Tony woke up quite suddenly.
Something was wrong. He wasn't quite sure what it was yet, but something was definitely not right. His eyes snapped open to check for damage, and he found himself very up close and personal with one Agent Phil Coulson, who seemed to be asleep. Who had an arm wrapped around Tony's waist. And who was quite possibly naked.
Tony yelled (more like shrieked, but he would never admit it) and pushed himself away from Coulson, resulting in a sudden plummet as he fell off the side of the bed. Coulson was up a second later, hand outstretched like he was grabbing for something before he doubled over in pain with a hand held to his mostly-but-not-entirely healed chest wound from Loki.
"Coulson, what the hell?" Tony demanded. "Why are you in my bed? Jesus Christ, sit down before you fall down." He pushed himself to his feet and forcibly pushed Coulson down by his shoulders to sit on the bed. He tried not to think about the fact that they were both extremely naked and had woken up cuddling for god's sake. Clint was going to kill him. Like actually hunt-him-down-pin-him-to-a-tree-with-arrows-castrate-him-and-leave-him-to-be-eaten-by-wild-animals kill him.
Tony was trying to see if Coulson had agitated his chest too much when he realized it was dark as hell in the room, and that there was no pale blue light from his arc reactor. Panicked, he clutched his hand to his chest, waiting for the pain and dying before he realized that he'd apparently been without it for quite a bit of time.
"Friend," Coulson finally spoke up, "I am not the Son of Coul." Tony stared, a sinking feeling of dread in his chest, before he squeaked, "Thor?"
"Indeed." The confirmation was barely out of his mouth before Tony took off running for the ensuite bathroom, flipping on the light so he could see himself. Staring back at him from the mirror was Clint Barton.
LINE BREAK
When Natasha woke up, she was immediately aware that something was not right. She was completely in tune with her body, and she could tell when something was wrong. Taking a glance down at herself revealed a distinct lack of breasts. She looked at her hands, saw the nails were clipped to the quick and the palms didn't really have any damage on them. No calluses from any sort of weapon.
So that narrowed it down quite a bit, because hardly anyone she knew wouldn't have some sort of weapon callus. The only two she could think of were Steve and Bruce, because their healing factors wouldn't allow for it. She slid out of bed and stood up to her full height, and decided it must be Bruce. Not tall enough to be Steve.
She slunk into the bathroom to check and was pleased with herself for figuring it out. Now, if only she could figure out how she was Bruce, and why. She went back into the bedroom and grabbed Bruce's glasses from the bedside table before setting off for the common floor. The others would be up soon enough, and she had a strange hankering for a cup of tea.
(PAGE BREAK)
Phil woke up when he reached out for Clint so that he could steal some of his warmth and discovered that he was gone. His space on the bed was cold, and Phil scolded himself for oversleeping. If Clint had been awake and up long enough for the bed to go cold, Phil had slept for way too long. He sat up, grimacing in preparation for the pain, and blinked in surprise when it didn't come. Well, good.
Maybe he'd finally have a few moments of peace without pain every once in a while.
He stretched cautiously, pleased when there was, again, no pain, and got out of bed. He stopped when he realized that he wasn't in his room. He was suspicious immediately, but tried to stay calm. He took a survey of his surroundings and went to check himself over for any sort of trauma when he noticed his chest. Now, Phil was no slouch, and even with all the time he'd spent recovering from Loki's attack, he was pretty well-muscled, but there was absolutely no way that this cut physique was his.
"JARVIS?" he questioned hesitantly.
"Good morning, Captain Rogers. How can I be of assistance?"
Phil thought he deserved brownie points for resisting the urge to faint.
LINE BREAK
Bruce woke up face down on one of the work benches in Tony's workshop. He sat up with a groan as his back protested the odd position it had been kept in so long. It was weird, because he could have sworn he'd actually gone to bed last night when Tony had started mumbling about furbies. He hadn't wanted to anything to do with that.
Bruce rubbed a hand over his face, trying to remember if he'd Hulked out at some point. That was the only reason he could think of for why he'd lost time, but nothing seemed to be broken, and the team didn't generally just leave him wherever he fell.
Apparently he was going to have to find someone and ask what had happened. He got up and headed for the stairs, reaching up to rub a hand over his chest where it was aching strangely. His hand hit metal and he stopped in his tracks. He had an arc reactor in his chest. Oh what the hell, he had an arc reactor. What the hell had he let Tony do to him last night?
"Jesus, Mary, and Joseph," he griped, panicking just a bit, and holy shit that was definitely not his voice. That was Tony's voice. Coming from his mouth. Except that he also had an arc reactor, which would indicate Tony and oh god.
He hurried a little faster towards the stairs, catching his reflection in the glass wall as he passed through the door. God, he hoped he didn't Hulk out in Tony's body.
LINE BREAK
Steve was awake when it happened. He'd been lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, considering getting up and starting his day, when suddenly he'd had an overly intense feeling of vertigo, like that time he'd gotten sick at Coney Island with Bucky. When the feeling was gone, he realized he was in a different room, lying curled up on his side in bed, one hand tucked under the pillow and wrapped around something that, upon inspection, turned out to be a gun.
He let it go like it had bit him and sat up to survey the room. Though it was decorated very differently, it still had that same design quality that identified it as Avenger's Tower, and that made him relax a bit. He sat forward and sighed, brushing his hair away irritably when it flopped over his face. Which it should not have been able to do…
He scrambled out of bed in a panic, almost falling over because his balance was off, and holy shit he was a woman. There was no denying the fairly ample bosom he seemed to have sprouted in the past few minutes. God, on top of being thrown into the future and everything else, this is was the absolute last thing he needed. He didn't quite know what to do, and he thought he might be having a panic attack, so he reacted the only way that seemed to make sense to his frantic mind. He screamed.
LINE BREAK
When Clint woke up, he was most definitely not in his bedroom. Really, he was using an animal fur for a blanket, what the actual fuck? A feminine scream sounded from somewhere in the tower, and Clint was out of bed in a second, grabbing at the floor for his bow, only to remember that, duh, he wasn't in his room. He glanced around for a weapon (quickly figuring out he was in Thor's room by the presence of mjolnir on the bedside table) and found none. Of course Thor would only keep one weapon in his room. Of course.
