This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. The Black Widow is the property of Marvel Comics.

Note:Well, I had the idea for a sequel last year and I took some notes, had an outline, but no outline I write survives contact with the enemy, me. This turned out a bit different then I planned, but I hope ya all like it. Thanks to djkauf for editing.

Jackie dreaded the arrival of October more than any other month because October meant Halloween and with Halloween came ‘Trick or Treating’. It was the ‘Trick’ part of the tradition that Jackie feared the most because four Halloweens ago, she received a real doozy of a trick as punishment for being a punk and not wearing a costume. Jackie felt certain it was a punishment, but now, she wasn’t so sure because she was almost ashamed to admit it; she loved being a girl far more than she liked being a boy.

Her acceptance of girlhood didn’t come easy. The first year was pure hell on both her and her family.  Her family only knew her as a girl and her initial claims of being born a boy caused her to suffer through many visits with a psychologist. She might have been able to skip the shrink sessions if she hadn’t hacked off most of her hair three days after Halloween.

Jack was simply frustrated and hated having to spend so much time washing, conditioning, blow drying and styling her hair, but her parents saw things differently. At the advice of her school counselors, who knew better because scientific studies and Britney Spears had proven that girls who butcher their own hair are crying out for help, they sent her to see a psychologist.

Fortunately, her shrink was convinced she was just going through an intense tomboy phase, brought on by typical teenage girl body image angst.  Jackie had no problems with her body image. She knew she was smoking hot and wasn’t at all worried about not looking pretty enough for the boys. Oh no, it was the exact opposite with her. She hated how pretty she looked and didn’t want to have anything to do with girl things, girl roles and most definitely not, boys as boyfriends.

At first, she didn’t want to talk to the man about her ‘gender identity problem’, as he termed it, because she didn’t have a problem with admitting she was a girl.  She was painfully aware of that fact, but she knew she was supposed to be a boy and nothing anyone could say or do was good enough to convince her otherwise. However, she was smart enough to know that the fact, in her reality, that she used to be a boy, wasn’t scientifically possible and thus, not something she should mention to her shrink.

She was also smart enough to figure out that the doctor needed to find something wrong with her before he could ‘cure’ her. Thus, after the second session, she began dressing more feminine while pretending to feel embarrassed about her ‘tomboy’ issue and after six months of bi-weekly therapy sessions, her esteemed and benevolent doctor pronounced her cured. 

Sucker!

If it hadn’t been for her friends, Tony and Vic, knowing and remembering Jackie as Jack, their best friend and most definitely a dude, she might have been convinced she was crazy because people didn’t spontaneously change their gender and bend reality to make everyone think nothing was wrong.  Tony’s girlfriend, Heather, was also a big help.

Due to all the time Tony and Vic spent trying to help their friend, Heather thought Tony was cheating on her, but after Jackie’s hair meltdown and some intense heart to heart discussions, Heather realized that A) Tony was not cheating on her and B) Jackie really had been a boy because Jackie had no clue about being a girl.

Without Heather’s help, Jackie would’ve probably killed herself or been committed.  It was Heather who helped her through the dark times and got her up to speed on all the things girls her age should know.  It was Heather’s advice and coaching on what to tell the shrink about what she was thinking and feeling after her Halloween meltdown that got her out of counseling intact.

Heather, her first BFF and friends who are boys, but not boyfriends, stuck by her side and got her through the first year. Another thing that helped her cope with her sudden gender reversal was the discovery that she was not alone. Other people had fallen victim to the house and its prankster. 

There were sites dedicated to compiling the accounts of the people who were changed by the Prankster as she called her or it or whatever the being that screwed up her life was. Other people called it the Trickster, Coyote and some even called it Loki, but Jackie had a hard time separating her image of the comic book Loki from the Norse Loki. Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on your point of view, the only people who took the accounts as real were the handful of people who had been changed by the Prankster.

The following Halloween, Tony, Heather and Vic helped her track down the Prankster House. It had been sighted in a town two hours away and Tony, as the only one of her friends with his own car, was able to drive them to the town on Halloween night, but they arrived a full hour to late. The suspected Prankster House was empty and no evidence remained to even suggest it might have been the right house.

Jackie cried and found herself being hugged and comforted by Vic the entire ride home. The following week, she and Vic officially became a couple and Jackie found herself feeling pretty darn confused and happy about the situation.  She still missed being a boy, but being a girl wasn’t all that bad. Plus, Vic was an excellent kisser and, hopefully unknown to her parents, the boy she lost her virginity to.

Now, in her second year of college, Jackie found herself squeezing herself into the same Black Widow costume she found in her room that fateful Halloween night. She was glad her hair was already red and she didn’t have to wear the wig that came with the costume. “Hurry up Melody! I’m...” She inhaled and jumped up as she pulled the skin tight costume over her hips. “Almost ready to go.”

