2.8k

Platonic/Romantic

Fluff

College AU

Most nights you had been getting a severe lack of sleep, which wasn't great when you had to wake up for your 8 am lectures. Your roommate Wanda was an absolute sweetheart, the only issue was her new boyfriend, Vision. Before Vision entered the scene, the two of you would study together, watch a movie, and fall asleep at midnight or before. Like the responsible students that you were.

Though ever since Vision, they're up until the early hours of the morning cuddling and chatting whilst watching TV shows. Granted, the main light was always off as a common courtesy to you, but their voices and blaring light from the laptop kept you awake until they got tired and turned it off. Much to your dismay, this rarely occurred before 2 am.

You just weren't confrontational and she seemed so happy, so you didn't have the heart to tell them that they were being the most annoying people in your life currently, and the bar was low. You knew a lot of annoying people.

Another thing that annoyed you is that even without makeup, Wanda would still look stunning waking up every morning after 4 hours of sleep every day. You had to slap on some concealer so that you didn't look like the demon panda from hell. Oh, how you envied people who won the genetic lottery in terms of eye bags and dark circles.

The current night was a particularly bad one. They had started binge-watching "Sweet Tooth" on Netflix, and instead of doing a couple of episodes a night like they normally would do to finish up 'early', they kept watching and watching until they had finished the whole thing. You had been drifting in and out of sleep for hours, but when a new noise blasted from the laptop, your eyes would fly open.

When it was time to wake up and get ready after only getting an hour of uninterrupted sleep you felt all kinds of nauseous and lightheaded, but you were determined to get to class. You rushed into your shared bathroom before Wanda could get a chance to use the shower, and quickly scrubbed at your teeth and tried to style your hair, though your blurry eyes meant that your hands were not cooperating.

After giving up with just throwing it up with a hair tie, you tried your hardest to hide the dark circles that were painfully obvious under your eyes, though no amount of makeup was enough to hide the damage that was done to your skin last night. Once you deemed yourself somewhat respectable, you moved out of the bathroom to throw on whatever clothes appeared in your wardrobe first and left with a granola bar in hand.

You let your feet carry you on autopilot and somehow ended up on the right part of campus. Without even spotting your friends, you were about to walk straight past them, but luckily they noticed you in your zombie-like trance and grabbed ahold of you, pushing you onto your normal space on the bench that you had claimed. Shuri and Kate gave each other concerned glances as they looked at your out-of-it state, before Kate waved a hand in front of your face, snapping you back into reality.

"Hm?", you spoke before yawning and stretching. "How long were you out last night, and why didn't you invite us?", Shuri gave you a playful shove, which you just groaned at, the rattling movement of your head sending a sharp pain through your skull.

"Jeez, seriously what happened to you?", Kate tried, taking the more cautious approach than Shuri, treating you like a deer in headlights as her eyes flashed with worry. "Wanda", you spoke again between a yawn, and the pair beside you rolled their eyes. They knew all about how you had rarely been getting any sleep and kept trying to convince you to tell her to have a 'no sounds past midnight' rule, but you always ignored them. Again, you didn't have a single confrontational bone in your body.

There wasn't much time for them to be able to lecture you though, as you all had to go to your actual lecture, so they linked arms with you and led you over to your first class of the day, which you promptly fell asleep in. Kate had to keep pinching your thigh to keep you awake so that you didn't feel the wrath of Agatha, your ancient culture studies professor.

This was a continuous theme throughout the day, though towards the end of it Shuri had to resort to stomping on your foot with all of her might with the shoes she made that makes no sound. Unfortunately, you were capable of making sound, so you had to hold in your yelps of pain as your foot thumped angrily with the constant disturbance to its peace.

Luckily, you made it through the day and the two walked you back to your dorm, and tucked you in, making sure that you stayed in bed as you had spent the entire walk home babbling about the work you had to catch up on. Though that was important, your two friends knew that you were in desperate need of sleep first. At least a nap.

They left your room content with you getting some well-needed rest, hoping to see you in better spirits tomorrow. You instantly drifted off into a deep slumber, your body basically shutting down from exhaustion. But you only got three hours of sleep before the couple from the depths of Tartarus came bounding through the door. Wanda winced as she spotted your sleepy form stretching under the covers, then sitting up as you rubbed your eyes.