He grabbed a pair of discarded jeans on the floor and slipped into them, not taking any time to try and figure out why exactly he'd been in Thor's room in the first place. The screaming had stopped, but that didn't mean nothing was wrong. He took the elevator up to the common floor and almost crashed into Steve when he came out.
And oh god, wow he was taller than Steve. What the hell.
"Steve, what the hell is going on? Who's screaming?"
"I have no idea what the hell is going on," Steve said, his face oddly expressionless. "But I intend to find out. Are you all right, Thor?"
"Thor? What are you…?" and then it clicked. Thor's room and his sudden height and the weirdly deep tone to his voice. He whipped around so that he could catch his reflection in the elevator doors, and sure enough: Thor.
"Jesus Christ," he breathed, reaching a hand up to touch his-Thor's-face.
"You're not Thor," Steve sighed, sounding more put-upon than Clint had ever heard him.
Honestly, he sounded more like…
"Phil?" Clint tried, and Steve nodded, his face still sporting that blank, impassive stare.
"Oh, god, are you okay? I mean, I guess you must be okay, you're Steve after all. Oh god, you must be having the biggest fanboy attack right now, that's why you're doing Agent face, isn't it? Trying really hard not to fondle Steve's abs, am I right?" Clint teased to hide his insecurity.
Jesus, Phil had seen Steve, the peak of human perfection, in who knew what kind of state of undress. No way Clint could compete with that.
"Clint, thank god," Phil sighed, dropping the blank face and letting Clint see his relief. "Are you okay?"
"'Course I am, sir," Clint answered. "Good thing to know that we'd recognize each other no matter what we look like, isn't it?"
Phil laughed, but it was Steve, and it was all wrong. He didn't get that glowing sense of satisfaction at seeing Phil's adorable smile, his true smile. Clint already missed Phil as Phil.
"So, it can't just be us, right?" Clint asked, wondering again about the scream and deciding it must have been handled since JARVIS hadn't sounded the alarm.
"It's not just you," Bruce said from the kitchen, where he was sitting at the table sipping a cup of tea. There was absolutely no mistaking that calm countenance and calculating gaze.
"Natasha," they said together, and she nodded.
"That scream earlier must have been me. I guess whoever ended up with my body is not pleased with the loss of a dick." Clint flinched slightly in commiseration with whoever it was. He could understand screaming at that.
"So, you woke up in Bruce's body and decided to get some tea?" Phil asked, sounding amused.
"Sure. What else could I have done? Besides, I'm trying to stay as calm as possible. I'm not sure if I've got the Hulk or if he went with Bruce."
"Oh yeah," Clint winced. "It's probably better that we don't get the Hulk involved."
The elevator doors opened again, this time revealing Natasha, and at the same time Tony stumbled up the stairs from the lab. They all stared at each other for a long moment, and then Clint couldn't take it. He burst out laughing. In all his days, he could never have imagined Natasha looking quite as timid and embarrassed as she did right now.
"Oh god, is it everyone else, or just me?" she asked. "Nat, are you in there?" she asked Phil.
"No, I'm in here," Natasha answered from her position at the table. "How are you handling the new body parts, Cap?"
"I swear to god I didn't look at or touch anything," Steve squeaked, holding his hands away from himself as if to prove it.
"I did," Natasha said with a quirked smile, which had Tony sputtering.
"You can't be serious. What did you do to me?" he demanded. Ah. So not Tony. Bruce.
Natasha quirked an eyebrow (and god did that look so disconcerting on Bruce's face) and shrugged elegantly. "Nothing drastic, just a little inspection. Nice, by the way."
"Uh…thanks," Bruce blushed as the elevator doors slid open again, and the last of them arrived.
Clint and Phil. Or, Tony and Thor, apparently, though Clint wasn't quite sure which was which yet.
"Well, this is weird," he said, moving to walk a circle around his body, looking at it from an angle he'd never been able to experience before. "Jesus, is my nose really that big?"
"Yes," Tony/Thor scowled.
"I like your nose," Phil informed him, and Clint flashed him a grin.
"Thanks, baby."
"Okay, this is too fucking weird. You two need to act like you're not married or something, because I don't think I can handle Thor and Cap making moon eyes at each other," Tony (because it was very clear now that it was Tony in Clint's body) spoke up.
"We do not make moon eyes at each other," Clint protested.
Natasha snorted derisively, "You really do."
"It is a little disconcerting," Steve offered, and he looked so uncomfortable in Natasha's body that Clint had to feel bad for him.
"Also, can we talk about how I'm standing clear across the room and I can read the nutrition facts on that cereal box?" Tony grumped. "You have scary eyes, Clint."
"They don't call me Hawkeye for shits and giggles, you know. And anyway, how do you think I feel? I'll tell you how I feel: like I'm blind, god dammit."
"Same," Natasha said, and Thor nodded in agreement. The kicked puppy look on Phil's face made Clint want to shrivel up and die, or run over and hug him and love him until it went away. Only the knowledge that it wasn't actually Phil kept him away.
"Well, if you'd put on my glasses you'd probably be able to see better," Phil offered and Thor nodded like that made sense, but he'd never even considered the idea, "Oh and by the way, I accidentally ripped Steve's door off the hinges. I didn't expect all the extra strength."
"Okay, so is no one at all concerned about the fact that we've all been body swapped?" Bruce asked, crossing his arms over his chest and wincing when they hit the arc reactor. He let them drop, rubbing one hand around the edge tenderly.
"Oh, yeah. That's always a bit achey, buddy, sorry," Tony saidd. "You'll get used to it, though. It'll fade into the background. Just…don't Hulk out. I don't think the reactor would survive it, and then my body would die, and I'm not really sure if that would kill me or you, but either way, let's try to avoid death."
