"I think we should start sleeping separately," She said quietly, but with certainty. This couldn't happen again. There might not be a way to recover from it happening once.
Thor agreed to Nina's terms and offered to move to another room. While Nina was just as against taking his room as she had been when he first showed up, she was obligated to accept. He left in order for her to continue to get ready and also so they wouldn't have to walk into the kitchen together. Nina was grateful for that. Everyone would already be staring. She didn't want the extra shame.
What she had expected was almost exactly what happened.
"Heeey," Olivia was clearly still tip-toeing around the whole situation.
Nina glared at her and rolled her eyes as she grabbed a plum from the fruit bowl on the counter.
"You feelin' okay? You don't look like you're having trouble walking," Olivia couldn't help but laugh a little at the look on Nina's face.
"Liv, I swear to god-"
"Oh, no need," Tony's voice caught everyone's attention.
"You girls have fun last night? No hangovers? No bails I should know about?" This was mostly directed at Olivia. He always had a way of throwing a wet blanket on her.
"And you," Tony turned his attention to Nina, giving her a disappointed look that made her feel like a teenager again. He pressed a button on his phone and a little blue hologram popped up with a picture of Nina and Thor kissing at the club. Nina's hand immediately came up to cover her face.
"Oooh no," She groaned.
"'Oh no' is right. Do you have any idea the kind of negative impact this is going to have on your image? On all of our images?" There was a short pause. "I hope it didn't go any further than that," Thor wasn't going to say anything. Nina wasn't going to say anything. Even Olivia planned on keeping her mouth shut.
"It did," Bucky mercilessly brought any hope Nina had of having a peaceful day to an end.
There was a lot of disappointment on Tony's end. Steve was shocked and disgusted. Bucky was both angry and slightly amused. Thor and Nina kept their distance and didn't comment.
On their way downstairs, Olivia pulled Nina aside.
"What's going on? I was expecting you two to be more...friendly? I mean, you've been avoiding each other all morning so far," Nina sighed heavily. To her surprise, she actually did want to talk about it.
"It shouldn't have happened, Liv," They locked arms, their hips bumping together as they walked. Katerina glanced back at them, ignoring what Steve was telling her about their goals for the day. He was rambling awkwardly, just trying to get the image of Nina and Thor out of his mind.
"Why not? I hate to say it, but you guys aren't bad for each other," Olivia had grown pretty attached to Nina since picking her up at the gala. As soft as it made her feel, in the end, she just wanted her friend to be happy.
"It just didn't feel right. I mean, last night I didn't care so much, but..." Olivia groaned.
"Is it Bucky? God dammit. Now I'm gonna have to listen to Wanda," As worked up as Nina was, she couldn't help but smile a little. While her whole life was twisting this way and that, Olivia seemed to be her only constant.
"I don't know," Nina said, being extra careful not to let Steve hear. "I really shouldn't," Olivia gave her a squeeze.
"Hey, fuck it. We don't choose who we love," It was true, but it wasn't very reassuring. The last thing Nina needed was another mess, but the more she thought about it the more certain she was that she was a little too attached to the Winter Soldier.
Running was almost a blessing that day. Nina's muscles had been given time enough to relax properly and the pain was a good distraction from everything going on. On their way inside, before starting round two of Cap Camp, Steve pulled her aside too. She was a little less than eager to know why.