FIC: Deja Vu (original) (raw)

Title: Deja Vu
Rating: PG
Pairing: UST Stephanie/Natasha
Notes: Part of my schmoop_bingo for the prompt "De-Age (physical)". Set in a universe where Steve Rogers is Stephanie Rogers and Tony Stark is Natasha Stark.
Summary: It's times like these that she heartily agrees with Natasha's distate for magic.

She has a strange moment of déjà vu – it’s been six or sixty-six years depending on who she asks since she’s seen this face – and it hasn’t changed a bit. Same old sharp cheekbones, same sunken eyes with dark circles, same narrow shoulders…

Stephanie sighs, turning from the mirror and dropping down onto her bed with a soft sigh. It is times like these that she heartily agrees with Natasha’s distaste for magic. Fortunately she’d been on the periphery of Doom’s “Age Reducer Ray”. A full blast of the thing would’ve resulted in her being turned into an embryo within the blink of an eye. Even better news was that the Super Soldier Serum seemed to be reversing the effects automatically – at least according to Hank– correcting the flaws in her genetic make-up all over again.

She’d just have to be patient, Hank had said, until her body caught back up with time.

That was easy for him to say – he wasn’t stuck in the too skinny, pale, fragile weak body of his nineteen year old self. God she looked terrible – her joints and clavicles seem to almost poke through her pasty-white skin. She looked like she was ill – which she had been before the serum. Her body ached – Hank said that it probably meant that the serum was working. At least she didn’t feel as tired as she remembered being back then – another small mercy she supposed.

The only good thing to come out of this whole mess was that her hair now brushed her shoulders, just like she had worn it when she’d been nineteen for real (Hank had been puzzled by that, but there really was no applying logic to magic). She’d been trying to grow it out off and on for years – but she’s always had to cut it all off again when it got scorched, cut and in one very memorable incident dunked in a vat of bubblegum. She’d finally given up – long hair wasn’t practical under the cowl anyway.

She glances back at the mirror, one hand coming up absently to play with a strand of her hair. The long flaxen waves once had been the only thing about her appearance that she’d taken any pride in. She’d trade it back in an instant to be her old self again – her old, new self. The girl in the mirror is someone she doesn’t know any more.

She really hates magic right about now.

A knock on the door startles her – Natasha is standing in the doorway, holding a pizza box up.

“Love the new look,” Natasha says cheekily, grinning brightly. “Hungry?”

“I’m not hungry,” Stephanie replies sourly, not liking the way Natasha’s eyes are dancing with amusement at her plight.

If their positions had been reversed – well they’d just see how much Natasha liked being a spotty teenager all over again – she probably wouldn’t have found it so funny then. In fact, if it hadn’t been for that week long board and shareholder meeting that Natasha had to attend (and considering Natasha hadn’t even tried to escape it, it had to have been an important meeting) she probably would’ve been the one in front of Doom’s ray. Natasha had a nasty habit of trying to take bullets for her – something Stephanie should really talk to her about.

“Ray’s can make anything better –” Natasha smirks, cracking open the lid of the pizza box and giving Stephanie a glimpse of bubbling cheese. She can smell the pizza from across the room and she’d be lying if she said that she wasn’t starting to feel a bit peckish.

Natasha strides in confidently and drops down onto the bed beside Stephanie, setting the pizza carelessly on the corner of the bed. Natasha is so very pretty; she’d be a looker even back in Stephanie’s time. Even though it’s silly, Stephanie’s irrationally certain that Natasha never had an awkward moment in puberty. She probably just woke up one morning a full grown woman.

“C’mon, it could’ve been worse.”

“How could it be worse?”

“Could’ve been turned into an embryo and Jan could’ve had to rebirth you,” Natasha suggests.

“That’s—” Stephanie’s nose scrunches – she can’t even picture the scene in her head it’s so disgusting. “—gross. Why would you even think of—”

“Told you it could be worse,” Natasha smiles, leaning across the mattress to open the pizza box again and pulling free a gooey slice. Natasha lets out a soft groan as she takes that first bite, a string of mozzarella hanging from her bottom lip.

Okay, now she’s kind of hungry.

Wordlessly, Natasha passes over the box and between the two of them they begin to quickly devour the large all-meat combo. Natasha asks about the fight and Stephanie gives her a blow by blow recap of the fight. Jan had been fierce with her stingers; apparently Hank had given them an upgrade. Thor had been impressive as usual – he’d been mighty frustrated when a Doombot had become impaled on the handle of Mjolnir and proved very difficult to remove though.