They were all awkwardly silent with the newfound knowledge that Tony was apparently constantly in pain from the very thing that was keeping him alive, until Steve spoke up, apparently trying to keep them on track. "Well, okay, clearly this is some sort of magic, right? I mean, one minute I was myself and the next I was Natasha, and by the way, sleeping with a gun under your pillow is probably not the safest thing."
"Safer than not having a gun at all," Natasha shrugged. "But I think the point we're trying to get at here is that, clearly, something very weird is going on. But why? And who's responsible?"
"Well, it's definitely magic, right?" Bruce said, crossing his arms again, though lower so they didn't agitate the reactor.
"Aye," Thor agreed. "But I do not understand the point, or even who would do such a thing."
"Well, maybe it's to make us weak?" Clint asked, leaning against the kitchen counter. "I mean, I'm sure I can still shoot, but I can't see for shit. Cap doesn't know how to utilize a woman's strength, god only knows what's happening with the Hulk, Tony's the only one who knows how to fly the armor and I'm pretty sure my body won't fit in to it. Nat knows all the moves but Bruce's body isn't trained to react to them. We're all at disadvantages here, except for Phil, really, who's a fucking ninja on his worst day and now has super soldier serum on top of it."
"And I," Thor answered. "Mjolnir recognizes spirit, not body. As long as I am worthy of her power, she will lend it to me."
"Well, this I have to see," Tony said with a grin. "Agent with god-powers."
Thor grinned and threw out his hand, and Tony winced immediately crying, "NO WAIT NOT THROUGH THE-!" He didn't have a chance to finish his sentence before Mjolnir was crashing through the wall and into Thor's outstretched hand.
The effect was immediate, like touching Mjolnir had turned on his god powers or something. Phil's body, which had looked tired, fragile, and sore for weeks suddenly stood at its full height, a healthy glow filling his face and shoulders relaxed from their usual pain-filled tension for the first time since before Loki.
"Wait…wait, what just happened?" Clint asked. "Did you just…?"
"The son of Odin will not be kept down by simple chest wounds," Thor answered, looking extremely pleased with himself.
Clint propelled himself from the counter and across the room until he was in front of Thor. He grabbed the hem of his shirt (which Clint noted was actually his shirt) and pulled it up, revealing that the wicked wound on Phil's chest was now only a scar that looked as if it had healed over fully years ago.
"Will it last?" Clint asked, aware that he sounded a little desperate but not caring. "I mean, when we're all back to normal? Will it still be okay?"
"I believe it will," Thor answered, and Clint grabbed his neck and planted a kiss on his mouth. It was extremely weird kissing Phil and not kissing Phil. For one, Thor wasn't kissing him back like Phil would have, which, fair enough. Secondly, their mouths slotted together different and the whole thing just felt wrong.
"Well. That was disturbing," Tony said as Clint pulled away.
"I don't know, I might have to kiss him too," Phil answered, sounding like he was seriously contemplating it.
"Spare us, please," Bruce said dryly. "If you three want to arrange some weird extramarital threesome after everyone is back in their own bodies, you go for it. But please, don't ever tell me about it."
"Tell me," Natasha spoke up, her eyes twinkling mischievously. "That is something I can definitely get behind."
"There will be no orgies in my tower unless I am invited," Tony declared, and Clint had to hide a grin when Phil visibly shuddered at the idea of having an orgy with Tony Stark.
"Okay, guys! Guys!" Steve called to get their attention. He attempted to cross his arms sternly over his chest, but he seemed to be having a hard time figuring out how to do that with breasts in the way. Finally, he heaved a sigh and planted his hands on his hips instead. "We need to figure out what is going on. This is all going to go to hell if we get a call to Assemble. It's not like we can have a SHIELD agent running around wielding Thor's hammer when there will undoubtedly be people filming, and since Phil and Thor are the only ones who are reliably in fighting shape right now…"
"I'm going to call Nick," Phil sighed. "I need to update him on the situation, and he can contact the Fantastic Four or the X-Men to be on stand-by in case something goes down. Please don't get up to anything horrible while I'm gone. This is going to generate enough paperwork as it is."
"Don't worry, Phil," Natasha said over the rim of her mug. "The rest of us will keep Tony and Clint in line."
"Hey!" Clint protested, and tried not to be miffed that Tony had reacted the same way at the same time.
"Be good," Phil told him sternly, but then spared him a small smile as he left, which just wasn't quite the same on Steve's face.
"Hey, J, I want you to run a scan, pick up any internet chatter you can on body swapping," Tony said. "You can exclude pop culture and fanfiction."
Clint was kind of fascinated by watching his own body move and talk in a way that was so obviously Tony that he couldn't help but stare. It was very strange to see himself from such a different angle, and he was pleased to see that he mostly liked what he saw. Sure, his face still resembled a french bulldog a little too much for his liking, but he found that it kind of worked for him in an unexplainable sort of way.
"So we've got JARVIS looking on the internet," Steve said thoughtfully. "We should probably contact someone who knows something about magic. What about your mother, Thor?"
"My mother is at a diplomatic summit at the moment," Thor said thoughtfully, flipping his hammer in his hand. "She is near unreachable. Though perhaps I could demand that Loki…"
"Yeah, no," Clint said flatly. "You are not bringing my husband's body anywhere near that psycho."
Thor drew himself up indignantly, but Clint cut him off before he could say a word.
"Your nut-bag brother drove a spear straight through his chest and almost killed him. I won't give him another chance to get it right."
"Clint, I understand how this might be difficult…" Steve said, looking apologetic. "But this could be really serious and if Loki is the only one who…"
"Loki can't possibly be the only who knows something about it," Clint argued. "We go to him only as an absolute last resort."
Steve frowned at him in disappointment, but the effect wasn't quite the same on Natasha's face. She just didn't exude that same sort of labrador puppy vibe that Steve had.
"Fine, Loki is a last resort. But we'll go to him if we have to."
Clint didn't like it, but he knew he wouldn't be able to argue it for long. Phil would give them permission to take his body to Asgard if they asked him, because Phil was noble and self-sacrificing like that. Clint would take what delays he could get, and all he could do was hope that they figured it out before it got to that point.
