Okay modern day Billy is a tiktoker who makes thirst dance and silly acting challenges on tiktok. And has like 25 million followers.
And Steve is an indie movie actor who wants to be a director actually but nobody gives him a chance.
This two chosen as stars for a new Netflix gay movie. This is a big opportunity for Steve cause he can use that money for directing. But he fucking hates tiktokers. Especially Billy because he doesn't know how to act. He doesn't know the real straggles of being an actor without the connections, he was only there because he shakes his ass on tiktok. Also because that dumb blonde bitch is so fucking hot and it makes Steve's brain stop everytime he looked at that ass.
Summary: Steve Rogers was the ultimate golden boy, the actor was called a gentleman by some and too strict by others. On the contrary, you were the rebellious rock singer whose career was falling apart and needed an urgent fixing in your life.
Pairing: actor!steve rogers x f!singer!reader
Series Warnings: +18 (MDNI), fake dating, slow burn, fluff, angst, smut, mature themes, mention of drugs, soft!steve, brat!reader, language. | More warnings will be added as the story progresses. Please, be aware.
Words: 1.5K+
A/N: This is the first thing i wrote after years and also the first time i wrote something in english, please be nice about it!! This fic was inspired by @bucksfucks’s “faking it” which i love <3 i hope whoever reads this, enjoys it just as much as i enjoyed writing it.
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Observing your own form in the mirror reflection, you saw a foggy figure as a result of your tears, which stained your cheeks shamelessly. Your panting started to quiet down and your senses came back into you. You were sitting down on your legs, on your bedroom floor with your phone in your hands, open with a TMZ article displaying a set of private photos from your last night partying, with random men whilst your body was almost naked.
Your public image was descending in front of your eyes and you didn’t know what to do anymore. The articles were getting lousier each day that passed, but you couldn’t help but live the life you had. The parties, drugs and alcohol were too good to be turned down, even though the people around were too obnoxious to be trusted.
“You’re gonna get up and fix your shitty mess from ruining your career or you’re going to stay there, on the floor, crying a river?” Natasha, your best friend since the beginning of your career and your agent, leaning on your doorway arched an eyebrow as she waited for your next move.
You looked up in guilt and remorse for your previous behaviors but sorrow remained in your eyes. Natasha knew that you were done with that routine, and you’re terrified of the following consequences, which consists in your record label threatening your million-dollar contract to be over way earlier than the deal, leaving you with a million-dollar debt.
Rubbed your humid face struggling to dry it up, due to your unstopping tears. “I hate crying.” You mumbled, sniffing your tears away.
“You know that I will always support you crying because you kinda need to, but this is not the right time to do so, honey. I’m sorry.” Natasha gazed with an apologizing look on her face, she felt upset for being so rough and plain about her best friend's feelings, but that’s what her job demands of her at that moment, and she couldn’t let it down.
“I know, Nat. S’fine.” Your legs trembled as you got up from the floor, and shift your body to the top of your big silky bed, not looking much to Nat but you could feel her eyes following your body. You sensed that her heart was aching and hurting for you and you didn’t like to put the people you love in this type of position.
“You know is not fine, we need to fix all of this.” Nat says as she sits beside you in your bed. You start cracking your finger joints from anxiousness, as the feeling of being impotent and defenseless rises up in your chest even more.
“My bad reputation is too far up in the press, Nat. They’re going to break up the contract, they warned me. But I'm fucking stupid to listen.” You rumbled, shaking your head believing you’re done for in Hollywood.
“There’s one thing you promised you would never do, but it’s time.” Nat grinned hopeful you would accept it.
You promised yourself you would never be in a relationship where you don’t sincerely like the person, especially for press and looks. You believed your whole purpose in the music industry was to be authentic and the most real possible, because it reflected and affected your actual music.
“Nop” You projected the “p”. “Absolutely not, I can’t do a PR stunt, you know I’m a terrible liar. If I hate the person it’s gonna show on my face the whole time and...”
“That’s your last chance, Y/N.” Nat interrupted you with a serious glare. “We need to do this. We need to try.”
