The following Saturday, Ella woke up to the morning light streaming through the crack in her curtains. She rolled over, pulling her quilt over her head to block the sun and try and fall back to sleep. However, after a couple of yawns, she was wide awake. She had treated herself to a morning without an alarm, so she rolled over to check the time on her phone, however, her eyes landed on a frantic text from Nat that was over two hours old.

I need to see you NOW

Ella quickly called her, panicked. Nat wasn't one to stress, so she'd never received a message that sounded so urgent.

"You okay?" she hurriedly asked when her friend picked up.

"No!" Nat huffed. "Okay, I'm being dramatic, I'm actually fine. But I do need to vent to you."

Ella laughed in relief, "shall I come over?"

"Please," Nat replied in a grateful tone.

Ella hung up and got dressed, still yawning profusely. She threw on an oversized sweatshirt and black gym shorts, before spending several minutes searching her messy bedroom floor for a matching pair of shoes. She quickly texted Steve to tell him she was taking the car, not waiting around for a reply to see if he needed it. A few minutes later, she pulled up on Natasha's driveway, mentally preparing herself for whatever was about to come. She knocked on the door and nervously tapped her foot as she waited for Nat to answer.

"Your brother is a dick," Natasha complained as she opened the front door. A scowl was etched onto her features.

"Yeah, I know," Ella replied, not missing a beat, "but why?"

"You mean aside from the fact he waited until three months into junior year to ask me out?"

Ella grimaced, "he did?"

Although she'd had a conversation about this just a week prior, she was still a little surprised Steve had acted upon his thoughts, and so quickly.

Nat nodded, her expression was unreadable. Although up til now she'd seemed more than unimpressed by his advance, Ella thought she might've been covering for something else. Excitement? Nervousness? It was hard to tell.

The pair of them wandered up to Nat's bedroom, the curtains were still drawn and the bed was unmade, she'd clearly been moping. She crawled back under the covers, holding them up for Ella to join her, Ella kicked off her shoes and obliged.

"Tell me all about it," Ella said with a pitiful smile.

"So, I saw Steve last night, I bumped into him at the store while he was on his way home from swim practice and he asked if I wanted to hang out," she started. "So he came over, and we're chatting and everything is normal. And then he starts rambling. He's going on about how he's started looking at me differently and that he thinks he likes me, but he's nervous and he doesn't think I'd be interested, and it was probably the least romantic thing I've ever experienced," Nat finished.

Ella let out a dry laugh, that sounded like Steve alright. As much as she couldn't deny he'd massively messed it up, she knew his heart was in the right place, and it wasn't as though he'd had a lot of practice talking to girls in that way. He'd only asked one girl out on a date before and Sam had ended up doing most of the talking. By the sounds of things, his second attempt had been no better.

"What happened after that?" Ella asked.

"He just got really flustered and said he needed to go home, he didn't even give me a chance to reply."

"Yeah," Ella nodded. "My brother is an idiot."

"I don't know what to do," Nat whined before burying her face in her pillow.

Ella sighed, "You like him, Nat, you always have. Maybe give him a chance to redeem himself at least?"

She wanted Nat to be happy, just as much as she wanted the same for Steve, and she was still sure that they'd make a good pairing. She understood Nat's hesitations, with a year and a half left until college she'd had the same thoughts running through her head about her relationship with Bucky. Was it too late to start something, would their relationship have an expiration date? However, Ella had silenced her own concerns, instead choosing to jump in feet first and not let worrying ruin it before it could even get started. But Nat didn't work the same. She was apprehensive, she didn't want to sign up for heartbreak. There was a good chance that she'd shut any sign of a relationship with Steve down because she'd listen to her head rather than her heart.

Nat rolled over to face her friend.

"What would you do if you were me?" she asked.

Ella explained the thoughts running through her mind, but she knew she and Nat were two very different people in two very different situations. Nat and Steve had almost a decade of friendship, which in Nat's mind was at risk if a relationship didn't work out, and the trajectories of their lives after school were completely different. Neither of these were issues for Ella and Bucky.

Ella's final remark was "just talk it out with him. You know he'll listen and take it all on board. And I'll tell you what I told him, if he hurts you, I'm always going to be on your side." She smiled over at Nat who tentatively reciprocated.

Natasha grabbed her laptop from her nightstand and pulled up Netflix.

"I want to watch a chick-flick and eat ice cream, you with me?" she asked.

Ella laughed and climbed out of bed, "ice cream for breakfast it is."

She disappeared downstairs, saying hello to Nat's sister Yelena who was playing with the family dog and getting annoyed when she wouldn't do tricks. It made Ella laugh, Yelena's sarcastic tone always did.

Having pulled a carton of ice cream from the freezer and collected two spoons she made her way back upstairs and nestled in beside Nat.

As they watched the movie, Nat's selection of Legally Blonde, doubt started to plague Ella's mind. Despite the assurance of her words to Nat just half an hour earlier, talking about it had made the worries resurface. The doubt settled down in the pit of her stomach, making her feel sick. Every minute that went by she began to question her approach to dating Bucky.

When she was with him she felt as though they could take on the world, as if they were unstoppable, as though there would never be a problem big enough to separate them. But now, watching her headstrong friend questioning her own feelings, she couldn't help but think she was being completely misguided.

She tried in vain to focus on the movie, usually Legally Blonde was one of her favourites, but thoughts kept drifting back in. She didn't even let out a smile when Elle Woods won her case.

As the end credits started to roll Nat closed her laptop and looked over at Ella, noticing the change in her demeanor for the first time.

"Hey, you okay?" She asked, worried.

Ella shrugged. She didn't want to further Nat's doubts about Steve with her own confused feelings.

"I don't know, I'm just stressing about me and Bucky," she hesitantly replied.

"No!" Nat laughed, "I've corrupted you."

Ella rolled her eyes, "it's not like I didn't have these thoughts before today, I just didn't listen to them."

Nat shook her head, "you and Bucky are like, perfect for each other. You know that right? And have you actually spoken to him about college? You might be stressing over nothing," she reasoned.

Ella knew her friend was right. And then a thought popped into her head. The first time Bucky had come over to her house she'd asked what he wanted to do after school. He'd said that he would probably go to college somewhere close by. Suddenly the sickness in her stomach dissipated a little. Maybe Nat was right, maybe she was worrying over nothing. At the very least they were unlikely to end up on opposite sides of the country. There was still even a possibility they'd end up in the same state.

"Yeah, you're right," Ella finally smiled at Natasha.

"Let's make a deal. I talk to Steve. You talk to Bucky. We just get it over with. I have more ice cream if things don't work out," Nat joked.

Ella gave her friend a quick hug before climbing out of bed. She knew she needed to get home and get some work done if she was going to see Bucky the next day, seeing as she'd spent four hours curled up in bed with Nat.

The two girls wandered downstairs, and Ella shouted goodbye to Nat's family.

"Don't say anything to Steve," Nat said with a joking stern look as she opened the front door.

"Wouldn't dare," Ella smiled in response before heading out to her car.