The women of Darcy Lewis's family have a powerful gift, or curse. They switch places with people destined to change the world when those people's lives are threatened before the important thing they are supposed to do happens.
Steve Rogers is one of those people, and man, that boy gets close to dead a lot. Fortunately his Swap is none other than Judo artist, Softball player, and all star badass Darcy Lewis.
James Buchanan Barnes thinks he's just along for the ride. But when war comes knocking, he might just get caught up in this whole mess further than he thought.
[Notice from the office of the Fangirl General: consumption of fic has been known to cause Feels, impatience, addiction and fan-theory. The maker of this fic encourages you to fic responsibly.]
—The summary of Bodies in Time
Written by BairnSidhe and ValkyriePhoenix, the Bodies-verse and its sister series, Things That Should Not Have Worked: A Brief History of SHIELD, are a Marvel Cinematic Universe fanfiction exploring Mental Time Travel, found family, saving the world, explosions, and how to keep reckless superheroes from dying.
There are four main works in this 'verse: Bodies in Time, Bodies in Space, Agents of HERO, and Code Chartreuse. There are four other multi-chapter fics, and several oneshots. As of November 2020, two series are closing in on 860,000 words combined, with a total of 29 works.
Starting November 2020, a new series called The Bodies-Verse Director's Cut was started, as a rewritten and reorganized version of the series.
Includes major characters from Red (2010), Stick It, Sky High (2005), and Warehouse 13, with more minor cameos by or references to characters from The Lord of the Rings, NCIS, NCIS: Los Angeles, The Chronicles of Narnia, and Torchwood.
Spoilers are only marked for the three ongoing fics.
This work provides examples of:
- Adaptational Heroism: Loki is much more firmly on the side of Good than he is in the movies.
- Adaptation Distillation: Combines MCU canon with comics canon, fanon, and meta analysis of the franchise into its own version of the Marvel universe.
- Alice Allusion: When Jane meets the Aether.Alice got lost, and I guess that we can't really blame her.
- Death Faked for You:
- Bucky also did this for the girls that failed out of the Red Room; he would smuggle them out of Russia and report them as dead.
- Elemental Powers: The Keener siblings. Zoe has a Green Thumb; Harley is a Technopath.
- Grievous Harm with a Body: According to Excerpts From the Manual, May has used a cat as a weapon.
- Happily Adopted: Zoe and Harley by most of the main characters; Little, by Loki; and the Red Room girls, by Darcy and Bucky.
- Near the beginning of Bodies in Space, Bucky adopts Skye as his honorary sister. It's made official after the Dark World arc.
- Darcy herself, as well as Ciara Harrow, by Odin and Frigga during the most recent arc of Code Chartreuse.
- Improvised Weapon: Enough that there's an entire category for it at The Fair.
- Fury once used a fire extinguisher as a projectile weapon, then during the same fight, used the concussive force of a grenade to put out a fire.
- Coulson knows how to turn a fountain pen into a vector for induced pulmonary embolism.
- Clint has lit dirty diapers on fire and thrown them at the enemy. While on a different protection detail, he used diapers of the non-flaming variety.
- Long-Lost Relative: Bucky is a substitute father to the Red Room girls, with Darcy as their mother, putting this into effect whenever one of Natasha's classmates/siblings shows up. So far, we've only met three of them: Vikitsa, a biologist and poisons expert aka Maya Hansen; Nika, a member of the Bratva; and Katenka, a hacker.
- Mental Time Travel: The underlying premise, along with Grand Theft Me.
- Noodle Incident: We still don't know what Darcy's cousin Casey did during her swap.
- No Periods, Period: Averted. When in doubt blame your menstrual cycle, as Darcy tells Steve.
- Only Sane Man: The Bucky Barnes Award and the "Not My Circus, Not My Monkeys (Just Keep Telling Yourself That, Sir)" Award. The first one goes to the one sane person in a team or partnership who keeps the other(s) alive despite their various acts of idiocy; the second is a monthly award (including a bottle of the good stuff) going to the handler of the team who pulled the stupidest stunt that month.
- The Power of Friendship: In Chapter 30 of Bodies in Space, Darcy ends up on a Watch list because she got a standing invitation for tea with Doctor Doom, leader of Latveria and generally known around the world as a 'bad guy'. Guess how she accomplished this? Lampshaded..Clint Barton: She Literally defeated a major evil dictator with the power of friendship.Bucky Barnes: It is Magic.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: The "I'd Rather be Frozen" Award.
- Shout-Out: Beyond the copious Firefly references?
- Cameos abound, from an appearance by (Agent) Warren Peace, who later became a point-of-view character in his own right, to a blink-and-you'll-miss-it reference to Warehouse 13, later expanded into a full chapter in Out of Body Experience.
- SHIELD managed to steal Hetty Lange out from under Vance's nose, but Gibbs snagged Ziva David before Fury could.
- Agents Samms and Jones, who waged warfare against HYDRA agents with cookware during the battle for the Triskelion, are this universe's version of Samwise Gamgee and Ianto Jones.
- While not tagged as such, the Bodies-verse also takes place in a modified version of the X-Men universe, with major appearances from James Howlett and a young Erik Lensherr during the Captain America: The First Avenger arc and Jean Grey during the recent Guardians of the Galaxy arc. Zoe and Harley are mutants, now attending Charles Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters. Also includes a version of Doctor Doom from Fantastic Four, whom Darcy has a standing invitation for Tea with.
- Magenta is now Melinda May's niece.
- Susan Pevensie's granddaughter appears during the Battle of Greenwich, and again in Code Chartreuse.
- Steve and Darcy see several movies together via ride-along, including RENT and Pirates of the Caribbean.
- Zoe Washburne would be Steve's hero, but on the basis that she's fictional, it's Tony instead.
- Darcy owns a Firefly lunchbox.
- The theme song makes a few appearances.
- Timeline-inappropriate a capella, courtesy of a roofied drink and a certain Toni Basil song.
- Darcy sings as a form of interrogation, including the world's creepiest lullaby, a Russian translation of Once Upon a December from Anastasia, and a modified version of the Princess Bride credits song.
- Darcy sings as a form of interrogation
- Cameos abound, from an appearance by (Agent) Warren Peace, who later became a point-of-view character in his own right, to a blink-and-you'll-miss-it reference to Warehouse 13, later expanded into a full chapter in Out of Body Experience.
- Something Only They Would Say: While occupying Bucky's body, Darcy proves her identity to Howard and Maria Stark by singing part of the Firefly theme song, convincing them to help her fake their deaths.
- Two Guys and a Girl: The main triad.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: Darcy's best friend is introduced in Chapter Three of Bodies in Time and never referred to again.