With eyes unfocused and staring at the walls, you took a couple of minutes to think about the situation you were about to face.
Taking the deepest breath you ever took, you eyed her. “I’m down, Nat. But I beg you, don’t put me with a boring bland vanilla ass boy” With supplicating eyes, you pleaded.
“Oh, you’re going to hate who I choose then.” Nat smirked mischievously, and you pouted. “Come on, is going to be fun. I promise.”
Growling into your pillow, you replied. “You’re lucky I like you, redhead.”
---
Steve entered the white and icy-looking office, with his agent (and best friend) Sam by his side and Natasha guiding the both of them to sit in from of her glassy desk.
“So, I would like to start this conversation by thanking the both of you for agreeing to do a meeting so promptly and early in the week.” Natasha set down in her chair, with a sincere grin on her lips.
“The email came in a good time actually, so we appreciate it that you thought about Steve in this... situation.” Sam initiated the talking, trying to carry through the topic as lighter as he could. “If you let me ask so, where is your client?”
Natasha stiffed up, correcting her posture. “She is coming, I’m sorry that she is a little bit late.” She grinned apologetically at the men.
“I’m excited to meet her, I don’t think we ever met.” Steve finally said something. He felt fidgety and uneasy since Sam received the email from Natasha proposing a PR Stunt, between him and you.
He knew who you were and heard all the gossip that ran around Los Angeles streets, about how much bold, shameless and cocky you could be in your nights out. Steve thought you were overly pretty, had an incredible voice and your stage presence was to die for, but believed your lifestyle wasn’t for him to duplicate.
Steve was, in fact, a sweet man, extremely gentle and soft-spoken. His parents raised him to be out of trouble at all times, shaping him to be a gentleman and very so often a naïve person, oblivious from some malicious situations. He didn’t smoke and only drank on special occasions and some of his coworkers thought he was too uptight for a Hollywood star, that he was. He was truly uncorrupted from the harsh part of fame.
“I’m sure she will be... startled to see you.” Nat’s uncertain tone kept unnoticed by Steve but was perceived by Sam who arched his eyebrow in doubt.
“Nat, I swear to god why the fuck am I here so fucking early, I was...” You stopped midway through the sentence, widening your eyes trying to recognize the two strange men that stared at you.
Steve traced his eyes from your feet to your face, almost causing you to shiver with such tension that his blue eyes held. Never breaking eye contact, Steve got up walking towards you outstretching his hand.
You swore that the both of you lingered at the moment for what felt like hours, but you finally said something breaking the spell. “Hi...” You waited for his name.
The presentiment remained in your mind that you already saw the blond man before, but couldn’t recall from where.
“I’m Steve, it’s such a pleasure to meet you.” He gripped your hand gently but firmly and you examine the bigger hand around yours, sucking in a breath.
“A pleasure, uh?” Coming back to your senses, you chuckled.
His head tilted to the side and he frowned in confusion. He pulled back his hand, rubbing the back of his neck.
“Hm... what?” He slightly shook his head.
You said your name to him, and promptly look over to Natasha. “Is he the one?” You raised your eyebrows, talking about him as he wasn’t by your exact side.
Natasha took a deep breath, briefly rubbing her face in annoyance, preparing herself for whatever situation you were about to put her in. “This is Steve Rogers, he is an incredible actor and this is his agent, Sam Wilson.”
A smile plastered in Steve’s face, accepting the compliment, while Sam was doubtful about your character, yet.
“Let’s get this shit over with.” You strolled to the chair beside Steve’s, laying back with a sagged body completely relaxed.
A concerning look was plastered on Sam’s face, as he bluntly stared at you for your unprofessional behavior.
“Let’s do it!” A giggly Steve clapped his hands and set down beside you, unfazed by your attempt to make him uncomfortable.
So I am letting the muses carry me and writing something where Actor!Steve decides to go to college later in life to prove something to himself and rooms with Medical!Student Billy. It started with one line, “Just because you play a doctor on TV doesn’t mean I’m going to let you stick your fingers in my body Harrington.” And it’s just sort of growing wings. :) I don’t know why but this opening had me in stitches.
