With thanks to my awesome beta readers, gth694e, Jep and IshyMaria.
This is another part of my "Second Fiddles" series. It's better if you've read the main story, but you can probably read this on its own, assuming you accept that Coulson is married to a cellist who lives in Portland.
For a guy who, seventy years after his untimely death, came back to save the world, Steve Rogers had made a lot of enemies. Most of these were fairly pedestrian, by superhero standards: Fox News had booked Captain America precisely once, and subsequently had to fake a broadcast outage to get Steve's impassioned defense of New Deal social democracy off the air. (Several residents of Avengers Tower saved the footage of him steamrolling Sean Hannity and kept it for when they were feeling down.) Apart from HYDRA, who wanted him dead on principle, and AIM, who wanted him for parts, every supervillain worth his spandex wanted a shot at Captain America for the bragging rights and street cred alone.
And they were getting inventive. An enterprising-if-none-too-bright malcontent bought a book of Ancient Norse Magicks off a lady at a flea market, which – to his surprise as much as anyone's – turned out to be the real deal. Enclosed in this book was an ancient spell used to rid the world of an otherwise-unbeatable foe; the magic would cause one person's hugr and munr to be placed into another person's body, and vice versa. If the caster chose his secondary victim carefully, he could place the enemy's spirit into a much weaker person and kill that person's body. In three days' time, the spell would reverse itself. The weaker person's spirit would be released to whatever afterlife he deserved, and the enemy's body would lapse into a coma and eventually die.
This was the theory.
In practice, on the other hand, while the newly christened Odin's Bane managed to get the shot off and managed to swap Steve Rogers' spirit into a theoretically much weaker body, the rest of the Avengers took umbrage before he could complete step two. He was subdued and captured in relatively short order.
The upshot of all this was that when Phil Coulson woke up and staggered to his feet, he was more than eight inches taller, with his center of gravity nowhere near where he expected it to be. Stunned, he looked down at his suddenly star-spangled outfit.
Holy SHIT, this uniform's tight.
….
They debriefed at HQ, in SHIELD's most secure conference room, while Bruce slept off Hulk's appearance. Coulson ran the post-mortem, as he always did, but did it in Steve Rogers' body, which meant that the team was mostly just staring at him and paying even less attention than usual. Steve sat, worried and subdued, trying to take notes with an unfamiliar set of fingers; Hawkeye glowered and fumed (as he seemed to do every time Coulson got hit with anything); Romanov kept examining both Steve and Coulson, looking for tells in behavior; Tony kept snapping pictures; only Thor was taking this appearance of magic in stride, but he was taking the incident as a whole very personally.
"A knave's trick!" Thor thundered. "A vile and perfidious magic, fit only for cowards! That he should even dare speak my father's name, much less steal it for such base poltroonery!"
"We'll deal with him, Thor. Our first priority has to be to get that book off world," said Coulson.
"Aye," agreed Thor angrily. "I will return it to my lady mother to be disposed of safely. And I will ask her if its effects may be remedied sooner, but I would swear on my life it should last no more than three days."
"It's just the damndest thing, looking at the two of you. I mean, it's obviously you, right, but it's like your faces are trying to do impressions of the other person's expressions and you're really, really succeeding," said Tony.
"Did you even hear a word that was just said, Stark?"
"Yes. 72 hours, stay at the Tower, Thor's going to go ask Momma if she can speed the whole thing up. I can multitask, Agent Spangles."
"Hawkeye, you and Steve head back to the Tower. Stark and I will join you as soon as we're finished wrapping up – "
"Wait, what? Why am I on paperwork detail?"
"Please, Tony, for once, just don't argue," said an exhausted Steve Rogers from Phil Coulson's mouth.
Tony, amazingly enough, quieted down.
"Thank you, Captain," said Coulson-in-Rogers. "If Thor doesn't have a faster solution, we'll just make sure to keep a low profile for the next three days. Agreed?"
Steve-in-Coulson nodded, as did the rest of the table.
….
Clint and Steve-in-Coulson left to head back to Avengers Tower, and Natasha went to check on Bruce, which left Coulson-in-Rogers and a bitterly-complaining Tony Stark in Coulson's office.
"I have people for paperwork. My people have people for paperwork. I don't see why I have to be the one doing it. You'd think you'd be in a better mood, getting to live out a childhood dream like this..." said Tony.
"If you'd actually fill out the forms instead of whining about it, we'd be done by now."
There was a knock on the door.
"Ignore it. I'm not officially here," said Coulson.
"Seriously? Is that what you do when I come by? Because I think I'm hurt..."
