’s spires.

“Something like that,” she says, “should be a reward. Something to aim for.” She stops looking up at the sky and grins around at them all. “I’m going to do it when I qualify for the Olympics.”

Natasha guesses that Kate’s plan mustn’t be a secret anymore then; just another one of the many things new students have been sharing with each other as they dive into friendships, a thousand little intimacies.

“So, Fresher’s Fair?” says David, tucking his hands into the pockets of his robe.

“Fresher’s Fair,” Kate agrees and tugs Natasha forwards.

The Fresher’s Fair is at the Student Union building, which is basically four big concrete blocks stacked on top of each other that go down to the river like giant steps, with the entrance in the highest block. It’s ugly on the outside and inside is boiling hot and packed with students.

Natasha follows Kate past the Treasure Hunters Society duelling with blunt swords in pirate costumers on the grass outside, trestle table stalls upstairs for the Cake Society, Film Society, Assassins Society, Sci-Fi Club, Poetry Society, and then Teddy takes the lead, guiding the rest of them through the crowd with his broad shoulders and distinctive blond hair as they go downstairs to St John’s Ambulance, the RAF, Scouts, Guides, and down further still to the language groups, culture groups, diversity groups… And when Natasha thinks that this is on top of all the societies that the colleges have, it makes her brain spin.

She gets handed a plastic bag with a wall calendar and some leaflets in that she then proceeds to fill with all the other leaflets that get waved at her and a handful of free pens. Kate seems to have some idea of stalls she wants to find and David has a floor plan, but Natasha loses the others somewhere on the stairs and ends up in the lowest level hall.

Suddenly everything just seems too…everything.

Natasha looks around, trying to orientate herself in this sea of students, with her sweaty clothes sticking to her skin underneath her robes and the constant noise and everyone in motion feeling like some kind of reverse sensory deprivation torture.

At the end of a row of sports societies, she spots a pizza company that’s set up shop and is handing out free pizza slices with takeout flyers. It’s perhaps the most bizarre stall she’s seen today, just the fact that it exists amongst all the student societies – and that’s including the one manned by someone wearing a bright yellow duck outfit like some kind of deranged Big Bird – but her stomach reminds her that she hasn’t eaten since breakfast and she decides not to question the logic of pizza.

She joins the queue and scores a pepperoni slice on a napkin, which isn’t her favourite but it’s free and it’s hot when she bites into it. She has to fight her way to a corner to get out of the crowd, but a few metres of personal space and something to eat go a long way to making her feel better.

In the clear space when something bumps into her shins it comes as a surprise.

The culprit is a dog that’s seen better days, with a missing eye, a bandaged leg, and plenty of scars, but it looks well fed and happy and he has a collar, so she figures better days are here for him again.

He looks up at her hopefully.

“You like pizza?” Natasha asks, amused, lowering the remains of her slice away from her mouth, and the dog sits up, tail thumping the ground madly.

“I have no idea if this is good for you or not,” Natasha tells him, but she lowers her hand further and lets him have the pizza anyway. She crouches down to stroke him whilst he’s eating his prize and gets golden fur all over the front of her black robes. “See,” she tells him softly, barely audible to her own ears with all the background noise, “I can be sociable.”

Then, pizza consumed, he disappears again between the legs of the crowd.




It turns out that the Harry Potter robes have another use, because once a fortnight on a Thursday their college has a formal meal, where everyone has to dress smart and wear robes. The college is catered during term time and usually students queue up with trays for hot or cold buffet options, but for formals the dining hall has proper tablecloths and place settings, and first year students have a rota to take turns serving the food and clearing away.

Natasha sits cross-legged on her bed with her laptop in front of her, course outline on the screen, and pretends she isn’t watching Kate getting ready.

She has a floor-length purple dress that looks gorgeous on her, but what Natasha really envies is how easily Kate pins up her hair using the large mirror on the inside of her wardrobe door. The few times she’s ever tried to do anything similar she’s always ended up with hair escaping and hanging around her face in wispy curls.

“Aren’t you coming to formal?”

Natasha shrugs.

“I already ate. There’s an opt out sheet and you can pick up dinner early, take it out on a tray to eat somewhere else, and you get all the same food.”

“What’ve I got to look forward to?” Kate asks around the three pins she has clamped between her teeth.

“The chicken’s dry but the dime bar cake makes up for it.”

“If it’s not the food putting you off,” says Kate, peering at her in the mirror, “why not come?”

Natasha shrugs again and clicks on a link to the recommended reading list for the module on modern Spanish culture.

“Is it the drinking games?” Kate slides the last pin into her hair at the back and turns around. “Because I’ve not seen you out drinking with anyone. You don’t have to drink, y’know?”