Dr. Joe died in a puddle of his own blood. It wasn’t the deadly virus he’d contracted doing emergency surgery in an elevator that got him in the end. It was the vengeful ex-girlfriend who’d shot him for going back to the wife he’d left for her. When Steve had given in to what his manager Frank was calling his ‘pre-midlife’ crisis, and decided to break his contract in order to return to school, he’d known there was going to be some mixed feelings about writing him off the show.
Still, he’d expected something along the lines of Dr. Joe making a hastily justified transfer to another hospital, discovering a sudden desire to treat orphans in Africa, or something. Anything that wasn’t so final.
Even he didn’t need help reading between those lines. You’re an idiot Harrington. Not the first time he’s heard that opinion and probably not the last. But, it’s the first time he’s decided not to agree. Or at least act like it. He was burning a bridge here, leaving a paying acting gig to pay a university a ludicrous amount of money to teach him acting. He definitely still felt like an idiot, but he figured after so many years the only way he was going to stop believing he couldn’t do it was just to do it. Steve Harrington was going to college to get a degree. Just because he can.
Stony Celebrity AU! No powers AU, Tony Stark is still himself for how he was before he became Iron Man and Steve is his gorgeous play actor BF who he watches for every opening night and every event together, especially Tony's galas.
Made for @tonystarkbingo adopted square, 'AU: Celebrity'
Watching the Emmy’s and I thought of your actor Steve and that cutie pie taking you as his date and checking on in you all night to make sure you’re okay😩😩
Oh baby, absolutely— you got it in one!
It’s the red carpet that’s the worst, all those flash bulbs and people calling your name asking when the next album will be, when’s the wedding, and could you turn a little to the left while you’re at it?
The old song and dance the heralds the beginning of the next six months of your life. Dinner invites and parties to swan through all on Steve’s arm. You know he dreads it, so you put on a brave face and soldier through.
Besides, the headlines are nowhere near as unsettling as the thinly veiled Deuxfaux blinds that circle you and Steve during awards season like sharks scenting blood in the water.
Except this year, unlike the last, Steve isn’t there to prop you up and let you whisper salacious and ridiculous things into his ear as the flashbulbs burst like so many dying stars.
And you’re just fine with that, as you smile and preen on the press line. You maneuver down the carpet with a deftness your publicist would beam at, calling reporters by name and batting your eyes for the cameras.
A sigh falls from your lips as you spy a familiar head of hair at the entrance of the carpet. He catches your eye with a secret smile, that luscious mouth you used to kiss stupid on the regular. Lips that would tickle the shell of your ear, breath hot on the nape of your neck, chest heaving as sweat-slicked hair brushed the smooth expanse of your back, and he thrust into the tight wet heat between your legs.
But that was then.
For now, you nod back demurely in reply, turning as your assistant guides you down the steps and into the theater. Resisting the urge to glare back at your big dumb and irritatingly distracting ex— well, boyfriend seems so much less than what he was.
Steve, Steve, Steve, the at one time glorious possibility of forever.
Summary: In the cathedrals of New York and Rome / There is a feeling that you should just go home
Pairing: past s.h. x f!oc
W.C.: 1.8k
Warnings: angst, rich people being, you guessed it, rich, sad boy steve, actor!steve, rockstar!reader
hit me like a hook of the right m.list
“Hey,” He says, stepping next to you in the Sackler wing as you eye the Temple of Dendur.
It’s a rare moment to yourself in an otherwise packed event. You sigh and take a sip from your champagne, thinking that maybe if you stay silent long enough you can simply will this moment away.
He looks good, but it’s not hard for a man to do at the Met Gala— show up in a tailored suit with an appropriate accessory and call it a day. His hair is longer, starting to curl at the nape of his neck in a way that makes you want to run your fingers through it.
“Hi,” You allow, keeping your gaze forward on the blocks of stone.
And there’s a million things you could say to him right now, but the most pressing and the one you will absolutely not bring yourself to ask is this: why did you let me go?
You’d rather not have to deal with tears after all the hard work Lisa an her team did on your face. Instead, you keep your eyes forward and take a steadying breath.