“Hey, I’m working on it! Some of us haven’t been as blessed as you by the titty fairy and have to work a little harder to look our best!” Melody giggled at Jackie’s pained expression as she added a flesh toned bra insert to give herself a little more cleavage before she donned her dress.

Unlike her friend Jackie, Melody’s costume for this evening wasn’t really a costume. Her dress looked like something a girl would normally wear to a casual night out with her friends or to school, but on her six foot plus, male football player body, it looked like a costume. “Are you sure this is going to work because this new, anatomically correct gaff you insisted I buy is killing me!”

“Suck it up. It’s part of your costume and you want to be a girl, right?” Jackie shot back as she worked on zipping up the front of her suit.

Melody sighed wistfully at her, oozing sex appeal without even trying, friend. “Yeah, but I still find it hard to believe that you used to be a guy and that anyone would ever be fooled into thinking I’m a girl with these clothes.” She lamented as she stepped into her dress and pulled it over her flat and featureless hips.

Melody’s real first name was Alexander and ‘she’ was physically and painfully male, but she had always felt that something was wrong with her body. She was never comfortable with being a boy, doing boy things or wearing boy clothes. She always found herself looking at other women, and instead of feeling attracted to them, she found herself feeling jealous. Jealous of how pretty they looked, jealous of their clothes, jealous of their friendships and jealous of how free they were  to express their emotions and feelings..

Alex compensated by being an all-star football player and as macho of a boy as she could be, the envy of all his friends and the object of desire by the girls. Nature was both cruel and kind to her in that effort.  Kind because as a boy, Alex was blessed with the perfect body. He stood six foot four, had the wide chest and shoulders of a linebacker and was a natural athlete, which helped him earn the college football scholarship his parents and coach groomed him for. Cruel, because his desire to be the girl he felt on the inside was going to be a long, painful and humiliating process.

Unable to take it any more, she revealed her feelings and came out to her parents during the summer break. Her Mom called her a perverted freak and wanted nothing to do with her, but amazingly, her father stepped up and gave his daughter/son his support and love. It was a little rocky at first and it eventually led to Melody’s parents getting a divorce, but she took the first step, had the support of her father and thought things were looking up for her. How could there be anything worse than being rejected by your own mother?

Sadly, once she returned back to school in the fall, things went from bad to worse when she was booted from the team for being a ‘homo’ and all of her ‘friends’ turned their backs on her. The athletic department head claimed it was due to Alex taking ‘performance enhancing drugs’ and being booted from the team should have got him kicked out of college, but the threat of a discrimination lawsuit by the ACLU got the school to change their tune and Melody was allowed to stay in school while she began her transition.

Fortunately, her grades were good enough to keep her in school and her Dad had some money to help with both her tuition and medical bills, but socially, things went downhill fast and the stigma was too much for her to handle. She tried to kill herself with sleeping pills, but she was saved when, on a whim to move her bed, Jackie went over to Melody’s room to ask her for help and found her on the floor with an empty bottle of pills in her hand.

“So, explain to me again how me, dressing up like a girl is supposed to work?” Melody dubiously glanced down at her dress. “I mean, you told me you just wore your normal boy clothes and this ‘Prankster’’ changed you into a girl.  Shouldn’t I wear my boy clothes instead?”

Jackie finished pulling on her boots. “Well, it’s like this. When you wear boy clothes, do you feel like a girl wearing a boy costume or a boy wearing his normal clothes?”

“Well, I feel wrong and would much rather be wearing something pretty, like this.” Melody smoothed the hem of her dress as a hesitant smile formed on her face before withering away. “But, I look ridiculous.”

“You do not!” Jackie glared at her friend.

Melody crossed her muscular arms over her barrel chest and looked at Jackie with disbelief. “Seriously?  You’ve gotta be shitting me. I look like a freak.”

Jackie stood and gave her friend a hug. “Okay, you might need a ‘little’ work, but I’ve never seen you looking so beautiful before. That dress really brings out the color in your eyes!”

“Do you really think this will work?” Melody asked, as she tried to sneak a look in the mirror to verify her friend’s assessment.

“I dunno. It can’t hurt.  The ‘Prankster’ is totally random. Sometimes it just gives people some candy as a treat, other times it gives them a trick. There doesn’t seem to be any pattern, but first, we need to get there before midnight and if we don’t leave right this second; we might not make it.” Jackie strode over to the door, opened it and motioned for her friend to join her. “Come on, hurry up!”

The open door and people walking past caused Melody to hesitant and nearly panic. “I can’t do it! Everyone will laugh…”

“Silly, it’s Halloween! If they do laugh, they won’t be laughing at you to be mean; they will be laughing because they are idiots and don’t really see the wonderful and beautiful girl that I see when I look at you.”