"Fine," he grumbled.
"We could contact Strange," Natasha pointed out, and immediately Tony scowled.
"No way do I want that guy in my tower," he insisted, his jaw set stubbornly.
"That's a good idea, Natasha," Steve said, like Tony hadn't spoken at all. "Maybe he can trace it back to the source. Because this is definitely magic right? Not some crazy science fiction scenario."
"As far as we know, body swaps are not actually scientifically sound," Bruce offered from the kitchen, where he had busied himself with making tea. "As a scientist it pains me to say it, but I think magic is actually the more plausible answer at this point."
"Right," Steve said. "So, I'll work on contacting Dr. Strange then. Everyone else just...sit tight for now, I guess. Maybe if we're lucky nothing too drastic will happen and we can get this sorted out."
Clint rolled his eyes as Steve made his way out of the room, and then he very pointedly knocked on the nearest wood surface.
LINE BREAK
Dr. Strange was out of reach.
In fact, he was so far out of reach that Clint wasn't even sure that he was even in the same dimension anymore. He didn't know much about magic, but every time he had to deal with it it just sounded even weirder and even more sketchy. He'd rather just not deal with it, to be totally honest.
Things had been mostly okay that morning. Thor and Steve had played probably twenty games of chess and were betting their movie night picks on the outcome. Tony had disappeared into his workshop, possibly to start building an Iron Man suit that would fit Clint, and he hadn't come up for air in hours.
Pepper had appeared at half past ten ready to ream Tony out for trying to skip out on a board meeting, and when she'd heard what was going on, she'd rolled her eyes so hard that Clint thought they might pop out of her head. She'd made Bruce-in-Tony's-body change into a suit and accompany her, but Bruce didn't seem to mind so much.
Natasha had spent the morning being as calm as she could be. Clint knew she had an iron-fisted grip on her emotions even at the worst of times, but he couldn't blame her for erring on the side of caution. She'd been doing yoga for nearly an hour when Clint got bored of watching her and decided to go find Phil instead.
He found Phil in their en suite bathroom, staring at Steve's bare chest with wide eyes in the mirror.
"Phil Coulson," Clint drawled, and then made a face at how strange it sounded coming out in Thor's voice. "Are you molesting the manifestation of America?"
Phil's face went pink immediately and he spun away from the mirror to glare at Clint.
"I'm not molesting him," he insisted. "I was just…"
"Fondling his abs," Clint supplied.
"I'm not fondling his abs, I was just looking. I wouldn't do anything inappropriate…"
Clint couldn't help but laugh at that, even though he could see how increasingly annoyed Phil was getting with every hysterical gasp for breath.
"Clint, stop it," Phil demanded, crossing his arms. "I would never…"
"I know, Phil, I know. You've wanted to fuck Cap since you were fifteen, I can't really fault you for taking a peek."
"I do not want to fuck Steve," Phil bristled.
Clint just laughed again and reached out to grab Phil around the wrist, tugging him closer. He realized immediately how awkward of an action it was, because it wasn't really Clint and Phil hugging but Thor and Steve. Everything about it was so very wrong and it lacked the comfort he'd intended the gesture to have. Still, Phil sighed quietly and held on to him, so Clint didn't move away.
"I know you're not doing anything creepy to Cap's body," Clint told him. "I'm just kidding. Are you okay?"
"I'm fine," Phil sighed. "Just this whole thing is so…"
"Completely ridiculous?" Clint offered.
"Yeah," Phil sighed, and he rested his cheek on Clint's shoulder and Clint raised his hand to scratch against Phil's scalp. Steve's silky blonde tresses felt wrong under his fingertips and Clint heaved a heavy sigh.
"This is weird, right?" he asked.
"Completely weird," Phil agreed, and they broke apart. "So what's going on up there? Is everything on fire? I'm a little worried that everything's on fire."
Clint laughed again and then tugged Phil over to sit down on their bed. It creaked a little ominously under the combined weight of Thor and Steve, but didn't collapse.
"Everything is fine," he promised. "Pepper abducted Bruce for a board meeting and everyone else is hanging around entertaining themselves. I haven't seen Tony in a few hours, but you know how he is."
Phil nodded thoughtfully, his lips pursed in a distinctly un-Steve like expression. Clint knew that face, though, and he knew it meant Phil was over thinking, worrying, and trying to come up with a million contingencies in the face of an unfamiliar situation.
"Hey, calm down a bit," Clint urged him. "It'll be okay. We'll figure this out."
"Well, we'll have to, won't we? We can't just stay like this."
Clint was surprised by the note of panic in Phil's voice. Phil was always level-headed, calm, and in control. Even when he wasn't, he pretended that he was.
"Hey, Phil," he cooed, wrapping an arm around his shoulders and pulling him close, even though it was still very weird. "What's up, baby? You're freaking out."
"I can't be Captain America," Phil admitted miserably. "I always wanted to be, as a child, and I've always tried to emulate him as an adult, but I can't actually be him. I'm not that good, Clint."
"Hey, shut up, you're amazing," Clint interrupted. "If anyone could be Captain America besides Steve, I'd be really relieved to know it was you. You are a good man. You give second chances even when they're not deserved and you do everything you can to stay moral and upright even in a profession where morality could easily be a weakness. If you ask me, you're better than Captain America."
Phil snorted softly, but there was a tiny smile spreading across his face.
"I don't know about that," he said.
"I do," Clint reassured him, and then pressed a quick kiss to his cheek.
"Ugh, Thor's beard is scratchy," Phil groaned, and Clint laughed, assured that Phil had gotten a hold on his panic.
"Agent Barton, Agent Coulson," JARVIS said suddenly. "Captain Rogers has asked me to inform you that lunch has arrived. He would like to discuss some other options in light of Dr. Strange being unavailable."
"We'll be right there, JARVIS," Phil told him, frowning at the scowl that had overtaken Clint's face.
"What's the matter?" Phil asked him.
"Thor wants to go to Loki for help," Clint spat, and Phil nodded knowingly. His hand twitched minutely, like he had almost made an unconscious gesture towards his chest, but Clint chose not to comment on it.