“All the stereotypes about Russians and vodka, and you think I don’t drink?” she responds mockingly, because they’ve been sharing a room for long enough now that they’ve figured out the edges of each other’s sense of humour.

Kate lifts her nose into the air as she declares, “I am above stereotyping.” She selects a bag from the shelf at the top of her wardrobe and starts gathering together what she needs to take with her, so she’s not looking at Natasha when she says, “Or is it about not having a lot of dresses or formal wear? Because people just rotate the ones they have or borrow each other’s, and you can feel free to borrow any of mine. No one has a new dress every time.”

Natasha’s stomach turns over. It doesn’t bother her that she has less money than most of the kids here, or that she has a job for buying essentials and not just for extras, not really. It doesn’t bother her that her roommate comes from money, that’s just what she was born into. No, it’s the lack of privacy that tastes sour at the back of her throat.

“You looked at my stuff?”

“We share a room,” Kate says, rolling her eyes. “I looked when you had your side of the wardrobe open. Anyway, I’m just saying, it’s not a problem.”

“No,” says Natasha. “It’s not.”

She debates leaving for the library for some quiet study time, but decides that would look stupid when Kate will be leaving in a few minutes anyway.

Week three and Natasha is already counting down to the end of term, her own room, and having her privacy back.




“Three arrows, right on target!” says Kate, throwing her arms up in the air in victory and flopping backwards onto her bed. “He couldn’t say no after that. And they say trick shots never get you anywhere, ha!”

While Natasha has been settling into her course, it turns out that her roommate has been busy hunting down Mr Olympic Archer and persuading him to let her practise with him three times a week. Apparently he’d said no – a number of times – but Natasha could have told him how useless that would be.

“Mostly we’re using recurve bows, because they’re the only ones used at the Olympics.”

“Uh-huh.”

She gets to hear a lot about recurve archery, and other archery because Clint has other bows, and how Clint thinks trick shots are useful in learning accuracy, and Clint this, that, and the other.

And apparently Natasha has to meet him. She has no idea why; it’s not like she’s going to be spending much time with Kate once they’re no longer roommates, never mind some guy Kate hangs around the Sports Centre with. Nevertheless when she finishes her Saturday shift at the supermarket she finds Kate waiting for her outside, leaning against the wall with her headphones in and bopping her head along to whatever’s on her iPod.

“He’s got a job,” Kate says, removing one ear bud, “at a pub five minutes from here, and don’t you want a drink after a day dealing with customers and boredom?”

“I don’t need to turn to alcohol just because I’m employed,” is Natasha’s reply.

“One drink.” Kate takes out the other ear bud and tucks her iPod away in her coat pocket. “I’ll buy.”

Natasha lets Kate drag her to the pub, a traditional English one painted white and black with a hanging sign that has a picture of seven swans. It’s pretty busy since it’s a Saturday night, but not packed, with the huddle at the bar only two deep. Kate keeps hold of Natasha’s upper arm as she wriggles to the front and leans forward.

“Boss-man!” she calls out and one of the bar staff comes over, a harried looking guy with scruffy blond hair wearing a too-tight t-shirt, all in black like the rest of the staff.

“What d’you want, Katie-Kate? I’m trying to work here.”

“Two vodka and cokes,” Kate orders, without bothering to ask Natasha what she’d like, “and this is my roommate that I was telling you about: Natasha.”

“Great. Hi.”

Clint Barton barely looks at Natasha as he pours vodka, tops the glasses up with coke, takes Kate’s money, and hands over her change.

“I don’t need a drink,” says Natasha in Kate’s ear, annoyed, her feet hurting, and wanting to be done with the day.

“It’s okay,” says Kate, “we can wait ‘till he’s done. He’ll be in a better mood then. Hey, come meet his housemates.”

She grabs a drink in each hand and leads the way to a long table with a bench on either side towards the back of the pub, both benches almost completely occupied. One end of the table is rowdier than the other, but there’s plenty of talking going on between all of them.

“Kate, this is a bad idea.” Natasha drags her feet. “They’re all, what, final years if not postgrads?”

It’s not an age thing as such, in that she’s probably the same age as most of them if not older. It’s that the students who’ve been here longer are so much more confident and at home here, used to this city and university life, and even the friendliest of them makes Natasha feel small. Because it partly is an age thing, in that she’s the same age if not older and she’s a Fresher while they’ve nearly finished with uni. It makes her feel like spending three years earning money and getting work experience where her not getting her life together, like she made a mistake somewhere.

“So?” Kate straightens her spine and juts out her chin. “We’re students too."

She strides over to an empty space on a bench at the noisier end of the table, where a guy with unfortunate facial hair is being shouted down, and plonks the two glasses on the table hard enough that some of the liquid spills over the edges. She takes a seat and pulls Natasha down next to her.

“Mini Hawkeye!” shouts the guy with the goatee.