You squinted at them from across the room, your eyes still blurry from the gorgeous sleep that you were rudely ripped away from. "Sorry", she grimaced before chuckling playfully, "It's 5 though! Wake up lazy guts", she walked over and patted where your knees were under the cover before moving over to her bed, Vision following as they got out some of their class resources to start working from.

Immediately you wanted to scream into a pillow, though you didn't want the embarrassment that would come with that, so you begrudgingly reached for your laptop and began completing some worksheets that had been assigned to your class. Your eyes were comically wide as you tried to stare at the screen, urging your brain cells to do something.

They came through after an hour of working on a sheet that should have taken ten minutes, but you counted it as an absolute win and got up to make yourself some noodles. Having only eaten a granola bar and a packet of crisps that day, you practically inhaled the bowl too before settling back down into bed again, curled up into a ball.

Grateful for Vision and Wanda doing some studying, you tried to fall back asleep with the quiet atmosphere, but just as your eyes started drooping, you heard the dreaded theme tune of one of her sitcoms, and the chuckles that came alongside it. Sleep was not going to be a luxury that you could afford any time soon.

Hours passed and you felt like crying. Your body was screaming at you to get some sleep, but the laptop speakers across the room from you were shutting that idea down. Your head was pounding, your mouth was dry and your hands were tingling. Months of minimal sleep were fully starting to catch up to you, and it was not healthy.

At some point during the night, at about 3 am, your mind snapped. You needed to get out of that room, you would sleep in the hallway if you had to. So, you grabbed your comfortable, fluffy blanket from the bottom of your bed and wrapped it around your shoulders, clinging onto it for dear life at the front. "I'm just gonna get some air", you announced to a confused Wanda who frowned but nodded in acceptance. She had thought that you were asleep.

You stepped foot outside of your room, and immediately a draft from the air vents hit you, making you very aware that you were just in your pyjamas. Looking around the dark hallway a little helplessly, you were preparing to sit on the floor and sleep against the wall. It was better than having to sleep in there.

But just before you were about to sit you spotted some light streaming out from underneath the cracks of a door at the other end of the long hallway. So, you started your journey towards it. Like a moth drawn to a flame.

When you reached the door you hesitated with your fist in the air, ready to knock. But when another cold draft hit you, your hand instinctually knocked lightly, conscious of others nearby who were most likely sleeping. You heard some shuffling from behind the door, and you immediately felt nervous. It had only just dawned on you that you had knocked on some stranger's door at three in the morning. They may have even been sleeping but accidentally left the light on, the light was not a valid indicator that this person was awake, though you were proved wrong when the person opened the door fully clothed. Unless they are some weirdo who sleeps in jeans.

When you made eye contact with the woman behind the door you were immediately taken away by her stunning green eyes and her red hair. But you swallowed thickly and stumbled out your next line of words as she looked at you expectedly, confused at why you were at her door at this ungodly hour. "Sorry for disturbing you so late- or early I guess. My roommate always has her partner over and they always watch shit until like 4 am and I haven't slept in months", you sighed.

The harsh stare of the redhead soon turned soft as she took note of how your eyes didn't seem to be able to focus on one thing and how bloodshot they were. It looked painful. "You knocked on the right door", she spoke without smiling but her tone was kind, which confused your sleep-deprived self very much, "I live alone, my roommate lives with her girlfriend now, so you can take the spare bed for the night if you want", she offered with a shrug.

Your eyes lit up which made the corner of her lips twitch up ever so slightly, not that it was noticed by you, you were too busy practically drooling over the fact that there was an empty bed in the vicinity with your name on it. "Thank you, thank you, thank you", you rushed out and she moved out of the way to let you in, gesturing over to the bed in the corner of the room.

Her laptop was open on a PowerPoint presentation and her notebook was open in front of it, so you guessed that she had been doing some late-night studying, but she quickly shut her laptop and packed her notebook away whilst you clambered into bed and wrapped the duvet around yourself. She could see how much you needed the sleep, and she could finish off the final part of her notes on her lunch break tomorrow.

