Terra Firma

This isn’t my body.  

It’s the first thing that comes to mind. 

The body is bigger than before, heavier — denser in a way. Younger? 

Strange…

There’s a hand across the midriff: familiar in its closeness, intimate in a way that’s foreign. A soft breath tickles the skin just under the earlobe and firm muscles press against the back, curving along the spine.

Something hard against the clothed bottom, rocking in a languid, sleepy moves. The body feels comfortable, but the mind tenses up, ready for violence.

This is welcomed, the body purrs as the mind screams Get away from me!

The hand splays against the abdomen, skims along the ribs, dives under the shirt. The body lets out an involuntary gasp/shiver: the feel of thrumming heartbeat is confusing.

The hand pauses.

”Something wrong?” A gruff voice. Familiar. Safe. 

Clint.

The body relaxes more, but the mind stays alert. 

Slowly, the hand retreats. Breathing turns easier, but also more forced, the body remembering and missing the embrace.

Breathe in — breathe out — breathe in… The familiar routine compels the breathing to even out.

A moment of silence, then, ”Okay, this might sound bad, but… Tasha?”

Eyes squeeze shut, refusing the prickly feeling of relief.

”Yes,” she says with a barely audible tremor, voice too deep to be her own.

Something is wrong with the body. She doesn’t understand the reactions: the racing heart and need to be close — closer. It’s wrong. She’s never felt like this without an imminent threat of dying.

Clint lets out a deliberate breath. ”Turn around,” he says quietly.

She does, gingerly, awkward in this skin.

Clint is close, looking at her with serious eyes, myriad colors dulled by worry. She knows its not just for her sake.

Slowly, he reaches out with his hand and waits for permission. Her body twitches at the unfamiliar/familiar proximity, and she doesn’t know how to react. The body craves the contact, but her mind shies away, repulsed. 

But this is Clint.

She forces herself to look at him, to see how scared he is, and she steels herself, making herself nod.

He leans forward to press his forehead gently against hers, and despite her reactions, the body recognizes the comfort and lets her breathe again.

Clint swallows, a dry click in the dim room. ”We’ll figure this out, okay?” 

With Clint’s faith like a shield around her, she nods.

The phone buzzes and Clint turns to get it.

”Yeah? Phil, thank fuck! She’s here — Mmm… average. Not on Budapest level, but perhaps Gambia? — Sure.”

Clint ducks his head to get her attention.

”It’s Phil. He want’s to talk to you.”

A deep breath. Stay calm.

”Hello?”

”Natasha? Are you alright?” 

It’s… ’creepy,’ as Clint would say, to hear her own voice and instantly recognize it’s not her.

”I’m not sure.” A mental checklist throughout the body. Nothing adds up. ”I don’t have enough data.”

”It’s okay. Stay with Clint. I’ll come as soon as I can.”  Phil pauses, then continues, hesitant, ”Is there something I need to know to get out of your apartment alive?”

A brimming urgency blooms somewhere in her gut. Never tell. Never reveal. Vulnerable, open, weak. 

”I’ll go into the bathroom,” Clint says, soft and understanding.

She waits until she hears the shower, and only then recites the instructions, the words rasping like thorns on their way out, resisting. But she has no choice. 

Phil is important enough to suffer a moment of exposure.

Later, alone in the bathroom, she stands naked in front of the mirror. She cocks her head and frowns, looking at the man gazing back at her. Average height, average weight, in reasonably good condition for a man of his age. Clint would probably protest and say that Phil is in awesome condition. However, he’s biased, she’s merely being objective.

Hairy chest, not so hairy head. And finally: blue-gray eyes, coolly assessing her. They are cold and calculating. Dead. They are not Phil’s eyes.

Not willing to hold the eye-contact, she yields and looks away.

There’s a massive, rigged scar in the middle of the chest, the size of her — no, his — palm. She slowly runs a finger along the scar, feeling the smooth granulation and the uneven edges. There’s no sensation from the scar itself, but the area around it is sensitive, sending shivers along her spine. 

It’s very different from the scars she knows from her own body.

She turns around to see if the scar is mirrored in the back. It is, albeit slightly smoother. She finds herself calculating trajectories, of entrance wounds and exit wounds, the perfect angle to inflict most damage.

The body thanks her with a shudder.

