Work Text:
It’s an interesting perspective, Steve thinks. About ten inches lower than where his eyes usually rest, and a bit of a blur around the edges where the glasses don’t quite reach. The height’s actually kind of familiar to him, even though it’s something he hasn’t experienced in...Christ, almost a century now. And he’s infinitely aware of this body too, a sudden internal knowledge to go with his in-depth knowledge of the external. The way his heart feels like it’s about to pound out of his skin, the restless twitch in the toes that can’t stay still, the speed of his breath picking up in his lungs with the onset of a slight bit of panic that settles inside.
“Okay, I swear I did NOT mean for this to happen,” Darcy says, and it’s an uncomfortable shock to hear her tones and inflections coming out in his voice from his mouth.
“You can fix this, right?” Steve blurts out, and he claps a hand over his own mouth at the sound of Darcy’s higher pitched words emerging from it. He can smell the ink from her experimental spellwork on her fingers then, sharp and astringent.
“I don’t even know what I did wrong!” Darcy cries out, tossing her arms up in the air and knocking a hand into the bedroom armoire...something that wouldn’t have happened if she was her own height with her own arm span. The wood cracks at the impact of her fist, leaving a pale gash in the door. “Shit,” she mutters, dashing a hand back through her hair and looking discomfited when she can’t tug at the longer ends of it.
Steve watches as Darcy raises her - his wrist and looks at the Asgardian runes that she’d scrawled there in thick black ink. They were for practice, she’d said earlier as they were lounging around in bed, ready to call it a night but not quite ready for sleep. Maybe it works on people too , Darcy had said, looking pensively at the Sharpie that she’d twirled between her fingers. The right runes were great for protection, would help keep them safe and sound no matter what happens. After all, the ones that she had carved into the wood of their bed frame had definitely seemed to bless them throughout their marriage, the proof of it evident in every single aspect of their shared lives. That said, while their marriage is definitely a good and solid one, it doesn’t mean that there isn’t a hell of a lot of work and compromise involved to keep it that way, something they’ve both learned after years of experience.
Now, a few hours later in the middle of the night, with the house silent and sleeping, Steve watches as Darcy spits hard on the fresh markings on his wrist, then rubs firmly at them, trying to wipe them clean of the skin. Years working in the art industry have taught Steve that a Sharpie definitely isn’t that easy to get out, and he sighs miserably, leaning back against the bed. Instead of a graceful perch, however, his back hits the bed at an awkward angle and he lands hard on the mattress, bouncing down with a small grunt that does not at all sound like Darcy. “Acetone might work,” he suggests, righting himself and straightening out his loose pajama top.
His eyes dart down to look at Darcy’s breasts (his, really, if he’s inhabiting this body for the near future). All right, it’s not like he hasn’t seen them before, but still. It’s his wife’s body, and he’s most certainly curious. They’re good breasts, he’s always thought, heavy and full with a deep valley between them, maybe not perched as high on her frame as they were when they first met, but Steve’s since learned that childbirth and nursing does things to a body. He reaches up to trace a finger along one of the silvery-white stretch marks that curve over her cleavage, her badges of honor, Darcy always says.
“Ahem.” Steve guiltily drops his hands away from his breasts and looks up at Darcy with a look that he hopes is entirely innocent. Darcy’s got her arms crossed over her...his chest (which is pale enough that it puts Steve in the mind of a boiled chicken and really, wonders how she even finds him attractive sometimes) and she’s seemed to have quickly mastered the eyebrows of disappointment look that he’s been known to give misbehaving Avengers and later on misbehaving offspring and is directing them right in his direction. Then a smirk blossoms on her face and she tugs at the waistband of his pajama pants, scoping out what’s inside of them for a long moment. “Fair’s fair,” she says. “I have always wanted to know what it’s like to have a dick.”
The possibilities stretch before them, and the look that they share is full of potential, that maybe a little experimentation before they fix this accidental body-swap wouldn’t be such a bad thing. Hell, it could be a lot of fun. And at least it’s a three day weekend - they’ve got a good 48 to 72 hours to get everything back to rights before Darcy has to be at work on Tuesday.
A similar smirk spreads across Steve’s face, and he waggles his eyebrows.
“Mom!”
“Moooooooom!”
The twin chorus of voices echoes down the hallway, and Steve and Darcy wince, the mood broken as it so often was by their kids demanding their undivided attention...even at 2:30 in the morning. “What is it?” Darcy yells back, then claps her hand hard over her mouth, realizing only too late that it was Steve’s voice responding to the kids’ calls.
Steve pushes himself off the bed. “I’ll settle them back down,” he says, motioning at the closed door, “and you see what you can do about removing those runes.” Halfway to the door he pauses, and looks back at Darcy with an impish glint in his eyes. “Maybe not just yet though?”
The wide grin that Darcy gives him in response is answer enough.