The knock came again, louder this time. "Open up, Coulson! It's Sitwell, and I know you're in there!"
Coulson rolled Steve Rogers' eyes, causing Stark's jaw to drop. "I can't believe I just saw that."
"Open the damn door, Stark!" snapped Coulson.
Jasper Sitwell stepped in, and closed the door behind him. He stared at Coulson-in-Rogers, absolutely boggled.
"Holy SHIT! It's actually true!" he said. "I thought Hill was bullshitting me!"
"Creepy, isn't it?" asked Tony.
Coulson shrugged. Usually, he'd mutter something about having been through weirder things, but this time he really hadn't.
"We've got to get you to SciOps. How the fuck did this happen?"
"No," said Coulson definitively. "Not SciOps, not this time. Right now, both he and I are vulnerable. If the transition back happens in three days, as Thor swears it will, we'll do it in front of all the monitoring equipment we can get our hands on, but until then, nobody can know."
"It's going to be hard to keep a lid on it. There are already rumors..." said Sitwell.
"I know. But it's only for seventy-two hours. We can manage for that long." Coulson's computer chimed an alarm. He glanced over to it.
Oh CHRIST.
"Stark, you've got to fly me back to the Tower. Right now."
"Taking the car would be lower profile," said Jasper.
"No, it's got to be right now! Come on, Stark!" He rushed to the door, but pulled the door handle hard enough that it came off in his hand. Dammit!
"Easy there, Tiger! Where's the fire?" asked Tony.
"Alys got in late last night. We were planning to meet for lunch!"
Sitwell and Stark traded a look.
"Lunch? Is that what the kids are calling it these days?" Tony grinned lewdly.
Sitwell sniggered. "What's on the menu?"
"Just get me there, Stark!"
….
Steve Rogers paced the common room on the top floor of the Tower, alone. Hawkeye had gone downstairs to change into civvies, and while Steve wanted nothing more than to get out of Coulson's suit, none of the clothing in his own suite was going to fit him. Hawkeye promised to bring him back a pair of sweats and a t-shirt, until Coulson got back and could let them onto his floor.
He fumbled a little while trying to loosen the tie, his fingers clumsy uncoordinated as they fussed with the knot. He desperately wanted to go to his own floor and draw – it was his preferred way of relieving tension – but given that he could barely write a legible sentence with Coulson's hands, he was pretty sure trying anything would just make him more frustrated. He heard the elevator door open behind him, and he turned.
Oh SHIT.
A fiery-eyed Alys Simon strode up to him, much taller than he'd remembered. She placed her hands on his waist and nipped his earlobe before whispering in his ear, "Did you forget about lunch? I'm wearing that thing you bought me..."
She pulled him down into the hottest, filthiest, most erotically-charged kiss it had ever been his pleasure to receive. He didn't want this. He needed to stop this! But oh, it was starting to become hard to think...
Rescue came in Hawkeye's unlikely form.
"Oh fuck! Alys! Stop!" the archer cried.
Alys jumped away guilty. "Oh! Clint! I didn't realize you were here... I'm so sorry, Phil and I were just headed downstairs," she said, blushing like a teenager.
"No, we weren't," said Steve-in-Coulson, finally finding his voice, "I... I... Alys, you're going to want to sit down. This is going to be a bit hard to believe."
Alys' brow wrinkled and she remained standing. "Are okay? What happened?"
"There was a guy. Who used magic. To make Rogers and Coulson..." Hawkeye stammered on the last words.
"... swap bodies," finished Steve, and nodded earnestly.
"Really," she said, eyebrow raised.
"It's the truth!" said Steve-in-Coulson. It didn't help that his voice cracked.
Alys' other eyebrow went to join the first. "Have you two been drinking?"
Before they could deny it, there was a commotion from the landing pad, and Coulson-in-Rogers rushed in, followed by Iron Man. "Oh thank God," said Coulson-in-Rogers. "Did you try to explain?"
"Sort of..." said Hawkeye sheepishly.
"You can't tell me the two of you are in on this, too!" She stared at the four of them, tapping her foot. "I have no idea what the point of these... shenanigans might be, but this joke has been carried on far past the limits of good taste. I'm going downstairs." She turned and headed for the elevator.
Coulson-in-Rogers stepped up to her and grabbed her shoulder. Leaning close, he whispered something in her ear, then leaned back to see her reaction, looking worried and earnest.
Alys jerked away as if she'd been burned, and recoiled a couple of steps. Her face went sheet white, then beet red. She covered her mouth with her hands, then lowered them so she could speak.
"You're not serious!" she whispered.
Coulson-in-Rogers nodded.