They’re down to the last slice when Natasha flops back on the bed, stretching her arms above her head with content sigh.

“I thought you had that meeting…,” Stephanie asks, propping herself up with one arm.

“Pepper can handle the rest of it,” Natasha shrugs, one corner of her lips quirking up. “I’ve done all the hard work – lots of ass kissing and hand jobs. My knees are killing me.”

Stephanie rolls her eyes – Natasha can be so crass sometimes. She does understand the sentiment though – she remembers long hours of shaking hands with three and four stars generals, politicians and members of the press corps. Those meetings had been important – had let those with all the power in the government get to know her – allowed her to convince them to continue to support the Invaders. It’d been more difficult than she imagined – her whole body itching to do something that felt useful instead of standing in a room talking – and not even really talking because you had that script in your head of all the talking points you needed to cover without sounding like you had that script of talking points in your head.

She understood quite well why Natasha tried to find any excuse to get out of those meetings.

“So, when did Hank think you’d be back to your old self again,” Natasha asks, looking at Stephanie through sleepy half-lidded eyes.

“Few hours – maybe a day at the most,” Stephanie holds back a yawn herself, sliding down to lay across from Natasha.

“Mmmm…” Natasha’s eyes drift shut for a moment, and Stephanie feels a sweet-sour burn at the idea of Natasha sleeping in her bed. “So, what’s it like being a teenager again?”

“It stinks,” Stephanie sighs. “Pretty much like the first time through.”

“C’mon, didn’t you have sleepovers, pillow fights, makeovers, cutting out pictures of that cutie Rudolph Valentino?”

“Valentino was before even my time,” Stephanie snorts, her lips curling in amusement. “I didn’t spend a lot of time with the other girls…”

No one had a lot of money in her neighborhood, but Stephanie and her mother had been poorer than most. She hadn’t been invited to many of those parties that Natasha talked about. When she had, often times she’d been too sick to go. Besides, some of those girls had only invited her because their mothers had insisted that their daughters invite everyone in the class.

Natasha’s eyes snap open, lips pouting.

“That simply won’t do,” Natasha mutters, pushing herself off the bed with a soft groan. Stephanie rolls onto her side, watching as Natasha strides over to Stephanie’s vanity, and then starts digging through the drawers for a moment before pulling free Stephanie’s silver-handled brush.

The brush had been one of the few things that Stephanie had inherited from her mother – and her mother from Stephanie’s grandmother. It was one of the few family heirlooms that had made it across the ocean, and miraculously hadn’t been pawned for cash by either of her parents before it had made its way to Stephanie. She hardly ever uses it, she’s so afraid of damaging it.

“C’mon, sit up,” Natasha urges, standing at the foot of the bed.

The bed is almost too comfortable – and gosh her stomach is full – but she rolls herself up with a groan, curious to what Natasha is planning to do.

She feels Natasha move to sit behind her, Natasha’s thighs resting on the outside of Stephanie’s. She can feel Natasha’s warmth through her clothing. Her scalp tingles as she feels the long gentle stroke of the brush down the length of her hair. Muscles that had been tensed since her accident begin to relax under Natasha’s smooth ministrations.

“I never got invited to slumber parties either,” Natasha says softly as she sets the brush aside for a moment. Stephanie leans back as she feels Natasha running her fingers through Stephanie’s hair. “Lots of frat parties though.”

Stephanie isn’t sure how long she and Natasha sit there – Stephanie’s pretty sure that at some point Natasha is supposed to style her hair, but that never happens. Natasha seems content to brush Stephanie’s hair and it feels too good for Stephanie to say anything.

At some point the serum begins the final phase of re-development – at least Stephanie hopes that’s what the increasing aching pain means. She forces the pain away as best she’s able and focuses on the rhythm of the brush in her hair, the soft push then long pull as Natasha runs it slowly through her hair.

A soft disappointed noise involuntarily escapes from Stephanie’s lips when Natasha sets the brush aside again.

“Maybe you want to lay down,” Natasha whispers, hands coming down to rest on Stephanie’s shoulders, squeezing them gently.

Natasha can’t mean it how Stephanie wants her to mean it – Stephanie’s not even sure how she wants Natasha to mean it. She slides down the bed though, resting her head in Natasha’s lap.

“Losing then regrowing super-enhanced muscles in a few hours can’t be comfortable.”

It’s not comfortable, Stephanie agrees, but it’s much easier with someone else there.