“Everyone,” says Kate, loud enough to be heard over the din, “this is Natasha, my roommate. Natasha, everyone.”

Natasha waits for there to be more, but that seems to be it.

“That is the worst introduction ever,” Goatee Guy says. “Allow me: I’m Tony, final year Engineering. Bruce here – “ he slings his arm around the guy next to him, who pushes his glasses up his nose and gives Natasha a small wave accompanied by a small smile “ – is MSci Joint Honours, Physics and Chemistry, because some people are indecisive geniuses. And this – ” the guy on his other side also receives a one-armed hug “ – is Rhodey, who loves me so much he came to the same university, joined the same course – ”

Rhodey shoves Tony’s arm off, laughing.

“Tony, Bruce, and Rhodes,” Kate explains, emphasising Rhodes, “are Clint’s housemates.” She looks around the table. “And Steve, but he’s not here. Steve’s the nice one.”

“I’m not the nice one?” Tony says, mock-offended.

“Nope.” Kate pauses with her drink at her lips and grins over the rim of her glass. “You’re the crazy one.”

Natasha sips at her own drink for something to do whilst everyone else is snickering.

A woman with short-cropped blond hair on Natasha’s right looks over and slides further down the bench towards Natasha to join in the conversation.

“Tony is a dick,” she says cheerfully. “When he’s too much of a dick, tell Pepper. She’s the redhead.” She nods towards the other end of the table. “She’s the only one he ever listens to.”

“Pepper’s in the Student Union, the JCR, and DUCK,” Rhodes informs her. “She’s doing Business and Management and one day she’s going to rule the world.”

“True fact,” says the blond. “Anyway, I’m Carol. Physics.”

“Hi.” Natasha puts her glass down and tries not to fiddle with it.

“Our other scientists down the bottom end of the table are Jane – she does Physics and Astronomy; Jan – she’s Biosciences; the hot blond is Thor – he’s our exchange student from Iceland doing Astrophysics there and some kind of Theoretical Physics module over here; and Darcy. Darcy does Philosophy and Politics; we try not to hold it against her. Jan and Pepper share a house with me, Darcy’s with Jane and Thor.”

“Remind me again,” says Darcy, leaning her forearms on the table top with a complete disregard for how sticky with alcohol it is, “why I live in a place miles from anywhere with the two lovebirds?”

“Because it’s cheap!” about half the group chorus back at her and Darcy raises her bottle of something blue in a salute.

This is a lot of people, who all know each other and share houses together and have in-jokes, and Natasha fights the urge to leave right the hell now.

“So, Natasha,” Tony says, drawing out her name, “What’re you studying?”

“Languages. Spanish and Russian.”

Natasha hates this part. For the last few weeks it seems like she’s had the same conversation with everyone she’s spoken to, and that everyone around her is having the same conversation as well. What’s your name, what’re you studying, what did you do at A Levels, and it was boring the first time she heard it. She’s sick of people asking the same stupid questions and is waiting for someone to ask something original. At this point she’d accept anything from what’s your favourite colour to rate your odds of survival in the zombie apocalypse. For all that students like to call themselves ‘quirky’ and ‘weird’ they rarely come across that way. Which means as a language student Natasha predicts the next question she’s going to get is –

“Give us a few words?” says Tony with a grin.

Natasha suppresses a sigh.

“Your beard is ugly,” she tells him in Spanish, her tone perfectly polite. Then in Russian she adds, “Setting it on fire would only improve your face.”

“I love it,” says Tony, seeming genuinely delighted by the existence of other languages. “You could be saying anything to me right now; I have no idea.”

“Hopefully something insulting,” says Carol. “Please tell me it was something insulting.”

Natasha raises an eyebrow.

“She said his beard was ugly,” says Bruce. He shrugs when everyone’s eyes turn to him. “I’ve travelled, picked up a bit of Spanish.”

Carol laughs and puts a hand on Natasha’s shoulder, squeezing gentle. “I like this one!” she announces. “We’re keeping her.”

Carol leaves her hand where it is, leaning forward when Rhodes asks her something about a flight plan, and Natasha finds that it’s not intolerable. It’s a lot of people, but she doesn’t feel pressured to join in unless she’s asked a direct question and they’re an amusing lot really. Too loud, but more Natasha’s fit than the kids living in college.

She’s almost enjoying herself when the legendary Clint Barton comes over at the end of his shift, a glass of orange juice in his hand.

Kate budges over to make room and he fits himself into the space between her and Natasha, awkward with tiredness and grazing his arm on the rough edge of the wooden table as he sits down.

“Hi,” he says.

“Hi,” Natasha says back. And she waits, but that’s it.

He doesn’t say anything else for the rest of the night, which admittedly doesn’t last that much longer before they all go their separate ways to sleep.