Tears began to pool in Melody’s eyes. “Oh, Jackie! I don’t deserve to have a friend like you.”

“Pa shaw! Now, shake your tail feathers, blot those eyes before you turn into a raccoon and let’s hit the road, girlfriend!” Jackie giggled at her friend’s startled reaction to her girlfriend pronouncement. 

Their walk from the dorm to Jackie’s car almost turned poor Melody into a basket case due to all the people pointing at the pair and alternating between laughing at her and wolf whistles for Jackie. Jackie came to her friend’s defense by pretending to be the object of their laughter. “What?! Does this outfit make my butt look fat?!?!” She would cry, while pretending to be jealous of Melody for the wolf whistles she received. “Geez, Melody! This is the last time I let you make me look frumpy!”

The two hour drive turned into a two and a half hour drive due to an accident, causing them both some stress as the clock ticked closer to midnight.  Instead of making to the suspected Prankster House with 30 minutes to spare, they pulled up with less than two minutes remaining until midnight. 

Jackie wasn’t sure it was the place, until she saw the decorations; then she knew. The fog rolling over the yard, partially obscuring the tombstones and hiding the ground underneath looked the same as she remembered it, but this time she knew there weren’t any simple fog generators and the tombstones were probably real. The realization that she was really here and that it wasn’t cheap special effects made her blood run cold as she stopped at the start of the walkway leading to the front door of the house.

The hair on the back of her neck  stood on end and her heart started to drop into her stomach with dread.  She didn’t have time to think about her fear because she wasn’t here for herself. She was here for Melody and besides, this time she was wearing a costume.  She wasn’t about to tempt pissing off the Prankster by ignoring the warning.

“Warning: Costumes required for Treats, but Tricks are free to all who dare!”

The warning sign caused her to debate her strategy for Melody. What if the Prankster decided to punish Melody for not wearing a costume, even though most people would consider her to be wearing a costume. 

She reached over and gave Melody’s hand an encouraging squeeze. “Go on, I’ll be right here waiting for you.”

Melody looked terrified. “I can’t! Come with me, please…” She pleaded as each precious second ticked away.

Jackie took a deep breath and sighed. “Fine...let’s do this!” She pulled the unresisting Melody behind her and rang the doorbell.

“He he he he! Look at all the yummy, tender, pretty girls…so sweet for my cook pot.” A creepy man’s voice whispered from somewhere as the hinges on the door squealed with alarm as the door slowly opened.

Instead of a sultry female vampire, the pair was greeted by an imperious headless queen holding her animated head in her hands.

Jackie felt like bolting, but her feet were rooted to the ground with panic. “Tr-” She glanced over and elbowed a panicked Melody in her side. “Tr-Trick or Treat!” They both managed to chorus just before a gong sounded announcing the arrival of the midnight hour.

The mouth of the woman smiled at the pair as her body raised her head and placed it on the bloody stump of her neck. “Oh my, look at the time. That was a close shave.” She grinned maniacally as she adjusted her head on her neck. “A second later and the pact would have required me to depart, but the spoken covenant requires me to respond.”

Jackie wanted to run and due to the vice grip on her hand, she could tell Melody felt the same. “Oh,” She shakily giggled. “That’s okay, really. I’m just here for my friend. Don’t mind me, hehe…”

The Queen shook her head sadly from side to side. “That’s not an option my dear and as a repeat visitor, you, more than anyone should know the rules that bind me to this All Hallows Eve…”

Jackie felt her knees begin to shake as she considered how badly this could go for her. What if the Prankster turned her into an old hag like she reportedly did to a young girl last year, or worse, back into a boy!

“Fortunately for you both, those are the only rules I have to follow.” The Queen leaned back and chuckled, causing her head to start to fall backwards on her neck, exposing the cut before she reached up in time to catch it.  She smiled as she looked at the now shaking girls and focused her attention on Melody. “Well, well, what do we have here young lady.  It looks like you tried, but you certainly could use some help.” She reached to her side and extracted a candy bar.

Melody looked down with surprise as her hand automatically rose to accept the offered candy bar. “Th-Th-Thank you…” She looked back up to the Queen’s face and whispered as tears began to fall from her eyes.  She felt her hand gently close around the bar, but she couldn’t bring herself to look down to see what type of candy bar she had been given.

Next, the Queen turned her attention back to Jackie. “You did a much better job this year and you even brought a friend. For that, you deserve a reward!”

Jackie shivered as the Queen made her ‘reward’ pronouncement and like Melody, Jackie couldn’t take her eyes of the Queen’s face as she felt her hand rise all on its own to accept the offered treat. She felt her fingers wrap around a candy bar and she desperately wanted to look down to see what she had been given, but her eyes refused to look away from the Queen’s face.