"Well," Phil said slowly. "If that's what we have to do…"
"I don't like it," Clint insisted. "I don't like the idea of you being anywhere near him, even if it's just your body."
"Well, we might not have a choice," Phil told him calmly. "I'm not wild about the idea either, but if that's what it takes then that's what has to be done. I love you no matter what you look like, of course, but I have to admit I really miss your body."
"I know what you mean," Clint admitted. "If it comes down to Thor going to see Loki, I'm going with him."
"You don't trust Thor to take care of my body?" Phil asked, frowning.
"I don't trust him to have good judgment when it comes to that vile snake," Clint corrected. "I couldn't stop him from hurting you last time, but I damn well will this time, if I have to."
"I don't like the idea of you going anywhere near him," Phil admitted quietly, and Clint nodded.
"So you know where I'm coming from," he said, and Phil sighed.
"I do," he agreed. "But we're getting a bit ahead of ourselves. Let's go eat and talk to the team before we make any decisions, okay?"
"Yeah, okay," Clint agreed.
The rest of the team had assembled in the living room with a truly ridiculous amount of Chinese take-out boxes spread across the coffee table by the time they got upstairs. Bruce was tucking in to his chow mein while telling them all about how his Stark Industries board meeting had gone.
"I swear, they all spent the whole meeting staring at me suspiciously when I didn't say anything," Bruce was saying with a tiny grin. "One of them actually asked Pepper if she'd given Tony a lobotomy."
"Brucie, baby!" Tony protested while the rest of the team laughed at him. "You're killing my rep! I can't have the board thinking I'm going to be compliant from now on. I'll have to be twice as difficult at the next meeting to make up for it."
"So sorry," Bruce said dryly. "But I'm more scared of Pepper than I am of you."
"Rude!" Tony griped.
"Oh good, you're here," Steve said as Phil and Clint picked their way through the room towards the coffee table to make themselves plates. "I think we should discuss our options from here."
Clint scowled at the chicken and broccoli he was dumping on to his plate, but he didn't say anything. His stomach gurgled at the smell of food, so he loaded up on some lo mein, fried rice, barbeque pork and an egg roll before he took his usual spot on the loveseat. Phil settled in beside him with an equally large amount of food, and Clint remembered how much Steve and Thor put away at every meal and wondered if his piled-high plate would be enough.
"How are things going with the internet search, J?" Tony asked as he pulled up a hologram screen and began flicking through the information. Again, Clint couldn't help but watch his own face with interest as Tony narrowed his eyes in concentration.
"Unfortunately, sir, not as well as we might have hoped," JARVIS said. "The search parameters were quite wide, and although I am working on filtering out terms as I go along, it is taking longer than we might have anticipated."
"I thought that might end up happening," Tony allowed. "Just keep looking, J, something might turn up."
"Of course, sir," JARVIS answered.
"What are you hoping to find with an internet search anyway?" Bruce asked.
"I don't know," Tony sighed irritably. "An explanation as to how this even works? A reversal spell? A tweet that says 'hahahaha I cursed the Avengers'? It's better than sitting around doing nothing."
"We're not doing nothing," Steve corrected. "We're trying to contact people that might be able to help."
"Well, Strange is useless, we knew that," Tony pouted. "Now what?"
"Maybe we should try contacting Professor Xavier," Natasha mused. "It could be that this isn't magic at all, but a telepath messing with our brains."
Clint didn't like the idea of that at all. He was really fucking sick of people playing around with his head. Some things were sacred, and it took a really twisted individual to fuck around with someone's brains.
"That's a good idea, Nat," Steve praised. "We'll contact Xavier. Anyone else?"
"I talked to Fury, he's got his ear to the ground for anything that might help," Phil offered.
"We can't deny that it could be magic," Thor spoke up testily, and Clint tried not to tense up. He focused his attention on lifting up a particularly large piece of broccoli with his chopsticks so that he wouldn't get into a fight with Thor. He liked Thor, he really did, but his brother was a great big bag of dicks.
"Do we actually know anyone else who knows anything about magic?" Steve asked. "Anyone we could call in a favor from?"
"I think we know who we have to contact," Phil spoke up solemnly.
"Bull shit!" Clint snapped, making Tony yelp in surprise. "There has to be someone else we can go to. Anyone else. We'd get more help from a New Age Wicca in the East Village than we would from that crazy fucker."
"I will not have you insulting my brother like that!" Thor thundered, and Clint could feel the beginnings of static electricity building up along his skin.
"Your brother is a manipulative basket case who would just love to know we're having a crisis. I bet he gets his rocks off to it!" Clint retorted.
"I know that Loki has done you wrong," Thor started his voice stern and angry. "But…"
"But nothing," Clint spat, getting to his feet. It was satisfying to tower over him, even though he felt a little sick using his size to try and intimidate someone who looked like the man he loved. "He tried to take everything from me, do you get that? He came to my planet and he tried to wipe out my species! He raped my mind and tried to murder my husband and he threatened my best friend and I still wish I'd put an arrow through his eye when I'd gotten the chance. And you lord around here as if those things are excusable because he's your precious little brother!"
"None of what Loki did was excusable!" Thor roared, and lightning cracked outside. "But Loki is troubled and he needs compassion…"
"He needs a bullet to the brain!" Clint yelled back.
He didn't expect it to hurt so bad when Thor punched him in the face, but it really did. It felt almost like getting hit by a freight train, and Clint both heard and felt his jaw break as he flew back from the impact.
Apparently the super god-like strength had traveled along with Thor.
Even though the bottom part of his face felt like it might come off and his head was reeling, he jumped back to his feet and lunged at Thor, who Phil and Steve were trying to hold back. Tony intercepted Clint mid-lung and pushed him firmly back against the wall. Clint was considering head-butting him, broken jaw be damned, when he heard Bruce let out a pain-filled yell.
Everyone stopped to stare at him where he was clutching at the arc reactor, his face gone white and his eyes a bright, brilliant green instead of Tony's usual chocolate brown.