Even with the light on, you had immediately fallen asleep. The fact that it was a quiet room was enough for your brain to drift off, and now that you couldn't see her, she smiled softly at your now relaxed features and quickly went into her bathroom to get into her own pyjamas, before turning the light off and slipping into her own bed.

You slept like a baby for the remainder of that night and woke up feeling ever so slightly more refreshed than you had done for a while. Due to having none of your things in her room, you had to bid her farewell fairly early in the morning so that the two of you could get ready for your respective classes. Though you found out that her name was Natasha, and she insisted that it was no problem that you stayed over when you started apologising as soon as you were both awake.

The newfound energy that you had did not go unnoticed by your friends who were happy to see that you weren't on the verge of collapsing. Though the energy did not last long at all. The next month was worse than the last, and you truly did not know how Wanda and Vision were not dead. You felt like a walking corpse every day, and you had been tempted many times to go to Natasha again and again, but you didn't want to disturb her too much, so only settled for when you were truly desperate.

She had insisted that you hadn't been bothering her, but you didn't know if she was just being polite, so you still kept the visits to a minimum. She was a nice person and you felt like you had connected with her on your last few visits, indulging in some conversation before going to sleep. She had been a very closed-off person when you first met her, but now she would freely talk to you and would look very happy to see you.

You had promised yourself not to visit Natasha at 3 am again for a few more days as your last visit had been rather recent, but you had reached a breaking point and you needed her. Tears pooled in your eyes as Wanda and Vision started watching "Kimmy Schmidt" at 2 am. You were so tired.

You felt sick constantly these days, and you knew that you couldn't go on much longer with the amount of disturbed sleep that you were getting. So, again you stood up with your blanket and announced that you were going to get some air. You shuffled over to Natasha's room and saw that the light was still on, causing a smile to break out on your face for a second, but then the exhaustion overpowered you again as some of those tears started rolling down your cheeks.

She answered quickly after you had knocked, and this time she answered in her pyjamas, almost as if she was expecting you at some point over the next few days. She went to give you a hello and a smile, but when her eyes took in your appearance she was shocked.

The last time you had seen her you had looked tired sure, but this time you really did look unwell. She took notice of the tears streaming down your face, how puffy your under eye was, how dry your lips were, and you were shivering under your blanket. "I'm sorry", you whimpered as a sob escaped your lips, "I'm just so tired".

"Oh, honey", she said soothingly and tugged you into her room, shutting the door and wrapping her arms around you after. You clung on for dear life as you cried into her shoulder, though she didn't mind. She rocked you from side to side and rubbed your back reassuringly. Whilst you were standing by the door she took the opportunity to turn the light off, the darkness immediately soothing your sore eyes.

Your cries subsided after a few minutes of standing in the darkness, which Natasha was happy about. She hated seeing you upset. Though you had come into her life in an unusual way, she couldn't imagine hers without you now, and it was rare for Natasha to feel a connection to someone so soon. She had even planned on asking you out the next night that she saw you, but now her main focus was on calming you down for the night. Luckily, it was a Friday night so she didn't have to wake you up in the morning for class.

You were basically already falling asleep in her arms, which she could tell as you had started getting heavier in her hold. Swiftly and with ease, she looped an arm under one of your legs and lifted you up, your other leg wrapping around her waist without a single thought going into it. Being in Natasha's arms felt natural and safe.

Her heart melted at how much you trusted her whilst you were in such a vulnerable state, and with help of muscle memory, she navigated over to her bed in the dark and laid down with you still clinging to her, placing the duvet over the top of the both of you for warmth.

When she placed a kiss on the crown of your head and started to run her fingers through your hair, you hummed in contentment and pushed your head further into the crook of her neck. Only when she felt your breath even out did she fall asleep, knowing that you were okay. She would make sure that you were okay. Always. 

A/n- I'm so sorry for not updating this book for almost a month ;( Uni has been hectic and whenever I have had motivation/inspiration to write a one-shot they've been Robin Buckley ones (shameless promo for my Robin one-shots book). But yeah been super busy! Will try to update this one sooner next time <3