Chapter 5
Sofia didn’t mean to break the internet
She really didn’t, it was an accident, she swears. Her mums called her for dinner, and she hadn’t done her homework and Auntie Yelena had taught to to make the videos she just pressed ‘post publicly’ accidently…
It didn’t mean anything…right?
Wrong.
---
Fans go wild over viral tiktok of Black Widow and SHEILD Commander
Fans of the Avengers have gone crazy over a video posted by an anonymous account last night. In under 24 hours the 15 second tik tok video has had over 10 million views and hundreds of thousands of comments, leaving the world wondering if our illusive Black widow is in love with Commander Maria Hill, Deputy Director of SHEILD and most well known for her public work managing the Avengers team and missions.
But lets start with seeing the video
[video file:
Its to an automated sounded, the videos blurry at first, all you can hear is the sound
‘I hate love, but when she loves me…’ and carries on playing as the camera peeks out from behind a door.
Natasha Romanoff is easily recognizable stirring a pot of something on a high tech stove, humming to herself and dancing a bit on the spot, then Maria Hill sneaks up on her from behind. She gently touches the back of Nat’s waist and the redhead spins around, smiling so wide when her eyes meet Marias. Then she leans her arms over marias shoulders (kind of comedically given the height difference) and, still staring into her eyes she begins to rock from side to side. Maria laughs for a moment, then rests her other hand on Nat’s waist dancing with her for a moment, then unclasping nat’s hand from her shoulder and twirling her, laughing as Natasha laughs, then leaning her head in and kissing Nat’s forehead, the redhead melts into her touch and leans against her even more. Then the music notes pops up and its over
---
Maria and Natasha wake up at 5:30 am.
Or rather, Maria does, Natasha wakes her, kisses her goodbye, rolls over, starfishing on the now clear bed and falls back asleep. But, before Maria even gets out the door she walks into Pepper, as in literally into Pepper
‘Oh thank god Maria’ Pepper sighs, still in her pjs and with a tablet in her hand ‘I guess you and Nat have seen it, have you got Yelena and Sofia yet, its not their fault but the PR team are waiting on control, depending on what you want to do, we could say it’s a hoax or a fake or…’
Maria pinches herself to make sure shes not dreaming and squints at Pepper
‘what are you talking about’
‘oh god you haven’t seen it’ Peppers whole face falls ‘wake the others up Hill, I’m sorry but we need to sort this out’
‘what out, what happened?’ Maria is royally confused and watches in silence as Pep gets the video up on her tablet, her face falling into its passive blank commander state
‘Can you get Nat? I’ll wake Sofia up, we cant wait until later to fix this’ she rubs her hand over her face and pulls out her phone
‘I’ll tell Fury I cant work today’
‘good, allright, I’ll meet you in the lounge in 10 minutes’
---
Pepper sneaks into Natashas room to find her spread out across the bed, one foot on the pillow and her arm handing off the end, snoring slightly
‘Nat’ she whispers, reaching out to shake her gently ‘Nat’
And then she screams because in a moment, a knife is at her throat and Natasha is glaring into her eyes
‘oh my god’ Nat blinks and in a moment her hand is dropped
‘Im so sorry Pepper, I didn’t mean to, I just… . you aren’t my wife’ Natasha laughs slightly and Pepper starts to breathe again
‘’that’s allright Nat, I know you don’t like being woken up by anyone other than Maria, but there’s a problem, we need you in the lounge’
‘allright’ natasha stretches like a cat and turns on the light ‘what time is it’
‘6am’ Pepper replies quickly as Nat pulls on a hoodie ‘can you wake Yelena too.. I don’t want to…’
‘get stabbed?’ Nat questions ‘sure, ill do that’ and then they part ways, Natasha still wondering what the hell is going on
---
‘Sofia’ Maria whispers, opening her daughters door and walking towards the bed ‘Anya, wake up honey’
‘is it school already’ Sofia groans, rolling over and blinking sleepily up at Maria
‘no, but we have a bit of a problem your mama and I need to talk to you about’
‘okay’ Sofias brows crease and she stumbles out of bed, taking the duvet with her and wrapping it around her tightly as she waddles towards the door ‘why cant it wait until the morning?’