“Happy Halloween!” The Queen laughed as she closed her door with a final sounding boom that caused the porch to vibrate.

Released from their paralysis, they both simultaneously glanced down to the hands. “I got a Mounds bar!” Melody’s voice squealed with excitement as her voice rose a few octaves.

The girlish sound of Melody’s voice caused Jackie to look over at her friend and she was stunned and pleased to see a very pretty girl in the former boy’s place. As a girl, Melody appeared to be a few inches shorter than her, probably around five foot six or seven compared to Jackie’s five foot eight, but best of all, Melody looked extremely happy as she patted her body to confirm what her eyes were telling her. 

“I can’t believe it...I can’t believe it…” Melody repeated a few times before she jumped and hugged Jackie tightly to her body. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”  She suddenly blushed, took a step back and glanced back at her candy bar before looking back to Jackie.

“You look the same to me. What did she give you?” Melody asked, hugging her candy bar protectively to her chest as she glanced expectantly at Jackie’s hand.

Jackie glanced down as she hesitantly opened her hand to reveal her treat. “What is a Secret bar? I’ve never heard of those, have you?”

Melody shook her head no and glanced back down at her candy bar; as if afraid it would disappear on her. “Maybe it’s from England or something?” She smiled and recited her candy bar’s famous jingle. “Almond Joy's got nuts / Mounds don't…” She gasped and grabbed her throat as the sweet sound of her singing voice caught her by surprise. “This is so awesome! I’m so happy, I could just scream!” She bounced up and down with excitement a few times before stopping to happily clutch her breasts. “They’re real!” She hugged a slowly relaxing Jackie again.

“We should leave. It’s a long drive back…” Jackie looked nervously around the yard and noticed something was missing. “The decorations...they’re gone…” She whispered, both stunned and not surprised at the same time.

Melody waited until they were both in the car before she leaned her chair back, excitedly pulled up her dress and inspected her groin area. Even though Jackie had seen other girls naked in showers at school, she still found herself blushing and looking away as Melody shunned all modesty by pulling down the front of her panties to visually inspect herself.

A delighted giggle escaped her. “It looks so real! Oh my god!” She reached down and grabbed herself. After a second or two of her feeling herself, she removed her hand, grabbed Jackie’s hand and pulled it down to her groin. “It’s really real! Feel! I’m a girl!”

If she wasn’t trying to pay attention to the road, Jackie would’ve found Melody’s excitement extremely funny and heartwarming, but it was also very distracting. “Umm, I know you’re excited right now, but I’m trying to drive…”

Melody blushed and sat back up in her seat. “Oh yeah, sorry, but I’m just so happy!” She bounced up in down in her seat with barely restrained glee. 

If it wasn’t for the seatbelt, Jackie would’ve worried that her friend would float out the window. She glanced over at her friend and smirked. “You should probably check your purse…” She pointed to the handbag that she knew didn’t belong to herself peeking out from beneath Melody’s seat. “See if you’re really Melody and not Alexandra or something.”

Melody jumped forward, causing the seatbelt to catch and hold her back. “Ack! Oh my god! I’m such a ditz now!” She laughed at herself as she leaned back to allow the shoulder belt to release before slowly leaning forward and pulling out the purse. “My first purse! I wonder what’s inside.” She giggled as she opened it.

“Oooh, makeup! A cell phone, wallet and OMG! Pads!” Melody held up a feminine hygiene product for Jackie to see. “Have I mentioned how awesome this is?!?! Do you need one? I got plenty in here, I think...” She pursed her lips thoughtfully as she dug deeper into her purse.

Jackie sighed as she slowly shook her head with disbelief at how excited her friend was over something she found uncomfortable to deal with. “Umm, no, I’m good, but what does your ID say?”

“Good question!” Melody dug into her wallet and her hands shook as she hastily attempted to pull out her ID from its protective pocket. “Ah! Got it! Oh my god! That’s me! Look!” She shoved her ID in front of Jackie’s eyes for a second before realizing it made it hard for the driver to see. “Oh, sorry, but it says ‘Female’ under gender and my name is Melody Anne! Same birthday, I’m officially 5’ 6” and 130 pounds, but I think the DMV camera adds 10 pounds because I’m sure that I don’t weigh that much.”  She glanced down at her chest and legs and pinched her stomach. “Nope, no fat. I wonder what I do now instead of football because I feel great…”

Jackie couldn’t help smiling at her friend and she felt happy for her, but she was also very distracting. “I’m not sure...maybe you will find some more clues in your purse?”

“Oh yeah! Good idea…” Melody began digging into her purse.

