Just Pretend (Gavi x Reader)

Chapter 1: Tinder

The truth was that y/n was extremely talented at what she did. She grew up watching football with her father and brother, developing an interest in working in sports professionally. She worked herself half to death during high school to be accepted into a sports science program in the U.S. She interned with the college teams there, learning about sports injuries and treating them. She finished her program in three years, and despite programs across Europe fighting for her, she came back to Barcelona to finish her physiotherapy certification. She would be lying if she said it was just for her family and friends. The program in Barcelona advertised opportunities to work with F.C. Barca, her favorite football club since birth. It was a love she inherited from her father, as shown by all her childhood pictures in the Blaugrana uniform.

The program was harder than expected. She was one of 7 female first year students, and the only girl in her year that wanted to work with the first team. y/n was made aware that this might work to her advantage now that professional football was pushing for more female representation (in referees, coaching staff, and now on the medical team). The guys in her class either hated her guts or wanted to sleep with her (sometimes both) - it really was like legally blonde without the law.

In the middle of August, close to the beginning of the new season, all the applicants for the Barca placement were called into the university on a Sunday. Their professor introduced Dr. Gonzales, the head physiotherapist for the club. y/n started to sweat despite the air conditioning hitting her directly. She was terrified to even breathe wrong in the presence of this man.

"It's a pleasure to be here with you all today. Thank you for your hard work in submitting to fill the assistant physiotherapist position at F.C. Barcelona. Now, there have been rumors that we are hiring a student to fil this position because it is cheaper and we are broke, but I would like to assure you all now that it's not true."

The two boys in front of her snickered quietly, one whispering a "yeah right" to the other. Dr. Gonzalez looked up at the boys. "You two giggling in the back. You don't seem like the type we need at Camp Nou. You can leave now." Everyone in the room sat up straighter after that. Everyone was on military behavior, not wanting a wrong look or a chair squeak to blow their chance. "As many of you know, one of our strikers, Ousmane Dembélé, presents with consistent right hamstring tightness, leading to frequent injuries."

As Dr. Gonzalez turned to face the screen, y/n found enough bravery to pull out a pen and paper to take notes. The doctor continued to describe the player's condition, his playing style, and the current course of treatment being used. After speaking for 25 minutes (while facing the screen instead of the students), he turned around and addressed them. "Your project is to develop a continuous muscular therapy treatment for Dembélé in the next two days. The best and most cost effective method gets the job placement. You at the back," he pointed at y/n, "Smart choice to take notes. I advise you not to share."

Y/n drove home that evening checking her rear-view mirror every few seconds. The possibility of being followed by one of her classmates so they could steal her notes was low, but never zero, and so she did both of the locks tightly on the door. She sat at her computer and got to work right away. Truth be told, she felt like the whole assignment was kind of a trick. Dr. Gonzalez had told them the current treatment plan for Dembélé, which had obviously been working seeing as they kept using it. She made a few adjustments based on leg dominance and the anticipated excess strain of playing more minutes each game, and then she decided to facetime her friend Angelika while she made the PowerPoint look pretty.

"Good evening Dr. y/l/n, finally ready to ask for my hand in marriage? My parents always wanted me to marry into medicine." y/n rolled her eyes and smirked. She had met Angelika when she was living in the US through a Facebook group for Spanish students studying abroad. Ever since then, not a day had gone by where they hadn't spoken (except once when Angelika had dropped her phone into a pint of beer and couldn't get it fixed for three days).