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Natasha sighs as she finally pulls up to the cabin; despite Bob's meticulous planning, there's just no way it's actually big enough for the whole dagger squad, and of course, she's the last to arrive. When she walks into the great room, everyone is gone. They have no doubt gone sno-go biking because Fanboy has not shut up about it since they got to Montana, but after spending most of the day in no one's company except her own, it's kind of a bummer that there's no one around to greet her.
Naturally, the universe makes her regret that thought immediately.
"I know what you're thinking," Hangman drawls from behind her like they're on a dude ranch in Texas and not standing in an actual log cabin nestled among the snow-capped mountains of Big Sky, Montana. She doesn't need to turn around to know that Jake is leaning against the doorframe with his arms crossed over his chest and that perma-smirk quirking up one corner of his mouth like he has been unanimously elected to represent all unrepentant jackasses in the first act of a rom com before they've reformed through the power of love and cheesy pop music montages. "You're thinking, 'Gosh, why didn't I take Jake up on his generous offer to carpool instead of unceremoniously kicking him out of bed last night before Colbert was even done with his opening monologue while we were in the middle of a winter storm—'"
"During which we were indoors! You were staying four rooms down at the same hotel! I could have literally kicked you farther away!" Natasha reminds him before dropping her bags in the middle of the empty living room and rolling her eyes at his dramatics. She's not even going to point out his inexplicable decision to show up to her hotel room wearing a sheepskin parka like he was about to head off on an arctic expedition and wanted to have one last goodbye. The extreme ridiculousness of his unhinged choices aside, she will give credit where credit is due: it worked with his on vacation and forgot to pack a razor aesthetic so well that it would be insincere to complain now about something that she had thoroughly enjoyed last night.
"Or maybe you're thinking, 'Golly, if only I had driven down from Bozeman in a proper vehicle equipped with snow tires instead of an eco-friendly Prius that slides off the road whenever there's a minor gust of wind.'"
Nat glares at him. In a moment of desperate boredom, Natasha had texted Jake that maybe a little pollution never hurt anybody. In her defense, she was on her third hour of waiting for snow plows to clear the only road to Big Sky at the time while the rest of her dipshit friends were warm and cozy and busy calling dibs on the best – and then only – rooms in the Floyd Family Cabin, thus leaving Nat to now park it on the couch and deal with the fact that there is going to be no way that anyone in the squad will be calling it an early night just because they're getting wasted in what is effectively going to be her bedroom for the next few days.
In his defense, Jake had offered to come pick her up, but that would've been like admitting defeat and Natasha would rather deal with a week's worth of back pain than accept that she might have been a little too hasty with Operation Loose Lips Sink Ships So Let's Refuse to Acknowledge Each Other Lest We Capsize Like the Titanic.
She's still workshopping the name.
"Is it the 1950s in your head, Bagman?" Natasha asks with a grin as she finally turns around to find him wearing a mirror expression on his face. Except the only difference between them is that he's got that ever-present toothpick perched between his teeth as if he needs to draw any more attention to his stupid mouth.
As he saunters towards her, Jake starts talking again. "Perhaps you're thinking—"
"That I could just kill you and take your room like we're in one of those stupid slasher movies you made us marathon last Halloween?" If you've seen one dumbass in a hockey mask, you've seen them all. When he gets close enough, Natasha pokes his soft cable knit sweater with her index finger before resting her palm over his heart. "I have an excellent idea, Seresin! Let's go throw you off the side of a mountain!"
Jake smells like cinnamon and chili, which means that she has missed Rooster's famous Mexican hot chocolate, one of the only things that kept her going when she was sitting in that stupid Prius trying not to freeze to death. Jake leans forward ever so slightly – close enough to invade her space and for her to tilt his chin so she can give him a proper hello – before he disappears from her field of vision altogether to bend down and pick up her luggage.
"Come on. I'm in the attic."
"Did you draw the short straw?"
"I offered," he says with a wide smile before leading the way up five billion steps to his own personal igloo.