An hour later and Melody was still smiling. “I think I’m a cheerleader. I found a picture in my wallet with me wearing our college’s cheer uniform. I can’t wait to get back to my room and try it on!” A look of confusion flashed across her face. “Umm, I’m not sure, but I think I have to go pee…can we stop?”

Fortunately, they were driving through a town and there were plenty of places. She spotted a bar with lots of costumed people going in and out of it, but she was looking for a gas station.  Their restrooms would probably be cleaner and less abused than a bar’s would be at 1AM. 

Murphy’s Law took effect and Melody pointed to the bar. “Look! How about there?”

“Umm,” Jackie gave it a second look as she slowed down. “It might be a little messy…”

“Please?” Melody gave her the puppy dog expression. “I really have to go and I wanna see what the girl’s bathroom looks like without having to worry about people yelling at me.”

“How did you learn the patented, irresistible, girl puppy dog eyes trick so quickly?!?!” Jackie giggled as she flipped on her turn signal and slowed to turn into the bar’s parking lot.

Melody cheered and shrugged her shoulders apologetically. “Beats me...hehe, thanks! Have I mentioned how awesome this is and you are?”

“Not recently, no…” Jackie muttered with a smirk as she found a lucky parking space.

They made it inside with the minimum of fuss. Much to Melody’s delight, the door man checked her ID and gave her a ‘X’ mark on her hand to indicate she was under 21. The doorman/bouncer surprised Jackie by doing a double take as he looked at her like he recognized her. He ignored her offered ID that showed she was also underage and rushed to stamp an ‘O’ on her hand.  “Wow, if you’re not the real Black Widow, then, you look just like her! You should enter the costume contest, 1st prize is $100.”

Jackie glanced down at herself with confusion because, except for her naturally red hair, she didn’t think she looked anything like Scarlet Johannson. “I do?”

“Oh!” Melody excitedly grabbed Jackie and pulled her inside the bar. “You should totally do it!”

“Ummm, I’m not sure. We just stopped to use the bathroom, remember?” Jackie lightly admonished her friend as she pulled her through the crowded bar and toward their goal.

Melody’s reaction to entering the bathroom made her forget the doorman’s strange reaction to her costume. She stifled a giggle as Melody initially tiptoed past the entrance as if she was afraid someone would yell at her. After a few steps and no one giving her a second glance, she giddily clapped and rushed into a stall. 

Jackie felt the same need and decided to take care of it while she could. She was not looking forward to peeling off her costume and one piece, skin tight outfits are just something she would need to add to her ‘do not buy, ever!’ list of clothing options.

She cursed the costume designer as she fumbled with military style buckle for her holsters, the decorative black widow belt followed by the zipper that left her exposed from her chest all the way to below her belly button. Her bracers and fingerless gloves were one more annoyance. “Thank god, I wasn’t in a rush! Who in the hell thought this cat suit was a good idea? Oh yeah, a man!” She muttered after it took almost a minute to pull her costume down far enough to relieve herself.

Pulling it back up proved to be a snap. It smoothly slid back up and into place as if the fake leather was lined with real silk instead of a cheap synthetic imitation.  “Hmmm, it must have stretched a little or something…” She muttered as she made a few adjustments before exiting her stall to join a glowing Melody at the sinks.

Jackie intended to drag Melody out of the bar, but she never made it. On the way to the exit, a group of men wearing superhero costumes insisted she join them for a picture, followed by a shot of tequila to celebrate, which lead to a couple more shots with Melody’s encouragement and reminder that she could drive.  Against her better judgment, she joined her new friends on the stage. After a few heroic poses, she somehow managed to win second place and $50.

She lost to some ditz wearing a Wonder Woman costume and the $50 turned out to be a voucher good at the bar, which led to a whirlwind of shots and an open excuse to party.

The next morning, Jackie woke up and was pleasantly surprised to find herself in her own bed, but unexpectedly, Melody was pressed up against her body and she looked so peaceful. She didn’t want to disturb her, but she had to get up and use the restroom.

She didn’t think anything happened with her and Melody, or anyone else, because she was still wearing her costume. She didn’t remember much after the 10th or was it the 15th shot? However, she would like to think she had a good time and let Melody drive the two of them home.

As she carefully disengaged herself from Melody and sat upright in her bed, she discovered that she felt surprisingly good after drinking as much as she thought she remembered. No hangover or anything, but she did have to urgently pee and deal with her costume in the process.

After performing the potty dance while hastily shimmying out of her costume, she sighed with relief bordering on orgasmic as she sat down on the toilet seat. “That’s the last time I wear that thing…” She muttered, glancing down at the offending costume. Done, she gently kicked her costume to the side before she entered the bathtub to take a much needed shower.

Jackie didn’t think much of it when Melody joined her in the bathroom to use the toilet. Melody felt differently. “This is so awesome! I never thought I would think having to sit down to go pee would feel so…” She sighed as she sought the words to describe how she felt. “Liberating! Yes, liberating because having a penis always made me feel so, well, trapped, ya know?”