“You look good.”
You hum, as if in thought; not accepting the compliment but not out right denying it either. Because yeah, you know you look good— great, even after the past few months without him. And it’s not as drastic as changing your hair and dropping weight, but you’re healthy; you’re good.
The dull accompaniment of people meandering around the wing has fallen to a hush. Sure strides sound out against the pristine floors as a familiar hand falls to the small of your back. Part of you wants to lean into it, into him, all broad chest and the familiar scent of bergamot and spice.
Steve stiffens and takes another sip from his drink, ice clinking in the crystal glass.
The hand winds its way around your hip to settle against your stomach, warm and inviting. The scrape of his stubble against your hairline as he dips down to whisper in your ear sends a shiver through you.
“Ready to go?”
His lips, pink and full, graze the shell of your ear as you nod and turn in his grasp. He drops a kiss to your forehead and holds your glass as you crumple the fabric of your train in your grasp.
“Oh,” You say, taking a step toward the mezzanine. “This is my friend, Steve Harrington.”
He stops at your side, offering you an arm for balance that you gladly take, and goes to shake his hand.
“Nice to meet you man,” He says, pumping Steve’s hand in a firm shake. “I’m Sebastian.”
“I, uh,” Steve eloquently replies, eyes flitting between you and your escort. “Yeah, nice to meet you too.”
Greetings aside, Sebastian smiles at you and tosses over his shoulder, “See you in there!” His free hand wrapped around your waist as the pair of you navigate yourselves to the table for dinner.
A refreshed drink awaits you, thankfully, as you settle the skirt and train around your chair. Polite greetings and acknowledgements are made at the table as the first course arrives, but you can’t bring yourself to eat.
His hand is warm through the layers of tulle, organza, and silk against your thigh, a subtle squeeze every so often that says I’m here, I’ve got you.
Blue eyes, like storm at sea, meet yours as he takes a sip from his drink. And it must be clear from the expression on your face that something isn’t quite right. His fingers twine with yours and rest against his thigh, his thumb rubbing in circles on your hand.
There’s several courses to go, plus the schmoozing present at every industry event. You have a phone hand-off to do with the Loewe girls, and then there’s the after parties. Thank god you’re not performing this year— small miracles.
Picking up your fork, you make an effort to push some food across your plate as Alessandro speaks in rapid fire Italian to your right. You responses are polite and infrequent, you hear him mutter something like, “Cara mia,” before someone approaches your table.
“Sorry to interrupt,” He says, as your blood runs cold. “But could I just borrow her for a minute?”
Alessandro looks at you, dramatic eyebrow raise and everything, while Sebastian sits, seemingly unaffected.
“Well,” Your date replies, “I suppose that’s up to her.”
As if this night could get any worse.
Polishing off your drink, you quickly stand— the sooner you get this dealt with, the better. You give Alessandro an eye roll as you turn to go, pausing to kiss Seb on the lips.
“Be back in five,” You say, thumb grazing against his jawline. “Get me another drink?”
He nods, assured, and drops your hand only when forced, the distance growing between you.
Steve leads you back towards the Rockefeller wing, not stopping his stride until you’re in the Greco-Roman corner, stood in front of the marble statue of Aphrodite.
Your feet ache, your heels this evening weren’t exactly chosen with comfort in mind, and suck in breaths like nobody’s business— the bodice of your gown suddenly feeling tight.
“What do you want Steve?”
He runs a hand through his hair, frustrated, and stares at the statue before him. Like he can’t even look you in the eye.
And then, he laughs.
“Are you shitting me?”
His tone is cutting, incredulous, and cruel.
You cross your arms and don’t dignify his question with a response. As if he has any right to ask that of you.
“I mean, he’s not— You’re not—” He keeps cutting himself off, fearing the words may be true if he comes out and just says it.
“Together?”
Steve drops his hand from his hair and turns. Fuck. That was not a good idea.
You look amazing, you always do, and you’re definitely going to end up on a Best Dressed list of some kind for the evening. He’s heard enough rumblings to know you’re wearing something archival and looking damn good doing it.
