The Rape of Persephone was sculpted between 1621 and 1622 by Gian Lorenzo Bernini. The sculpture has very realistic elements to it, such as the way Bernini carved the marble to make it appear as though the hands of Hades are curving and pressing into real skin rather than stone flesh.
Steve sighed and rested his head in his hand and continued to read through his art history notes, occasionally glancing over the textbook sitting next to him. He was trying to take in the information, but after four hours his brain just didn’t seem to want to absorb any more. His final was the next day, however, and he could not afford to take a break even though he had read the last paragraph a half a dozen times.
He looked up to see how the rest of his friends were faring in their studying. Across from him, Bruce was furiously running practice equations through his calculator, a small stack of used scrap paper sitting next to him and littered with already solved problems. To his right were Tony and Clint; the genius was playing with his phone and the other had his head on his textbook like he was trying to absorb the information through osmosis. To his left, Natasha was reading through her notes while listening to music through her earbuds, Thor, brow furrowed, was going over some flash cards and mumbling quietly to himself while Loki, at the end of the library table, had put his study notes aside in favor of a novel.
Steve glanced over briefly, distracted only slightly by his friend. No one else stirred.
“You said that half an hour ago, Tony. Nothing has changed.” Bruce didn’t look up from his equations as he spoke.
“Which clearly means that I am still bored and will continue to be bored until something happens.”
“Shut up Stark, you’re interrupting my nap,” came the muffled reply from Clint.
“Just because you only have three finals doesn’t mean you should be sleeping.” Clint opened one eye to look at Natasha. “You have papers to do too.”
“But I’m a growing boy and I need rest, not to mention my beauty sleep,” he whined before rubbing his head after being struck with a pen.
“Then go get your beauty sleep so I won’t have to look at your ugly mug anymore,” Tony teased as he dodged a swipe from Clint.
A table or two over, someone cleared their throat loudly. Tony glared in their general direction but nonetheless quieted down along with the others.
“We should go out and do something, get out of this musty old place,” Tony whispered after a few moments.
“Are you not concerned about preparing for your examinations?” Thor inquired.
Tony opened his mouth to reply but Steve cut him off. “Not all of us can already recite all of the material in our sleep Tony.”
“It’s not my fault they’re making me take boring courses,” Tony huffed.
“Nor is it your fault that you have a raucous, gaping maw, but then such tragedies cannot be helped.” Loki smirked over his book at Tony.
Tony jabbed a finger at the black-haired boy. “Watch it there, Joker, smile any bigger and they won’t need to slice your mouth.”
“Why must you be so serious, Stark?” Loki’s smirk grew wider. “You should really put a smile on that face.”
Tony frowned and Bruce and Natasha couldn’t help but grin and chuckle a little at the banter occurring across the large table. Tony noticed this and would have said something probably rather insulting that might have earned him a pencil in the eye from Natasha were it not for Bruce’s elbow being jammed into his side. Bruce nodded slightly in the direction of the surrounding tables and a few of the others looked to see that they were receiving quite a number of glares from the other students. Steve ducked his head slightly out of embarrassment and gave an apologetic smile and half-wave.
Everyone at the table went back to studying or whatever it was they were doing before and managed to stay quiet for another ten whole minutes. Clint decided that he had gotten enough rest and was engrossed in making miniature paper planes from shreds of Bruce’s discarded equation sheets. His first target, of course, was Tony but because they were sitting right across from one another the playboy caught the plane easily before it hit him.
He scoffed, “You call that a plane? Here, let me show you a real paper plane…”
Steve was wary of leaving the two men to their diabolical planning, but he chose to ignore his better judgement and go back to trying to study while Tony showed Clint the finer points of proper paper folding.
It wasn’t long before a small projectile zoomed past Steve’s nose and hit Thor in the cheek. The large bearded blond rubbed his face and glanced down the table where Tony and Clint were attempting to look innocent and otherwise engaged.
Natasha raised an eyebrow and smirked. She whispered something to Loki after which he gave her the paperclip holding his notes together. She removed the elastic that held her hair away from her face and positioned it between her fingers in the form of a slingshot with the paperclip as the projectile. She pulled the elastic back, aimed carefully, released, and hit Clint square in the temple.
“OW!” He rubbed the small pink mark where the metal hit and gave the redhead a dirty look. “Fuck Natasha…”
She simply quirked an eyebrow. “You started it.”
“SHHHHHH!”
The whole group turned to see the librarian glaring as he shushed them.
Bruce and Steve shared a look before the former sighed and began to pack his books. “Come on children; let’s go find you somewhere else to play before you get us banned from the library.”
Tony stood with a dramatic huff. “Finally! You know, I think I could feel the dust beginning to settle from being here for so long. Now come on; I have a couple bottles of good booze I want to finish off before the break.”
“Oh, I’m right behind you Stark!” Clint hurriedly collected his things and rushed after Tony who was already at the doors.
“Come on sourpuss,” Natasha gave Loki a light shove, “you might as well come take a break with us; I’m not going to let you stay holed up in your room. And you, Rogers,” she turned to Steve, “you had better relax. I saw the way you were ‘studying’, and forcing yourself will do you no good.”
“The lady is correct,” Thor added, “even warriors need to rest in the midst of training to become strong.”
Steve smiled and nodded, “Alright, alright, but just a few drinks.”
They left the library and came across Tony and Clint having a fierce snowball fight right in front of the library steps, almost hitting a few innocent passer-bys. Thor roared with laughter and ran to tackle Tony into a snow bank while Clint followed with more snow. The others laughed and Bruce and Steve picked up the boys’ discarded backpacks and began to make their way to Tony’s dorm. Steve breathed deep and smiled. Maybe a break wouldn’t be so bad.