Jackie poked her head out from behind the mostly opaque curtain. “Umm, I know you’re in kind of a different situation than I was, but I sometimes feel a little bummed about not being able to just whip it out and pee standing up because sometimes, women’s restrooms can be kinda gross.”  She closed the curtain and started washing her hair. “Oh yeah, and I hope you didn’t like camping or roughing it in the woods because squatting behind some bushes sucks.”

“Eeewww, yeah, gross, but hey, win some, lose some, right?” Melody giggled.

“Maybe...wait until you have to spend an hour or so getting ready every morning. I hope you’re a morning person!” Jackie chuckled as she heard Melody sigh with defeat when reminded of that little downside to switching sides. Sure, it didn’t always take that long to get ready and most of the time she could get ready in about 30 minutes, even faster if she didn’t need to wash her hair, but Melody was being too chipper about her switch.

“Well, I’m going to head back to my room...Well, if I can figure out where it’s at, because I kinda doubt I am still in the men’s dorms!” Melody laughed at herself. “I can see myself wandering the halls like some amnesia victim, ‘Hello, pardon me, but do you know what room I’m in or even which dorm?’”

“Hehe, yeah…” Jackie casually stepped out of the shower, grabbed her towel and smirked as Melody’s eyes almost popped out of her head. “Don’t say it…” She warned her friend because she expected her to say something about how cool it was to be a girl.

Melody pantomimed zipping her lips, but her eyes shone with happiness.  Jackie sighed with defeat. “Fine...go ahead and get it out of your system.”

“OMG! This is sooo cool! You’re, like naked and I’m in here with you and…” Melody pinched herself. “It’s really real!”  She quickly hugged a bemused Jackie before scampering out of the bathroom. “I’ll just go and you know....” She pointed lazily into the air as she mimed looking around for her room.

Jackie smirked as she finished wrapping her hair in a towel. “How much do I wanna bet that we are now roomies?”  

She giggled at that crazy idea, which as she reviewed her memory of this morning, didn’t sound so crazy because the side of her room that was empty, now had another girl’s stuff.  “Oh well.” She shrugged as she began to brush her teeth and inspect her face for the early signs of acne. It’s best to nip those annoying pimples in the bud and before they become an embarrassment.

Her breath caught in her throat as she noticed something different. “What happened to my eyes?”

Her foaming toothbrush hung limply out of the side of her mouth, forgotten as she leaned closer and opened her eyes as wide as they would go. “Are they really blue?” 

Just to make sure she wasn’t wearing colored contacts or something crazy, Jackie held back the eyelids on her right eye.  Nope, nothing on her eyes. They were really blue instead of hazel like they were the day before. “Oh my god!” She began to feel a little bit of panic. “The Prankster did something to me, but what and why?!? I wore a costume this time!” She whined with fear as she struggled to not freak out.

Jackie quickly spit and rinsed out the toothpaste in her mouth before leaning against the sink with both hands supporting her body as she forced herself to take deep, calming breaths. “Okay Jackie, get ahold of yourself...It’s only your eyes. Eye’s changing color after drinking too much the night before, that’s normal…right?” 

She slowly shook her head from side to side as she disagreed with herself.  She glanced back to the floor and her costume. In the light, it looked a little less cheap than she remembered and the cheap plastic buckles no longer looked cheap or plastic.  “She didn’t?” 

Jackie scooped up her costume, ran to her desk and booted up her laptop.  While she waited, she inspected the costume and the dread in the pit of her stomach got worse. Her costume had changed and now looked real.  Her holster with its gun, was now made from real leather and it felt heavy, like the gun was real. She gasped. “Oh my god! Did she turn me into the Black Widow?” 

Jackie tossed her, now, all too real, holster with maybe a real, loaded gun onto her bed and laid her costume over the holster in an attempt to make it out of sight and out of mind before hitting the comic book info site and entered “Black Widow” in the search dialog.

Nothing…

“Shit, shit, shit…” She muttered without realizing she was swearing in perfect Russian as she wracked her brain trying to remember the Black Widow’s real name. “Oh yeah! Natasha Romanova!”  She tried that name and nothing. 

“Shit! Maybe their database is down?”  Jackie muttered, without noticing she was using Russian swear words, as she opened her favorite search engine and repeated her Black Widow keyword search.

Unlike her favorite comic book wiki, there were a ton of results returned, but instead of comic book site links, she got links to what appeared to be real news stories. Her hand shook as she clicked on link after link and skimmed rapidly through the stories with growing alarm. No, not stories, because stories implied fiction. These were real news stories that featured or mentioned S.H.I.E.L.D. Special Agent Romanova aka ‘Black Widow’ by name, as if she was a real person. Most of the news articles included pictures and Jackie easily recognized all the pictures of the famous Black Widow. They were all pictures of her.