"Oh. Oh. I see. My apologies, everyone." She cleared her throat, her eyes going back and forth between the two men. "Do excuse me. I... I... need some air." She raced outside onto the balcony and gripped the railing with white knuckles.
Phil-in-Steve turned to his counterpart and gestured to where Alys stood. "I have to..."
"Of course," replied Steve-in-Phil.
"We'll... ah... stay where you can see us." said Phil-in-Steve awkwardly.
"Thank you," said Steve-in-Phil, blushing furiously.
"I swear to God, it's fucking bizarre to see Coulson's face blush like that," Phil heard Barton say as he headed out the door.
….
Phil stood next to Alys at the railing while she drew deep breaths.
"If it's any consolation, you can now say that you've kissed Captain America..." he ventured tentatively after a few minutes.
Her eyes went wide again. "How did you know?
He gestured to his own face. "He hasn't thought to wipe off the lipstick yet."
"Oh, dear God!"
"Relax. It's not like it wasn't an entirely reasonable assumption to make."
She looked up at him, then away again. "What happened!? How on Earth..!?"
"How on Asgard, more like. A crank got ahold of an actual Asgardian spellbook and started experimenting. He figured out a way to perform a sort of personality swap. Captain Rogers and I got hit with the results."
"Asgardian? Please, Phil, please tell me Loki isn't involved in this!" said Alys, on the edge of panic.
"No! No, not Loki. Just a human." He hesitated – even now, there was only so much he could tell her, and "This was part of an attempt to assassinate Captain America" wasn't going to help anything. He held up Steve's hand. "It's all right, he was working alone and we've got him in custody. According to Thor, the spell should reverse itself within seventy-two hours. We'll lay low until then. Thor went back home to see if the process could be hurried along."
"Fucking Asgardians!" she spat out, though she seemed to be calming down.
His eyebrows rose. She very rarely swore; he could count on one hand the number of times he'd heard her drop an f-bomb in the pushing-two-years they'd been together. "It'll be all right. It's definitely one for the books, but Thor assured us he's seen this before. We'll give it a few days, but even if he's wrong, we're in no immediate danger."
She nodded. She stepped towards him, her arm rising to hold him, then glanced directly at Phil-in-Steve and flinched back.
He sighed. "As much as I want to, we probably shouldn't."
"It would be... bad manners, somehow," she agreed. "It's just so odd. Your eyes are you, and your words are you, but obviously... How do you feel?"
"Taller."
"You look taller." She fell silent for a moment and looked at him, really looked at him for the first time since it happened. "What's it like?" she asked in a conspiratorial whisper.
He suppressed a grin. "It's amazing," he replied. "Like being twenty-five again, only better. I can see much farther and hear everything. My reflexes are lightning-fast, and they weren't slow before. I can run forever. He and I are going downstairs to the gym in a bit to try to get a better handle on what our respective bodies can do."
"I want to watch. And for three days you can eat whatever you want. In fact, you'll have to. I'm not sure I could be any more jealous."
"I hadn't even thought of that!"
"I'll just order a couple of dozen from the Doughnut Plant, then, shall I?" she smiled.
"Please! And a large extra-cheese pepperoni from..." He raised an eyebrow. "Alys, my eyes are up here."
"Sorry!" She blushed a little, then made a point of meeting his line-of-sight. "I'm not made of stone, you know!"
Phil looked down at his hands as he marshalled his thoughts. "I don't know quite how to say this, but I'm going to have to bunk in one of the guest suites, I think."
"Oh, I know. Yes, of course," she said ruefully. "'Caesar's wife must be above reproach' and all that. I wouldn't mind so much if I didn't have to be in Vienna day after tomorrow."
"I know." He paused. "Though I suppose I could ask. 'Captain Rogers, would you mind terribly if I borrowed your body for a night of marital congress with my lady wife?'" It was odd to see, but Steve's face took on a very Coulsonesque expression of wry amusement. Alys relaxed perceptibly and laughed a little.
"That might be worth it just to see the shade of red he'd turn." She shook her head. "But no. He knows how to control that body; you don't. I could end up with an injury."
"I hadn't thought about that," he said pensively. "Though I suppose if you were on top – "
"IamDeterminedToRemainOnThePathOfRighteousnessAndVirtue!" she said in a rush. "DoNotCauseMyResolutionToWaver!"
"All right, just a suggestion," he said, smiling.
She chuckled. "Mind you, if we did, I'd have to leave a great big hickey on his inner – Oh my God!" she exclaimed. She met Phil's eyes with a shocked expression. "Last night... did I leave any marks!?"