---
Natasha watches the video with her head in her hands and maria’s arm around her shoulders
‘how did you? How did it…. I mean how did they this footage, that was last week I think, FRIDAY was the only one watching-‘ but she cut off by Sofia’s sobs
‘I didn’t mean to’ she cries ‘I swear it was an accident, me and Auntie Lena only made it as a joke, It was just a cute video, I was going to show you but I just put my phone down and must have clicked something by accident’
‘oh shit’ Yelena groans ‘I taught her to make them, they are cool you know, she wanted to know and I helped her make something cute for you guys, I didn’t think this would happen’
Maria and nat look at each other for a moment
‘did you seriously make this, is this your account?’ maria asks seriously and Yelena nods
‘we made it as a joke, people love the app and I thought it might be fun to watch some videos together, as I downloaded it on Sofias phone’ the blonde walk over to the table and pics it up, logging on and opening tiktok
‘woah, yeah, this is the one’ she hold up her page which is overloaded with ‘video liked’ and ‘you have a new comment’ messages
Pepper grabs it and scrolls though
‘you guys, wow, I mean the PR team told me searches about the avengers and especially you two had gone up 560% but I didn’t believe them… this is…. You guys broke the internet’ she laughs slightly, Sofia peaks over her shoulder and starts to read some of the comments
‘lesbians unite, we have our protectors’ she grins slightly ‘finally an LGBTQ hero, so pleased these two came out, so proud of them #blackhill’ then her face falls slightly ‘I don’t want people like this protecting me, I don’t feel safe in my own country anymore #firehill #blackwidowisamurderer’ her eyes scan further down the page, taking in all the comments, good and bad but focussing on the bad, focussing on the people saying they hate the avengers, they hate her mums, they don’t feel safe, they don’t want these people protecting when. Then her screen turns black and Sofia looks up.
Yelenas hand is on the off button
‘don’t read those’ she warns in a low voice, her accent coming out tickly ‘they don’t know what theyre talking about’
‘what are we going to do?’ Nat looks up at Maria who sighs and leans against her wife a bit more
‘what we need to. I don think we’re in a position to deny this, I mean look at us’ she nods at the video still playing on Peppers ipad, the like just hitting 10.5 million ‘we look like we’ve been married for five years’
‘we have been married for five years’ Natasha rolls her eyes and Maria laughs slightly
‘exactly, we could deny it, but I don’t think they’d take our word for it, I men’ she looks over at Pepper ‘this isn’t the worst thing that’s happened to us, its was an accident’ she squeezes a still sniffling Sofia’s hand supportively ‘I think we should just go for it Nat’
Natasha bows her head and rubs her eyes roughly on the back of her hand and Maria immediately puts her arm around her, pullsing her head into the crook of her neck
‘Im scared Masha’ Natasha whispers ‘Ive got too much, I’ve got too much, too lucky and I cant lose it’
‘you wont’ maria smiles softly ‘all you’ll do is share it, all youll do it give so, so many young people yet another role model growing up. You will always be the Black Widow, but you will always still be Natalia Romanoff-Hill’
‘they’ll say stuff’ natasha tries, burying her head further into her comfy place
‘they always say stuff nat, always, they said stuff when you joined, when you fought, when you won, when you lost, when you declared over and over again that your not dating steve, that your not married to Clint’
‘yeah’ nat sniff
‘yeah?’
‘yes’ Natasha looks up at pepper ‘I don’t care, just… I guess, say what you like, what you need to’
‘okay’ pepper nods ‘you’ll have a press conference this afternoon, but its 6:30, Sofia you should probably get back to sleep before school today’
‘I wont want to go’ she sniffs and maria exchanges a look with nat
‘you don’t have to, just for today’ natasha grins slightly ‘just this once we’ll make an exception, I think we all just need a movie day yes?’
‘yeah’ sofia smiles weakly and Yelena punches her gently
‘hell yes’ she nods ‘totally, although press conference’ she rolls her eyes ‘done before, boring’
Pepper raises her eyebrows ‘and what are you suggesting?’
‘more videos’ Yelena shrugs ‘one million people have already followed the account, so we change the name, post some more, make it obvious, get some more support, we have social medias but Tiktok is new, you know its cool, even Taylor Swift is on here’ she waves the phone at maria who laughs
‘I mean, I think it would be fun’ she looks at Nat ‘have some fun with this, not deny it, not confirm it’
‘that could be fun’ Nat says, already formulating a plan in her head
‘PR would be good, I didn’t trust Tony or Steve or Clint with an account because well, theyd break the internet, but you guys… I think the world needs this’
‘allright’ Maria nods ‘we’ll manage it of course, get FRIDAY to scan everything though so everythings perfect and cant be edited or changed’
‘of course’ Pepper smiles, the passes the phone to Sofia
‘congratulations Miss Romanoff Hill, you are now the owner of the first tiktok account to hit 1 million followers in less than 24 hours’
Sofia smiles and hands it to Yelena ‘we have the power master’ she cackles and Yelena nods solemnly, a grin threatening to crack apart her mock serious face
‘indeed we do teysan, now, lets cause chaos’
Maria, Natasha and Pepper look at each other as the duo evil laugh, wondering what the hell they have done.