Safe Place

22: The Fake Girlfriend (Part 1)

Natasha's POV:

*THAT NIGHT, AT LIKE 11 PM*

So Wanda got up and ran away from me.

I screwed up my courage and asked her to watch movies with me, and we didn't even make it through one. She literally couldn't get away fast enough.

I thought it was going well. Even if the boys were obviously trying to set us up, and even if the movie was a little cheesy. She even cuddled up next to me.

My heart almost beat out of my chest.

I'm not still hung up on it. Really, I'm not.

Besides, I have other things to worry about.

"You alright there, Tasha?" Steve asks, poking his head into my room. It's the rare occasion that Bucky isn't glued to his side. "You're kind of mumbling to yourself."

My shoulders tense. "Sure," I reply with forced ease. "Just tired, I guess."

"Tired because Wanda ditched you during your cute little movie date?" Clint pokes his head out of the vents, and Steve shrieks. "Or tired because your ex-boyfriend who you're still partially hung up on is coming back to live with you, your best friends, and your new crush tomorrow?"

"I hate you, Clint," I sigh.

"Whoa, Nat," Steve says, sitting down next to me on my bed. "That's kind of a lot."

"Take, like, three scoots to the right, Cap," Clint warns, swinging down from the vents. "That's my spot."

Steve rolls his eyes but moves to the side, and Clint takes a seat beside me. 

"Tasha," my best friend starts. "You know it's okay, right?"

"What's okay?" I lean back against the headboard.

Steve crosses his legs beneath him. "The fact that you're still sort-of-not-over Bruce. It's the kind of thing that heals with time."

"Or with a new partner." Clint smirks and elbows me. I slap him on the head.

"No, I'm serious," he adds. "You can't let yourself stay hung up on Bruce forever. Get back out there, Natasha."

"It looked like you and Wanda were pretty cozy," Steve adds seriously. 

I groan and bury my head in my pillow. 

"Oh my god, are you blushing?" Clint yelps.

steve puts him in a headlock, and I sit up carefully.

"She ran away," I say softly. "She obviously didn't want to be near me."

"Nat," Clint says slowly, muffled by Cap's hand. Steve carefully releases him.

"The way Wanda looked at you - she likes you too, okay?"

"Oh? And is that why you decided to steal two-thirds of the living room furniture? Because you think she likes me?"

"Yes," they say in unison.

"Well - " I stop. They both grin.

"You really think so?" I ask quietly.

Steve nods. Clint smiles.

"And I have the perfect plan," my best friend says. "It'll kill two birds with one stone."

"By 'birds' you mean Bruce and Wanda, and by kill you mean show Bruce that I'm totally fine and not at all into him, and show Wanda that I'm in love with her and she should love me back?"

"Yup."

Steve and I huddle around him, and he outlines the wildest, most half-baked, most quintessential rom-com plan ever devised.