Oh crap. "I... I... I don't know." He wracked his brain trying to remember. He'd been distracted at the time, and really hadn't paid that close attention this morning.
"There shouldn't be any, right? I mean, I didn't use my teeth..."
"... much," he said finally. He looked over at her. She looked up at him, and they both dissolved into tension-relieving laughter, much to the bemusement of those watching from inside.
It took a few minutes, but eventually the gales stopped. Alys wiped her eyes. Phil's thoughts took a darker turn, as the hilarity wore off.
"Though, I don't know, you might prefer it if I stayed like this," he said delicately, the unspoken question looming large between them.
"And spend the rest of my days with a crick in my neck?" said Alys. "Don't be absurd." Their eyes met, and managed to say what their voices never seemed to be able to. Phil was unexpectedly relieved at this simple affirmation of the fact that, no matter what happened, they would be all right.
Phil covered Alys' hand with Steve's giant one, and they stood together like that for as long as they dared.
….
"Bruce? I wonder if I could speak to you a minute... privately..." Steve-in-Coulson asked from the door of Dr. Banner's lab.
"Sure thing – shut the door. Privacy settings, please, JARVIS," said Bruce.
"Understood, Dr. Banner," said JARVIS.
"Look, I want you to know, I wouldn't make this my business ordinarily..." began Steve. "This is Coulson's body... if he weren't a member of my team, I wouldn't say anything. And I know this isn't really your field, but I can trust your discretion. If you think I should talk to him about it, I will."
Bruce took off his glasses and started polishing them. Everyone, but everyone, knew that Agent Coulson had a real axe to grind when it came to proving that he was still up to the job. The fact that nobody doubted Agent Coulson except, well, Agent Coulson hadn't quite sunk in yet. Bruce wouldn't put it past the man to hide any health problems he might be experiencing; he'd be more surprised if he didn't.
Bruce put his glasses back on. "What are the symptoms?"
"Better if I show you..." Steve managed to unbuckle Coulson's belt and untuck his shirt, though it was clear he was doing it awkwardly. He pointed to a purple spot above the agent's hipbone. "It's these marks..."
Clint was right – it really was bizarre to see Agent Coulson's face turn that shade of red. Bruce bent his head to examine the mark, then looked down for a minute to school the smile off his face.
"It's nothing to be concerned about," he said.
"Are you sure? Because there's a lot of them..."
Bruce nodded. "Just some superficial ecchymoses. You don't bruise, since the serum?"
"No, not really. Not unless I get hit with something really hard. I just don't remember Agent Coulson being in the line of fire for anything but the Asgardian magic."
"He wasn't," said Bruce, shaking his head.
"How can you be so sure?"
Bruce gave up. "They're hickeys, Steve. Love-bites."
Coulson's face went red from the tips of his ears to his neck. Steve redressed quickly. "Hickeys, right. Well. Good. Good for them. Thank you, Bruce. Sorry to disturb." He practically ran out of the room.
Bruce had a good laugh by himself in his lab. The idea of telling Tony was a real temptation, but it was one he resisted.
Agent Coulson and Steve Rogers swapped back into their own bodies after three days, as promised. Bruce did, however, note that it took two weeks before Steve was able to look at Agent Coulson without blushing.
….
Both Alys and Phil expected to take a little ribbing after this particular incident, but it never really materialized – not even Tony Stark would seriously mess with a guy who barely saw his wife once a month. Nevertheless, the team couldn't let it pass without some comment; when Alys returned from Vienna a few weeks later, she and Phil got onto the elevator to discover that someone had placed a small sticker next to the indicator for their floor.
A sticker with a picture of a sock on it.
"Well, you have to admit, that's pretty funny," said Alys. Phil didn't disagree but rolled his eyes as he peeled the sticker off.
They emerged the next day to go have lunch with Mariasol. Phil stopped short when he got into the elevator.
"Oh no, not again."
Alys looked over to see a small sticker with the words, "Love Shack!" emblazoned in lurid fluorescents. She chuckled. Phil muttered imprecations under his breath as he removed this one.
"JARVIS, I don't suppose you'll tell me who keeps doing this," said Phil.
"I'm under strict orders not to," replied JARVIS, as if that wasn't the answer to the question.
Alys started to sing under her breath, "I got me a Chrysler and it seats about twenty, so hurry up and bring your jukebox money..." She smiled at a side-eye from her husband. "Bitsy, Scooter and I used to go slumming at CBGB's..."
They returned from lunch to find yet another sticker in the elevator. This time, however, it read, "Do Not Disturb."
And was allowed to remain there until it faded from old age.