Summary: After acting in various genres of films your whole life, you're used to being noticed in public. Just not by her or her daughter.
Word Count: ≈1000
Warnings: none, fluff
Reading time: ≈7 mins
Type: drabble
req: tumblr anon
You were no stranger to people approaching you in the streets, asking for pictures and hugs and autographs.
Sometimes you could barely walk down the street without someone noticing you. Not to mention the paparazzi.
But there was a certain person you never expected to attract attention from.
You sit down in the usual back booth in your favourite coffee shop, th quiet one on a little side street. One that barely had customers this early in the morning.
Except from another two customers at a table in the corner. A blonde haired woman, and, you assume, her daughter, sharing a plate of toast and a bowl of fruit.
You yawn slightly, ordering a coffee from the nearby waitress. The young girl glances over her mother's shoulder at you, maybe recognising your voice.
You'd acted in a little of everything over the years. From kids programmes to action films to horror to tragedy. It was understandable the girl might recognise your voice.
What you didn't expect, was for her to continue staring intently at you long after your coffee arrived.
“Rose, stop staring,” her mother chided, chewing another bite of toast.
“Nuh uh! I know her!” The girl, Rose, whispered like this was a state secret.
“That doesn't mean it polite to stare.”
The woman's voice sounded vaguely familiar to you. Identifiable from somewhere, but you couldn't place your finger on it. You'd met a lot of people with a lot of voices throughout your career.
It wasn't until a few minutes later when the woman sighed, stood up, and approached your booth.
“Hey, I'm really sorry.” She begins, but you interrupt her accidentally as you look up from your phone.
“Holy shit. Sorry— uh...hey. Hi.” You stutter out slightly. So yeah, you've met people. Not Scarlett Johansson. Not even close.
“Hi. My daughter thinks she knows you from somewhere?” She continues. “It's silly, she's probably dreamt it or something, but— actually...you do look familiar.”
“I could say the same about you,” you try for a joke, but it just sounds stupid. Stupid joke.
“Scarlett,” she adds, holding her hand out like she needed an introduction. “Johansson.”
“Y/N. Y/L/N.”
Her eyebrows rose a little, recognition now, maybe. “Ah, that's where she knows you from. You acted in Witch School Dropout, right? My daughter loves that show.”
“Yeah. It was my first acting job.”
“You wouldn't come and say hi to her, would you?” She asks carefully.
“Like you're someone I can just say no to.”
Scarlett laughs softly at that. Not the polished red carpet laugh you’ve heard in interviews. A real one. Slightly surprised. Slightly embarrassed. “Well, that’s a dangerous amount of power to give me this early in the morning.”
You grin a little despite yourself and slide out of the booth with your coffee still in hand. “Guess I’m legally obligated now.”
“Exactly.”
She leads you back toward the small corner table where Rose is very obviously trying to pretend she isn’t watching the entire thing happen.
The second you stop beside the table, Rose’s eyes go huge.
“Oh my God,” she whispers.
“Hi,” you say, crouching slightly so you aren’t towering over her. “Your mum tells me you’ve apparently seen Witch School Dropout.”
Rose gasps like you just confirmed the existence of magic itself. “You’re actually her.”
“That is generally how acting works, yeah.”
Scarlett snorts into her coffee.
Rose looks horrified for a second, like she thinks she’s in trouble for recognizing you, before words start spilling out of her all at once.
“I watched all six seasons and the Halloween special and the movie and the behind-the-scenes thing where you fell off the broom and—”
“Oh no,” you groan immediately, covering your face. “Not the broom video.”
“It was funny!”
“It was humiliating.”
“You cried!”
“I was twelve!”
Scarlett is openly laughing now, one hand half-covering her mouth as she watches the exchange. “There’s a broom video?”
“There shouldn’t be,” you mutter darkly.
Rose beams at you like you’ve personally made her entire year. “You’re my favorite character.”
You place a hand dramatically over your chest. “This is actually devastating for the other actors.”
“She made me watch that show six times,” Scarlett tells you.
“Seven,” Rose corrects.
“Seven,” Scarlett sighs. “I still have the theme song stuck in my head.”
Without warning, Rose starts humming it.
“Oh, absolutely not,” Scarlett says instantly.
You burst out laughing.
And there it is again — that weird disconnect in your brain.
Because Scarlett Johansson should not feel this…normal.
Not sitting in a tiny coffee shop with messy morning hair and stolen pieces of toast from her daughter’s plate. Not laughing so hard at a stupid broom accident that she has to set her coffee down.
But she does.
“You’re younger than I expected,” Scarlett says after a second, looking at you properly now.
You shrug lightly. “Occupational hazard of being a child actor.”
“That bad?”
“You ever have a stranger cry because they watched your character die?”
Scarlett pauses. “…fair point.”
Rose narrows her eyes suddenly. “Wait. Mom, you know her too.”
You blink. Scarlett blinks. “Well,” Scarlett says carefully, “I know of her.”
“No, you got excited.”
“I did not.”
“You said ‘holy shit.’”
You choke on your coffee a little while Scarlett closes her eyes briefly like she’s been betrayed by her own child.
“Oh my God,” you laugh. “You recognized me?”
Scarlett points a finger at you immediately. “In my defense, you were not supposed to be sitting in a random coffee shop at seven in the morning looking like a normal teenager.”
“Rude.”
“It’s true.”
“You literally played Black Widow.”
“And you’re literally the kid from half my daughter’s childhood.”
Rose looks between both of you like she’s witnessing something historic.
“You’re both famous.”
The silence that follows is genuinely painful.
Then you and Scarlett both say, at the exact same time:
“Unfortunately.”
That completely breaks the tension.
Rose giggles so hard she nearly knocks over her orange juice while Scarlett laughs beside her, head dropping slightly forward.
You don’t know why the moment settles somewhere warm in your chest.
Maybe because usually being recognized feels loud. Exhausting. Performative.
But this doesn’t.
This is just a sleepy little coffee shop and a kid excited about a show she loves and Scarlett Johansson stealing strawberries off her daughter’s plate when she thinks nobody notices.
Normal.
Weirdly, wonderfully normal.
Scarlett glances at the untouched seat across from them. “You in a rush?”
You hesitate.
Not really.
“…depends,” you say slowly. “Am I about to get interrogated about broom-related workplace incidents?”
Rose lights up instantly. “YES.”
Scarlett grins over the rim of her coffee. “Then yeah. Probably.”