Melody opened the door with a rush, causing Jackie to vault out of her chair and lose her towel as she reflexively adopted a martial arts fighting stance.

“You’re not going to believe this!” Melody yelled, before realizing that she was now exposing her naked roommate to the hallway traffic.

Ashamed, Melody quickly shut the door as Jackie numbly glanced down at her feet after realizing she was in some sort of fighting stance. It confused her because she had never taken any martial arts classes and the last time she pretended to be Bruce Lee was when Jackie was Jack. Embarrassed by both her nudity and her reaction, she attempted to salvage some dignity from the situation by calmly reaching down and re-wrapping her body in her towel. “What, that we’re roommates or that I’m The Black Widow?”

“Yeah, how did-” Melody stopped whatever she was about to say and gasped with surprise before she thoughtfully began to nod her head with agreement. “Well, I was wondering why it sounded like you spoke Russian a few times last night and why you had a Russian accent after you got blotto last night. I just figured you were getting into your character, or something.” Melody giggled and shrugged her shoulders dismissively before snapping her fingers with excitement. “Hey! Was that why you were able to make kicking that big jerk’s ass last night look so cool?”

“Wait, I what? Huh?” Jackie felt her knees begin to wobble and she shakily returned to her chair before she fell on her butt from shock. Everything from last night was a blur, but now that Melody mentioned it, she could sort of recall dealing with some giant of a man who tried to pick a fight with her.

“You remember don’t you? I mean the dude was huge! He was even bigger than I was, when I was a guy, but you put him down without breaking a sweat and you made it look so easy!” Melody stopped when she noticed Jackie bent over in her chair, clutching her sides and shaking.

“No, no, no, no…” Jackie sobbed and flinched when Melody hesitantly touched her shoulder before crouching down and hugging her friend.

“Not again. Please…” She cried as shudders of fear wracked her body. “I wore a costume this time and I was only trying to help a friend!” She looked up as if speaking to the heavens.

“Jackie, what’s wrong with being the Black Widow? She was cool in the movie…” Melody gently rubbed her friend’s back and her touch seemed to help calm Jackie.

“Yes, for you and me, that was just a movie, but look.” Jackie pointed to the news articles. “It’s all real now and I’m somehow supposed to be her!” She clicked on an image showing her fighting some big armored, alien soldier from an article dated six months ago. 

“Whoa!” Melody’s eyes widened with shock. “Wow, that’s cool.”

Jackie shrugged off Melody’s touch, stood and paced back and forth in the middle of her room. She found herself muttering to herself in Russian and when she realized what she was doing, she grew even more agitated. “Chert voz'mi!” She growled with frustration before clamping her hand over her mouth with shock. She slowly took away her hand and glanced down at Melody, who was staring up at her with concern.

“What do I do? I don’t know how to be her. I’m speaking Russian and I’ve never even been out of the U.S. I took Spanish in High School and I sucked at it!” She pointed back at the laptop. “I can’t run around fighting aliens and being some super assassin spy like the real Black Widow! I don’t know how and I’ll just get killed if I try!”

Melody stood, calmly walked over and gently grabbed Jackie’s hands, holding them together with her own. “Hey, you seemed to do okay last night and you were just speaking Russian, or something. Maybe you know how to do all that stuff, but you just don’t know that you know, you know?” She looked earnestly into Jackie’s blue eyes. “Maybe you just need to relax and go with the flow, you know, ‘be the ball, na na na’”

Jackie couldn’t help smiling at her friend’s Caddyshack reference. “Umm, maybe, but if the Trickster, Coyote, Loki or whatever in the hell ‘it’ is that did this to me is powerful enough to alter reality this much, what happened to my friends and family?”

“What do you mean?” Melody looked confused.

Jackie sighed as she let out some pent up stress. “When I was changed into Jackie, the only people who knew me as Jack, were my friends who were at the house with me. No one else remembered me as Jack.”

“Okay…” Melody slowly nodded with agreement.

“You don’t get it yet, do you?” Jackie studied her friend’s face.

Melody briefly looked down. “Umm, no?” She slowly shook her head as she looked hesitantly back to her friend’s face. “I mean, I know you…”

“Yes! You were at the house with me, but if what I think has happened, really happened, then you’re the only person in the world right now who thinks I’m Jackie. Everyone else thinks I am Natasha Romanova, the Black Widow and agent of SHIELD.”

Melody slowly nodded with agreement. “Okay, I guess that makes sense. It’s still cool though...right?”

