Lavender Haze (Actor!Steve Rogers AU)

23

Arizona was busy in the studio some weeks later when Phil walked in and told them to stop.

She frowned, coming out of the booth and seeing him looking at her. And it was in a way that told her something was wrong. "We have a problem". He now said, sitting her down and showing her the never ending amount of articles that were popping up.

Pictures of her...

Messages exchanged between her and Steve during their deal....

Except the media were calling her a homewrecker, that they had cheated on Sharon and Eros , some of the messages published making it look all the more damning.

A source had claimed that someone had hacked the phones, claiming that the pair of them had been embroiled in this 'affair' since Steve and Sharon had been dating. Another suggested that Arizona herself had leaked them to gain more press attention, as well as to use it to try and break Steve and Sharon apart.

"Oh my god..." Her voice broke, almost dropping Phil's phone. "Those pictures...they were private! They were only meant to be between me and him! Who the fuck has done this!" She was shaking with anger and upset, hot tears now weeping from her eyes. "We never cheated, we were doing what we did long before we got into our current relationships - oh fuck, Eros!" She grabbed her phone, already seeing the missed calls and texts from him.

Phil tried to calm her. "Ok, time to calm down and think about this".

"What's there to think about? Who in their right fucking mind is gonna believe me this time around with my history of men!" She told him in a panicked tone. "Phil, I need you to be a manager for a moment, not my step dad - be honest with me, how bad is it already?"

She didn't even know why she was asking this, because she already knew from the amount of articles just how much.

He looked at her seriously. "It's not good, and I don't think something like this is just gonna blow over like the other shit you've had thrown at you..." He would always tell her the truth no matter how dire the situation was.

She put her head in her hands. Have you spoke to Fury?" Knowing that he'd probably spent most of the last hour on the phone with Steve's manager, trying to work out how to save their images.

"Yeah, they're trying to sort something out, just as we are - I'll be keeping in contact with him about what the plan is, we may need to comment on it, but at the moment we're both agreeing not to until we can figure this out for you guys".

"Of course I'll be the one getting the most hate - whether I speak out my innocence or not, I always am". She now half laughed at the fact that Steve would probably be going about his usual business while she was left to take the slander for them both.

Phil now shook his head. "Believe me, he'll be feeling the repercussions of this too".

"For something that went on BEFORE our relationships started!" Arizona finally exploded. "He's gonna get to go about his usual day to day business, and I'm gonna be painted the villain and will have to crawl back to my cave to lie low once again!"

"It's probably best that we get out of here while we can. I have security coming to get us so we can head to your home in Vermont. Security is being set up there too". He looked sadly at her. "Sometimes it's best to just say nothing though, these things will always come back to bite someone in the ass".

"Yeah, and it's usually me". She sniffed, wiping the tears away. "They want me to go away, it's been an hour since these stories started appearing and already they're saying my career is dead after this". Now graining as Eros began calling again.

Phil took the phone, reading the message from Eros and deciding to now break the news to her just yet, and then looked at Arizona. "Ari...things will be ok. We'll go to Vermont and from there we'll see what we can do to salvage what we can".

"The only thing I can do is put out a statement, I know you don't want me to, but people need to hear my side before I give them what they want. Whether they choose to believe it? That's on them".

He nodded. "If that's what you wanna do, I'll have Wanda look over what you decide to put out".

"Then black out all my social media. People are only gonna send messages on instagram and twitter. I can't be dealing with being called something that I'm not". She now got up and they went to pack what they needed.

Arizona had no idea just how long she'd spend there, but all she knew was that she wouldn't be seen by the public for months to come...