Lower, there’s a swell of a well-formed behind, different from her own. Flatter, more angular. Spectacular, Clint had once said. She understands the parameters and aesthetics, but not the attraction.

With narrowed eyes, she turns around again and lets the eyes drift downwards.

This is a mission, she thinks. The use of extensive measures is permitted to ensure the safe extraction of a compromised Agent.

She blinks and tilts the head to the side, letting her eyes follow the dark line from the navel down, to the coarse hair and flaccid extension she’s not used to having.

She doesn’t understand the fuss.

For a moment, she contemplates. To reach down and grip, to stroke. 

To test what’s it all about.

Then she closes her eyes and breathes out.

No.

A small smile tugs her lips. This is the limit. 

The suits are an armor, she understands now. Clad in Egyptian quality cotton and 92/2 wool/silk blend suit, she feels ready to face the world, even though three flimsy layers hardly qualify as any kind of protection.

But it’s not the layers, it’s the attitude.

Meeting the image in the mirror, she tilts the head.

”Do you need help?” The voice is familiar, but it’s not the Clint she knows from today. It’s something from before.

She wants things back to normal so that Clint can go back to normal.

Clint’s eyes meet her in the mirror. They’re wary and guarded, two endless pits of pain camouflaged as shallow dips barely worth mentioning. She looks and sees the soul-deep fear she thought she never needed to see again, and she remembers that, even though Clint can see the body, the love of Clint’s life isn’t really here.

”Please,” she says, just to give him permission to touch. 

It’s like a glove of touch, being inside this body that turns towards Clint like a flower to the sun, but she bites back her distaste. This is for him, she thinks and sets her jaw with an audible grit.

The tie is easy, but Clint fumbles.

”I’m sorry,” he says. His eyes are bright when she makes him to meet her gaze.

”Not your fault,” she answers, bites back bile, and gives Clint a clumsy hug. 

When Clint buries his nose into her neck and takes a couple of deep breaths to steady himself, she knows it was the right decision, even though it leaves her reeling.

Clint’s breath stays on the skin like an itch. She resists the need to rub it off.

In the common room, Tony drifts too close in an easy move before they have the chance to warn the others off. The body she is in is too clumsy and wrong, but it works the way she wants anyway, flowing into motion on instinct.

”What the fuck, Phil?” Tony splutters from the floor, eyes bewildered and hurt.

She contemplates on apologizing and explaining, but she feels too much on edge. 

From the corner of her eye, she sees Clint help Tony up and whisper something in his ear. The sympathy in his eyes both irritates and soothes her.

”It’s not me, it’s Natasha,” Phil says from the door. He looks out of sorts in her body in a thousand little ways, and it grates her, but she can’t help to be fascinated how different her body looks.

Phil moves her body across the room, stops in front of her, and nods.

”Hello, Natasha.”

Relief.

”Hi, Phil.”

”Okay, creepy, much?” Tony calls from a safe distance away. 

She ignores him. Irrelevant distraction when adjusting to the new parameters. She would have time to talk with Stark later.

Clint hovers nearby, his need to be close almost palpable. He’s always been a tactile one, something she’s never really understood. But he doesn’t touch, neither her nor her body, respecting her even though it must hurt him.

If she knew how to love, she would love him now.

Several agonizing hours later, they finally find the reason behind Phil and her condition, as Thor drags in a lesser deity. Apparently, she wanted to impress Loki.

(”Wait? What? What do you mean?” Tony asks.

”Natasha played Loki to reveal his inglorious plan, and I shot him,” Phil explains. ”She thought humiliating us would grant her favors.”)

She pays them no heed and concentrates on the deity instead.  

After a short while, she leans back, satisfied she is as efficient in this body as in her own. The deity still has enough fingers to perform the reversal spell.

She sways on her feet as she returns to her own body, momentarily angry at the slip on her control.

On the couch behind her, Clint climbs to straddle Phil and hugs him close. She is happy for them. They belong.

She brushes off the team’s questions and leaves, her need to be alone more pressing than the well-meaning concern of her teammates.

Later that day, on the other side of the town, she makes an inventory of herself. 

Satisfied that everything is as it’s supposed to be, she finally raises her head and meets the eyes in the mirror.

They are familiar. Safe.

She nods. This is me.