Jackie shook her head and whispered. “Will my family and friends know me anymore?” She broke from Melody’s grasp and began pacing the room again. “I mean, if I really am Natasha and was born in Russia, how would the family I grew up with, know and love me? To them, I’m no longer their daughter. I’m just some woman they’ve read about in the news or seen on TV. Hell, they might not even exist anymore!” She sat on her bed and held her head in her hands as she gently tugged on her hair with frustration.  “It’s not fair!”

Melody joined her at her side and pulled Jackie into her arms, rocking her slowly back and forth. “Maybe it’s not that bad, why don’t you try calling them?”

Initially, her call went better than she dared hope. Her mom seemed to recognize her and even greeted her as Jackie, but her relief was short lived when her mom sighed with regret. “Well, umm, Jackie.”  The way she said her name caused her stomach to drop. It was like she knew it was a fake name. “Your, umm, boss called us this morning and informed us that he was going to be pulling you back onto active duty today. I guess that is why you are calling, but I, no, your ‘father’ and I, just wanted to let you know that we really liked having you stay with us and pretend to be our daughter this summer. After Jack died, we wanted to have another child, but it just didn’t happen. The way you took Hannah under your wing, it as if you really where her older sister. It brought tears to our eyes and we really appreciated how you looked after her. I know you’re going to be kinda busy with saving the world and all that dangerous hero stuff, but you’re always welcome to visit or maybe call-” Jackie’s former mom sniffled with a fragile giggle before resuming. “Not that I expect it or anything, but, you know…”

Jackie distantly felt Melody’s arms hugging her tightly as tears began to pour from her eyes. Somehow, she managed to hold it together and keep the tremor out of her voice. “I will Mom and I love you…” She said, softly before she disconnected the call. Feeling numb and with her body on autopilot, she watched herself open the back of her phone and remove the battery before tossing it aside as if it was disposable.  She loved her phone. Her Dad got that for her before she went to college. 

Jackie didn’t know what to do now. She was only a sophomore in college. She still was trying to figure out what to major in. There was no way she could handle being a superhero and especially not the freaking Black Widow. She bolted upright, out of Melody’s arms and clutching her towel to her chest, she vaulted to her closet. “I can’t do this, I need to run and hide!” 

As Melody stood cautiously behind her, Jackie frantically tore through her closet until her fingers found a small latch hidden in the back. Pushing and twisting it, caused a panel to open, revealing a small attaché case hidden in the wall.  She pulled it out and set it on her bed.  Her thumbprint opened the case and inside she found five different passports, each with her picture, but with a different name, hair color and nationality. Each passport also contained a matching driver’s license for the country as well as a few credit cards made out to match the name in the passport.

The case also contained two different wigs, one blonde and the other brunette. Under the wigs, she found a few bundles of U.S. $100 bills as well as 50€ Euro notes and a small stack of credit cards, each with names matching her passports.  She estimated that she had about 20k US and maybe the same in Euros.  An extra pistol and some ammunition were also tucked into case.  She wasn’t sure what to do with the pistol or where to run to, but the German passport drew her attention. 

Gretchen Weber from Stuttgart with the picture of her as a blonde.  “Hmmm... vielleicht geht das. …” She muttered as she studied the passport.

“What was that?” Melody asked.

“Oh, nichts. Ich denke, dass Deutschland vielleicht ….” Jackie’s voice trailed away as she realized what she was doing. “Ummm, nichts, I mean, nothing...I somehow seem to be able to speak German.” She realized she was even speaking English with a German accent now.

“Wow! That’s pretty damn cool!” Melody hesitated for a second as she thought about something before a giggle escaped her. “I think I need to come up with a better adverb. I’m saying ‘cool’ way too much now!”

Jackie sighed and hugged her exuberant friend before turning back to rifle through her closet for an outfit that might match her German persona.  She found a good match, something that looked more euro styled versus a typical American jeans and t-shirt combination. She pulled her hair up and added the blonde wig, a touch of makeup to give herself a more natural look and some trendy glasses completed her disguise.

Melody gasped when Jackie made her debut. “Amazing...If I didn’t know you, I would have a hard time recognizing you. Are you sure you have to run?”

“Nine, I mean, no, but I’m not the Black Widow. I don’t know how to be her and I’d only get myself killed if I tried.” Jackie stuffed some extra clothes and toiletry items into her backpack along with her German passport, a few thousand in cash, the credit cards and license.  She decided to leave the attaché case with the pistol because she had no idea how she would get it through security. She hid one of the extra passports in her bag, just in case.

Ready to go, she stole one last glance at her costume, or more accurately her uniform, and after overcoming an fleeting sense loss, she gave Melody a parting hug plus the rest of the cash, wished her the best and left behind what remained of her mostly normal and safe life. She wondered if they celebrated Halloween and had Trick or Treating in Germany because if they did, she was going to celebrate the next Halloween by staying in bed.