"Bruce," Natasha said, her tone even and calm. She approached him slowly, her hands held out in front of her. "Bruce, please, you have to stay calm."
When Bruce spoke it was rough and angry, much more the Hulk than Tony or Bruce.
"Hurts," he growled, and Clint held his breath as Tony's skin visibly started to go green.
"I know it does," Natasha soothed. "It hurts because Tony's body isn't like Bruce's. It can't handle changing back and forth. You're too big for it."
"Hurts!" he roared, clutching at his chest again.
"I know it does, I know," she cooed, rubbing gently at his shoulder. Clint could see the tightness in her shoulders that betrayed her terror, but her voice remained calm and soothing.
"Listen, buddy," Tony said, fixing a glare at Clint and then letting him go so he could approach Bruce. "You know what's going on, don't you? I know you pay attention."
The Hulk nodded slowly, and the green tinge spreading across his skin slowly stopped spreading. "We're all switched around, and you're in my body right now. If you come out right now, we don't know what will happen. It could kill me. That thing, it keeps me alive, and my body changing size could break it."
"Have to protect puny Banner," the Hulk insisted.
"I know, buddy," Tony soothed. "But he's okay. We upset him a little, but you know you guys aren't in any danger from us. You and Bruce are our friends."
"We'll make sure that Bruce is safe for now," Natasha assured him. "We'll look out for him. You trust us to do that, don't you?"
The Hulk huffed, and Clint breathed out a sigh of relief as the green slowly started to recede and Tony's eyes started bleeding back to brown. In just a few seconds Bruce was in control again, rubbing tenderly at the place where the arc reactor was set in Tony's chest.
They were all struck silent for a moment at their very near miss, and then the rest of the team turned to fix Clint and Thor with glares. They both shrank back and then glanced at each other guiltily.
"I am sorry, I lost control of my temper," Thor offered. "I realize that my brother has done you and yours a great wrong, and I should be more sensitive about that."
Clint made an attempt to make a similar apology about respecting Thor's feelings, but it mostly came out in a bunch of dribbled blood, saliva, and pain. He couldn't close his mouth and he was pretty sure his jaw was off-center. He was kind of pathetically grateful that it was actually Thor's jaw, even if he was the one who had to deal with it for now.
Phil grabbed his face in gentle hands and tutted quietly as he prodded around. Even his gentle touches made Clint want to howl in pain, but he held it in. Even though Thor obviously wasn't proud of the fact that he'd lashed out, Clint knew that you never gave the people who hit you the satisfaction of hearing your pain.
"Jaw is definitely broken," Phil reported. "It's going to bruise something awful and he probably won't be able to talk very well for a while. Natasha can you…"
"There's a first aid kit in the bathroom," she told him and hurried away to fetch it.
"I have done you a disservice, my friend," Thor said mournfully. "I am afraid that I am still sometimes the unreasonable brawler that I was in my youth. Please tell me how I can make amends."
"Don't worry about it, I was being a jerk" Clint told him, though it came out sounding more like 'Don wo-y ah-out ih, I wa ein' a erk'.
"Right," Thor said, looking contrite. "I suppose I will have to ask again when you are able to speak."
"I'm going to go contact Professor Xavier," Steve spoke up. "Thor, I think you better go get prepared to talk to your brother."
"Aye," Thor agreed, and with one last regretful look at Clint, he headed off towards his room.
"Sit," Phil instructed, and even if Clint had wanted to refuse, the strength Phil used to shove him down on the couch really didn't leave him much of an option.
"That was stupid," Phil told him sternly. "You can't just get into fist fights with your teammate."
"He-!" Clint started to protest, but Phil cut him off.
"Whether or not he threw the first punch doesn't mean a damn thing to me," Phil said. "You have to be able to trust each other. I understand your feelings about Loki, believe me I do, but if you can't get it together enough to put them aside in face of a crisis, then we are going to have a problem."
"Sorry," Clint offered. Ahh-y.
Natasha arrived then with a first-aid kit that looked like it belonged in an ambulance. She set it on the couch next to him and popped the lid open.
"You're an idiot," she told him.
"I already scolded him," Phil informed her.
"Good," she growled. "And don't think I'm not going to have words with Thor, either."
"Be gentle on my body," Phil told her, and she cracked a tiny smile.
Phil ripped open a moist towelette packet and began cleaning the blood and drool from Clint's face. Clint winced at him, and Phil shushed him apologetically.
"He really did a number on you," Phil said. "You're lucky he didn't hurt you worse."
"He pulled the punch at the last second," Natasha said. "All that Asgardian strength could have killed you."
"I think we're just going to have to bandage his jaw shut," Phil said after he'd finished cleaning up an impressive amount of blood. "When Thor gets back in his own body it should just heal right up, and I'm not sure it's worth getting his jaw wired."
"I agree," Natasha said.
They had patched up enough injuries in the field that Clint wasn't worried about letting them inject muscle relaxers into his face so that they could set his jaw. He probably should have gone to SHIELD medical, but Phil had said Fury was trying to keep this debacle under wraps, and Thor getting his busted jaw set would have just drawn far too much attention.
"You know I'm not going to let you go off to Asgard alone with Thor now, don't you?" Phil asked as he finished tying off the bandages.
Clint scowled darkly at him.
"I'm serious, Clint. You're in no condition to be doing fieldwork with a broken jaw anyway, and I don't know if I can trust you to act like a responsible adult around Loki or Thor," Phil said sternly, his tone brooking no argument.
"I'll go with him," Natasha promised. Normally that sort of thing would have been very reassuring, but Clint wasn't so sure about Natasha's abilities in Bruce's body. Sure she still had most of her skills, but what she could manage to make Bruce's body do was still dubious at best. He wasn't about to tell her that, though, so he just shot her a grateful look.
When Thor came back in his armor, which looked a little like a Halloween costume on Phil's body, Natasha didn't give him a choice about whether she could come or not, and he didn't try to argue with her. Tony chased them out on to the Iron Man landing pad so that there wouldn't be Bifrost rune marks left on the living room floor, and then they were gone in a flash of light and sound.
