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"What the hell,” Bucky says, delighted. ”I knew you didn’t wear underwear under this thing!”
Steve scowls, spits a strand of hair out of his mouth. “You need a damn hair cut,” he says.
Sam glances at Natasha, gun still trained on the evil scientist holding a smoldering cannon and ruining the menacing effect by looking completely stunned.
"Body swap?" he asks warily.
Natasha sighs and aims a flying kick at the evil scientist’s head.
“Body swap,” she confirms.
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"All I’m saying is you can use your powers for a little evil,” Bucky argues, propping his feet on Sam’s dining table.
Sam tries not to focus on how weird it is to see Steve’s body tipping backward in a chair, eating a box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch with his hands.
Steve ignores Bucky in favor of plaiting his hair back.
Sam also tries not to focus on how weird it is to see Bucky’s face visibly contemplating the finer points of fishtail over French.
"Wouldn’t going rogue kinda ruin his cred as a superhero?" Sam asks, stealing a handful of cereal. Bucky slaps his wrist, which is—a lot less painful than it usually is, considering his hand’s not metal this time.
"I’m not talking about stealing or taking over the world or anything," Bucky says.
"But if I was Captain America, I’d—"
His eyes light up. Steve stops braiding, eyes narrowing.
"Bucky," he begins, warning evident in his tone.
"See you losers later!" Bucky crows, then with a quick feint left and a dash right, he’s evading Steve’s grasping hands and bursting through the back door.
Literally bursting through. The door gives a mournful creak before it falls off its hinges, slamming to the ground with a crash.
Sam thinks wistfully of life before making friends with two giants who have no concept for 21st century property damage.
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So. The situation is handled now, buuuuut you MIGHT get a couple messages about Captain America streaking on the National Mall. Just heads up. FYI. Natasha texts.
Sam’s got a lot of questions about what just happened, but he closes the iMessage determined not to ask any of them.
Instead, he puts on the TV. When Steve catches sight of the footage, he gets a weirdly pleased expression on his face.
"Is that really what I look like from the back?" he asks, preening a little.
Sam sighs.
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"Okay, but how are you going to get James back?" Natasha asks later, filing her pinkie nail into a sharp point.
Bucky snorts. “He’s not,” he says idly, taking a selfie with the phone he stole from Tony Stark last time they were in New York. He’s been doing that a lot lately. Sam has the sneaking suspicion that Bucky’s just sending all the pictures to his own damn email account for later perusal.
Steve frowns. “It would be a pretty big violation, using his body to do something he didn’t want. Especially after all he’s been through.”
Bucky’s face goes soft. And since it’s actually Steve’s face, it genuinely looks soft, not just darkly handsome and sort of wounded and a little murder-y.
"That’s nice, Steve, thanks—" he says, and that’s when all their phones chime with a text message picture of giant pectorals with miniature Captain America shields drawn around the nipples.
Natasha grins. “I like the little stars,” she says.
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Steve comes in the next morning wearing head to toe Yankees gear.
The newspaper headline that day reads: Captain America nearly brains unsuspecting Yankees fan. Does Cap hate baseball?!
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“Look, can you stop jumping out planes without parachutes for like, one day?”
They’re on a mission and Steve’s looking out the QuinJet door with an assessing gaze.
“I could make it,” he says. “Your body’s lighter, so it’d be a little harder to gauge landing—“
“Oh and that’s not the most important part of leaping outta speeding jets at all—“
“—but it’d be fun! You can do it with me! Just spread your arms like this!”
Steve demonstrates. Bucky looks unimpressed.
“You look like a wombat. Like a wombat with a death wish.” He squints. “Don’t fling my body outta this plane, Steve.”
“What if I gently toss it out the plane instead?”
Bucky leans in, pokes at the line between Steve’s —his—brows .
“Then I’ll gently toss you into Nat’s line of fire next time she’s looking to set someone up with her friend from Krav Maga.”
Steve huffs. “Unfair,” he says, and tugs on the parachute that Bucky is holding out.
“Tell that to my unruptured spleen,” Bucky says dryly. Then he tugs on his parachute, too, and the both of them jump out of the plane, giving twin hoots of exhilaration.
Sam frowns. “Do they know they just put on the two parachutes that Tony replaced with lightweight jet packs last month?” he asks.
Natasha, at the controls, smirks. “They’ll find out,” she says serenely.
…they do.
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“Eyeliner?” Steve asks dubiously, looking at the little pot of black gel in his hand.
“Battle camouflage,” Bucky says sternly. “Look, I’ll put some on first to show you.”
Later, the news’ll report five pedestrian accidents and two middle school riots because someone tweeted a picture of Steve and Bucky walking down the street wearing leather and eye makeup.
“Nice,” Sam says when he sees. “Very punk rock.”
“It’s battle camouflage,” Bucky snaps.
“It’s eyeliner,” Steve confirms, and bats his eyelashes at a passerby.
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They’re lounging around on Sam’s couch wearing identical blue and red pajamas (because they’re idiots, Natasha maintains, or else adorable, like Sam insists) when Bucky asks the question they’ve all been wondering and just have tried not to articulate.
“Hey, Steve,” he says, idly flipping the channels. “Have you, y’know…taken a peek?”
Steve is conspicuously silent for a minute. “Why?” he asks. “Have you?”
Bucky grins crookedly. “Had to shower and take a leak, didn’t I?” he asks.
Steve shrugs. “Same here, jerk.”
Bucky nods thoughtfully, then goes back to the television show. Natasha looks like she’s about ready to crawl out of her skin waiting for more. Sam is just kind of hoping the conversation is over.
Finally, the silence gets to be too much. “Well?” Natasha bursts out.
“Well, what?” Steve asks pleasantly.
Natasha growls. “Nothing,” she says forcefully. “I don’t care. It’s not like I ever wanna see either of them anyway.”
Bucky smirks and discreetly bumps fists with Steve.
Sam’s just glad they didn’t give any definitive answers.
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Of course, Steve is just the kind of undercover asshole to leave a set of measurements tacked up to the fridge, waiting for days before anyone actually understands.
Bucky laughs and adds his own set of measurements below. Then they both laugh at Sam’s, “Man, that is way more information than I ever needed!”
Neither of them are laughing much when Natasha Instagrams the post-it with the hashtag #SuperSoldiers4Sure.
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In the end, they switch back into their bodies during a pretty epic battle in the middle of New York, helping the rest of the Avengers dispatch Victor Von Doom for the hundredth time.
There’s a flash and a bang and the switch happens.
At the precise moment when Steve is about to punch a robot full force with his metal arm and Bucky’s doing some complicated parkour off a building about twenty stories up.
Needless to say, it could go better.