What kind of idiot chooses to stay in the attic bedroom where it's at least ten degrees colder at all times and infinitely lonelier once the drinking games start?
"Always knew you were a sucker."
"You have, once again, failed to see the bigger picture."
Natasha bumps into Jake's back when he abruptly stops at their destination. For the first time in her life, Natasha wishes he were less solid because it feels a little bit like walking into a wall. Jake tosses her bag towards the corner of the room with the dresser before turning to her with a grin. He can be as nonchalant as he wants, but Natasha knows that it's killing a neat freak like him not to immediately assign her a drawer and offer to help her unpack. He's being smugger than usual so she has half a mind to live out of her luggage for the next few days just to spite him.
"Oh buddy, you got hoodwinked."
Jake rolls his eyes and starts ticking off reasons for why he didn't on his fingers. "Our inebriated friends will never make it up that many stairs to barge in and beg you to referee Pop Culture Trivial Pursuit while you're in the middle of pursuing higher forms of enlightenment."
Natasha laughs. "Wow. Your lack of self-confidence is heartbreaking, Bagman."
He shrugs. "I call it like I see it, Phoenix."
Natasha flips him the bird.
"Remind me to tell my hippie friends that I'm banging Yoda when we get home," Nat says before grabbing the throw on the foot of the bed and wrapping it around herself. While she will admit – only to herself – that rooming with Jake offers certain perks that she won't get from anyone else, it's so cold in here that she's seriously considering giving it up to crash with Halo instead.
"Two: you won't have to invent excuses to cuddle."
Jake pulls the blanket tighter around her before rubbing her arms up and down with his palms. He once told her that one of the biggest tragedies of his life was that his mother loved pie but he could never bake her one from scratch because of his hot hands. It sounded like complete nonsense at the time, a ploy to get Nat to bake his mother an apple pie for Mother's Day, but then he spent the rest of the afternoon pressing his hot hands all over her body and she forgot what she was supposed to be calling him out on.
"You volunteered to die of hypothermia so we could cuddle?" It's kind of sweet, if not completely deranged. Her face must be doing something stupid because then his face gets all goofy and soft so Natasha quickly asks, "Should I swoon right now or wait until we become icicles?"
"Sharing body heat to stay warm is a classic. No need to reinvent the wheel, Trace."
"At this point, I might just take my chances and freeze to death," she mumbles.
"Third, and perhaps most importantly," Jake says conspiratorially in a growl so low that Natasha can practically feel the gravel under her feet, "is that it is so secluded in the attic that sound does not carry from up here to down there. You can feel free to scream my name as loud as you want, babe."
"Careful, baby. You basically just told me that our pals will be none the wiser if I stab you in the middle of the night."
"Aww, honey! You said if and not when!" Jake coos before pulling her into his personal space. Natasha's starting to feel the strain from rolling her eyes so often in his presence, but she lets her body go with momentum anyway. There's like a forcefield of heat around him at all times, which is extremely annoying in the summer when he can't stay away from her, but incredibly welcome in the winter when she can't stay away from him. She tugs him closer now because, well, Natasha is freezing. Jake marvels, "We're basically in a Hallmark movie."
"You're the only one of us who watches Hallmark movies, dumbass."
"There is always room in the—"
"Is this where you try to paint your love of country music stars turned television Christmas movie personalities as something noble?"
Before Jake can answer her, Natasha kisses him because she cannot listen to him talk about the cinematic ecosystem again simply because he took one film studies elective in college and now has decided to use it to justify his dubious taste in movies for the rest of his life.
Jake punctuates each word with a kiss when he says, "You're probably thinking, 'Gee willikers, Jake sure is a genius,' right?"
"I'm thinking that Jake better stop talking and warm me up before I leave him here to cuddle with himself for the rest of our leave."
Natasha can feel him smile against her mouth before Jake finally shuts up and starts making good on proving his elaborate checklist of reasons why she should keep him around.