Clint did his best not to pout.
LINE BREAK
Loki turned out to be just as helpful as Clint had predicted.
According to Natasha, he'd listened to Thor explain what had happened, had laughed his ass of at them for about a minute, had made some thinly veiled threats and tried to talk down to them, and then refused to give them any helpful information at all.
He'd remained unimpressed by their threats, and apparently he didn't know enough about what was going on for Natasha's special form of interrogation to do them any good. It was after dark by the time they got back, and Clint kept having to push down the urge to check Phil's body over for any injuries, even though he knew Thor's healing factor was keeping it safe.
Steve had driven out to Westchester to meet with the Professor, and had returned with the news that whatever was happening, it wasn't due to psychic interference. It meant that they were still no closer to figuring out how to switch back, but Clint was still kind of relieved that no one had been messing around in his brain again.
"Okay, so now what?" Bruce asked after they'd all gathered in the living room again, this time around a few boxes of pizza. Clint glared at them all jealously as he sipped his fruit and kale smoothie through a straw.
"I don't know," Steve sighed. "We might just have to live like this until Dr. Strange comes back, or until Thor can contact his mother."
Clint furiously typed on the tablet he'd been given and held it up so they could read it.
"Fuck you, I'm not eating a liquid diet on the whim of Dr. Strange and Thor's mom," it said.
"Well, what else can we do?" Steve asked defensively. "Do you have anyone in mind who can help?"
Clint didn't bother to type out 'no'. He settled for a glare instead.
"Sir," JARVIS said suddenly. "I might have found something."
Tony sat up suddenly, looking pleased. "Awesome, J, I knew I could count on you. Show me."
A holographic screen popped up in front of Tony, and they all crowded around him so they could see what it was. It was a post on a blogging website called Tumblr. The header, in large black letters said, "So I did a thing…"
"J, what is this?" Tony demanded.
"I think you should read it, sir," JARVIS responded.
"So I might have cast a switching curse on Tony Stark," the post read. "I mean, I'd never tried it before so I don't know if it worked, and I totally did it for a good reason so it's not like I was putting out bad energy or anything, but I'm a little worried about if I did it right. Are any of my followers Wicca? I'd like to talk about this with you. Message me."
"Well," Steve said dryly. "That certainly does seem like a lead. JARVIS, can you figure out where this message came from?"
"Of course, Captain," JARVIS said.
"Tony and I will go check it out…" Steve started, but the whole team interrupted him in protest.
"We're all going," Natasha told him. "This person obviously has magic that they have tenuous control over. They could be really dangerous."
"Natasha is right," Thor agreed. "Even if most of us are not at our best, there is strength in numbers."
"All right, fine," Steve sighed, clearly realizing he wasn't going to win the argument. "Let's go, then."
"The address is in Staten Island," JARVIS reported. "I'm sending the coordinates and address to the quinjet."
"What, am I just supposed to land in their front yard?" Clint wrote on his tablet.
"I guess so," Steve said, rubbing at his temples.
Clint shrugged and went to go collect a gun. He hadn't practiced using the bow at all like this, so a gun would have to do. None of them bothered suiting up because they thought it would just take too much time, so they piled into the quinjet in their civilian clothes.
The address JARVIS had supplied them with brought them to a beautiful brick colonial in Staten Island. It was the kind of neighborhood that made Clint think of PTAs and soccer moms.
"It almost seems like we're in the wrong place, doesn't it?" Phil mused, as if he was reading Clint's mind.
"This is where JARVIS traced the IP address to," Tony said stubbornly. "J is never wrong."
"Well...I guess we should just go knock?" Steve offered awkwardly, and suddenly Clint felt kind of rude about showing up at someone's house at nine o'clock at night. But they all filed up to the door, and they must have looked like large muscle-y ducklings following after Steve in Natasha's tiny body.
A little dog started yapping when Steve pressed the bell, and a few seconds later a middle-aged white woman in khakis and a light pink cardigan opened the door with a mini poodle tucked under one arm. She looked like she'd popped straight out of a movie.
"Can I help you?" she asked them brightly.
"Um," Steve said. "We're looking for Melissa Johnson? We have a few questions for her."
The woman narrowed her eyes suddenly and edged the door shut a little bit.
"What do you want with Melissa? Who are you?"
"We're the Avengers," Natasha answered smoothly, putting on Steve's most charming good-old-boy face. "We're having an issue and we think Melissa may be at the root of it. It would be such a big help if you'd let us speak with her."
"Well," the woman said slowly, clearly charmed by Steve's face. "I don't know what you think she could have done...but I supposed it's all right if you talk to her. Come in."
She let them into the house and led them in to the livingroom where a rerun of Desperate Housewives was playing on a large television.
"Would anyone like a drink?" she asked.
"Oh, uh. No, thank you," Steve answered for them.
"Well, go ahead and sit, I'll go get Melissa."
They all awkwardly settled on to the plush leather furniture and stared at each other.
"Something about this is super weird, right?" Tony asked.
"Definitely weird," Phil agreed.
"I wasn't expecting this at all," Steve said. "But looks can be deceiving…"
"He's right," Natasha agreed. "We should be ready for a confrontation if we have to be." The little poodle ran into the room and yapped at Thor before putting her paws up on his knees.
"Of course I will pick you up, little one," Thor told the dog, settling it in his lap.
"I wouldn't consider that ready for confrontation, Thor," Bruce said dryly, but before Thor could defend himself the woman and a teenage girl came in to the living room.
"No way," the girl said, her eyes going wide as she stared at them.
"I told you they wanted to talk to you," the woman said.
"Yeah, mom, but I didn't believe the Avengers were actually in my living room!" the girl retorted.
She had long brown hair and a plethora of freckles. She was also wearing Hello Kitty pajamas and had braces on her teeth. She couldn't have been more than fifteen years old.
"You're Melissa Johnson?" Steve asked.
"Oh my god Black Widow knows my name," the girl said, her voice a little breathy.
"But she is only a babe!" Thor said, and Melissa scowled at him.