You don’t take a step closer, nor do you look at him.
And, okay, he can admits that stings a little.
“That’s none of your business.”
Your voice is soft, but echoes in the cavernous wing nonetheless.
“Yeah,” He sighs, “I guess not.”
He just can’t wrap his head around it– you’re, well you, a Grammy-award winning artists who tours the globe and headlines things like Coachella. How can you be with someone like that? I mean, does this guy even know what Coachella is?
“What?” Your voice breaks the uncomfortable silence, “Your face is doing that thing Steve; what could you possibly want to say to me about my presumed relationship?”
“He’s just so…” Steve trails off, there really is no eloquent way to say this. “Old.”
Your scoff is loud and the expression on your face is— well, one he hasn’t exactly seen before. And he can’t say he likes being on the receiving end of it.
“Wow,” You say, stepping back and hitching your skirt in hand. “Sorry I’m not out there fucking every twenty-something that moves, Harrington.”
And yeah, he deserves that.
“But then again,” You toss over your shoulder as you turn to leave, “Babysitting was always more your forte.”
The red bottoms of your heels click as you walk away, back to the party and your date.
Steve feels like an idiot.
The plan was to play it cool and friendly, ask how you’d been and hopefully lead up to some sort of conversation. Instead, he got jealous. Saw the way someone who is not him wrapped his arm around you and how you sank back into him, comfortable, safe.
Saw the way he looked at you, bemused and adoring, the way he anticipated your movements and held your drink. And then, at dinner, how you smiled fondly at something he’d said or done, hands intertwined on his thigh.
And it was as if Steve’s chest was caving in. He couldn’t stop himself from walking over there under some false pretense, for just another moment of your time. How unaffected this man was, not even threatened by his current lover’s former lover, how he deferred to you and your decision.
Part of Steve wondered what that must be like, to be so secure in yourself and your relationship. Was that something that came with age, experience, or both? It did nothing to assuage the anger in his gut, even as you followed him out of the mezzanine and to the far corner of the main floor of the Met.
He wanted to say so many things, to ask if this man even knew where or what your favorite piece was in here. It was all he could think about during the red carpet and press line earlier this evening, how the two of you had somehow managed to go incognito one day last summer, before everything fell to shit.
How you’d spent hours at the Met, walking from one exhibit to the next. Talking about artists and color in hushed tones. You had never been much for religion, but you treated museums with more reverence than most penitents in a cathedral. How casually you’d asked his opinion on things he knew nothing about, reassured him that art wasn’t about critiquing schools or technique, but rather how it made you feel.
You’d drug him to the European paintings on that day, fingers slotted against his, tugging him along. Spoke softly about Buoninsegna’s Madonna and Child and it stuck him how small it was in comparison to the larger works, like Degas and Rembrandt. There were scorch marks from candles along the bottom of the frame, and you’d said it was because this was a piece in someone’s home– a personal altar.
People would pass it each and every day going about their lives, lighting candles in commemoration of the Virgin Mother and her Christ child. He remembers how you looked, awestruck underneath your ballcap, as if you were seeing it for the first time.
“Art should be for the people,” You’d said then, “The public. Things like this,” You’d gestured around the room, “Aren’t meant to be bought at Sotheby’s and displayed in millionaires homes alongside a Chagall or Kandinsky.”
And he’d agreed with you, he still does now.
So when he finds himself in front of the very same painting, Steve’s not all that surprised. As he studies the child’s hand, how how to seems to brush aside his mother’s veil, he wonders:
Does he know your favorite piece? How you like to loudly discuss that the artifacts from Greece, Egypt, Africa, and Asia should be returned to their ancestral homes, that it’s nothing more than theft that fills the coffers of museums? Does he, wrongly, assume that you prefer the ballerinas of Degas or a girl with a pearl earring?
Does he know you as well as Steve does did?
He knows he won’t get answers, and that he’s torturing himself by even thinking of them, of you. Steve sighs and leaves the empty exhibit room, wondering what he’d do if this feeling was to ever abate.
Afterall, how can he be homesick for a home that he has no right to call his own?