"I'm not a little kid," she told him furiously. "I'll be sixteen in August."
"What is this all about?" Melissa's mother demanded.
"This may be hard to believe," Steve started. "But when we woke up this morning, we were all in the wrong bodies."
Melissa's face went pale, making her freckles stand out starkly against her cheeks.
"We found a post that Melissa made on the Internet saying that she'd cast a switching curse on Tony."
"I'm sorry, are you saying that my daughter is a mutant?" Mrs. Johnson demanded.
"Not a mutant, no," Steve said. "Just a girl playing with power she doesn't understand. Melissa, what you did is dangerous. What you did could have killed Tony earlier today. We need you to undo the curse."
"It wasn't supposed to hurt him!" Melissa wailed. "It was just supposed to turn him into a woman!"
"What?" Tony demanded. "Why turn me into a woman?"
"I saw you the other day in Manhattan!" she told him, tears threatening to spill. "You were walking down the street and this woman passed and you told her 'smile gorgeous!' and it just made me so mad!"
"Because I complimented someone?" Tony demanded incredulously.
"Because that's street harassment, you big jerk! I just wanted you to see what it's like to live as a woman. What it's like to walk down the street and have ten guys tell you to smile or catcall at you and make you feel like a piece of meat. It wasn't supposed to hurt you and it wasn't supposed to affect anyone else! I don't know what I did wrong!"
"It's okay, Melissa. You made a mistake and you know better now, don't you?" Steve soothed. "We just need you to undo it. It's very important."
"Okay," she said quickly, still sound like she might cry. "Okay, I just need to google a way to break it and get some supplies. Give me a few minutes."
She turned around and fled up the stairs.
"Google," Bruce said, sounding exasperated. "She needs to google a reversal spell."
"I don't know what to think," Melissa's mother admitted weakly. "Is my daughter consorting with Satan?"
"Wicca is actually a religious practice," Phil told her gently. "It's not evil, but it can be very, very dangerous. I would suggest that you find her a teacher, someone who can show her how to use her power and teach her the consequences of it."
"You want me to encourage my little girl to be a witch?" she demanded, her voice a bit shrill.
"In the end it's your decision, of course," Phil said mildly. "But I think you know if she really wants to keep learning she will, whether you want her to or not. It is safer that she does so with a competent teacher."
"Maybe," Mrs. Johnson said, but she didn't seem too convinced.
Clint nudged Phil's foot gently with his own, and Phil rolled his eyes back at him. Melissa thundered back down the stairs again a minute later with a white taper, a lighter, and a canister of salt.
"Okay," she said. "Give me a minute." She rushed off again and came back with a drinking glass filled with water.
"I don't like this," Mrs. Johnson said weakly. "Melissa, I don't think you should…"
"Mom, we can argue about this later," Melissa told her snottily. "Right now I have to undo this."
Mrs. Johnson didn't say another word, and they all watched as Melissa lowered the taper into the glass of water until it was almost completely submerged. She closed her eyes for a long moment and then took a deep breath and opened them again. She picked up the canister of salt and opened the spout.
"With salt, this water is made pure. I give it the power to heal and cure," she said seriously as she poured the salt into the water around the candle.
She then put the salt down and picked up the lighter. It took her a few tries to get it to stay lit longer enough to get the candle's wick burning, and Clint was pretty sure she'd burned her fingertips at least twice. He was on the verge of rushing over there and lighting it for her when she finally got it lit and smiled victoriously.
"A spell was cast with baneful will. A wicked web was wrongly spun. I take away the harm and ill, I now undo what has been done," she said, reading the words off her phone but occasionally glancing at the candle as she did so.
She was quiet for a long minute as she watched the candle burned down until the flame hit the water and extinguished. She lifted it out of the water then and held it horizontally in front of her and peeked at her phone again.
"This harmful spell I now negate, return things to their rightful state!" As she spoke the last word, she snapped the candle in half and Clint's head spun quite suddenly.
He stumbled and felt a bit like he might be sick, but when he recovered he realized that he was sitting on the opposite side of the room that he had been before. He looked down at himself and started laughing in relief when he saw his own body.
"Oh thank god!" he crowed, hugging himself. Everyone else seemed to be having similar joyful reunions with their own bodies, though Phil was frowning in distaste as he removed the poodle from his lap and set it on the floor. He also noticed that Thor was unwrapping the bandages from his newly-healed jaw, which was totally unfair.
"Did it work?" Melissa asked anxiously. "Is everyone back where they're supposed to be?"
"I think we are," Steve told her. "Now Melissa, I hope you know how serious this is."
"I know," she said miserably. "I'm sorry. I thought I could do it right."
"You shouldn't have done it at all!" Tony exclaimed, hotly.
"You shouldn't mess around with things you don't understand," Phil interrupted him, putting on a much more gentle tone of voice. "It can have dire consequences."
"Am I gonna go to jail?" Melissa whimpered, her eyes flooding with tears again.
"No," Phil told her, cracking a smile. "I'd be more worried about the punishment your mother is going to dish out, if I were you."
She nodded miserably. "Okay. I've got to go bury this candle in the backyard. I'm really sorry, Mr. Stark."
"It's okay, kid," Tony sighed. "I'll think about what you said."
Melissa cast him a watery smile and then picked up her glass and the pieces of candle and left the room, leaving her mother speechless.
"We're sorry about coming so late, Mrs. Johnson," Steve told her. "It was necessary, unfortunately."
Mrs. Johnson nodded at them dumbly.
"So we're just going to be on our way, now," Bruce offered, and she nodded again without uttering a sound.
"I don't know about you guys," Clint said as they filed out of the house, "But I could really go for some of that pizza about now."
There was a murmur of agreement and a mad scramble for the quinjet. As Clint got her up in the air and leveled out, Phil settled down in the co-pilot's seat next to him, still healed and healthy from Thor's godly influence.
"This is our life now," he said, sounding exhausted.
"It is," Clint agreed, and then as he steered them back towards Manhattan he added, "Weird as it is, I kind of love it."