Clint Part 1 - Boots
Natasha decided that she would talk to Clint first. She knew that the internet had scores of information, but researching on it was tedious, and not something she enjoyed doing. She wasn't usually one to save the more tiresome tasks for later, but she wanted to get a viable solution to this as quickly as possible. She thought that Clint would be the most efficient way to do that.
Natasha, a connoisseur of completely ignoring social conventions around people she was comfortable with, burst into Clint's apartment one morning, completely forgoing knocking and waiting for a response. Clint, still somehow not used to this after quite some time, jumped a little bit from where he was seated on the couch, sitting normally for once.
Clint quickly recovered from the shock and greeted her. "Salutations. What brings you to my humble abode?"
Natasha rolled her eyes and chuckled a little at Clint's word choice, and moved to sit next to him on the couch. She sat close to him, with her arms crossed over her chest, an uncharacteristic show of her unease. Clint took note of her tense posture, and his expression changed to something more concerned.
"Seriously though, what's up?" Clint asked her, brows furrowed.
"Dysphoria. You have it, and I have recently discovered that it is really unpleasant. I thought that since you have known that you were cisn't longer, you might have some good ways to deal with all that." Natasha said. She felt a little awkward asking for help, but she knew that Clint wouldn't be judgemental.
Clint grimaced in sympathy. "ooh, yeah, dysphoria’s the worst. Personally, and this is just me, self-loathing isn't fun." Natasha smirked and nodded at this. "I do have a few things that help me out, and I am more than willing to pass down my unending wisdom to a fellow cisn't as you said. There are quite a few things that you can find easily online, so I'm going to skip those and move on to the more small things that bring me euphoria of the gender variety."
Natasha smiled gratefully, she was glad that she had Clint, having someone that was more experienced with all of this would be a big advantage when it came to dealing with dysphoria.
"Ok! Stand up and follow me, we have a mission now!" Clint declared, launching himself off of the couch.
A couple of minutes later found Clint and Natasha standing next to Clint's closet, his favorite pair of combat boots in front of them. They were black boots, with a considerable platform on the bottom. The boots were ragged and worn with time, and caked with mud from bringing them on missions.
Natasha looked up at Clint, slightly confused as to how this could help her.
Clint smiled and opened his mouth to explain. "Now. You may be wondering, Clint, what on the green earth could these do to help me alleviate my dysphoria? The answer is simple, mi amigo. Height. These shoes have tall bottoms. Therefore, obviously, they make me taller. Well, they don't make me taller, but I am higher up when I wear them because I am further off of the ground than I usually am. Height is something that I'm pretty insecure about as a trans guy, so these help me when I'm having a bad dysphoria day."
Natasha gracefully ignored the fact that they were so beat up, she understood having a lot of bad days, even if most of them weren't related to dysphoria. "So, I should buy a pair of boots?"
"That was the idea. Or you can try these on, see if they help at all. I'm happy to let you borrow them anytime I’m not clinging onto them like a lifeline because honestly I still need them often."
Natasha smiled, Clint's kind and earnest personality still caught her off guard sometimes. "Thank you."
Clint just smiled and waved his hand as though it was nothing. He gestured to the boots, "So, do you want to try them on?"
"Sure," Natasha replied. Why not, she was skeptical that it was going to help based on what she was insecure about, but everything was worth a try. She stepped into the boots, bending down to tie up the (in her opinion unnecessarily) complex laces.
She straightened up after she tied the boots, and was surprised to find herself eye to eye with Clint. Clint smiled at the look on her face, and Natasha smiled back. "Caught me off guard. I did not think it would feel like such a big difference."
"It's crazy how much of a difference a single pair of boots can make. You should go look at yourself in the mirror, get the full picture, see whether or not it helps."
Natasha hesitated only for a few seconds before making her way over to the mirror. She was apprehensive about looking in the mirror lately, but she wanted to see whether or not it aided her endeavor at all. She stepped in front of the mirror and was pleased to see that she didn't feel bad about her reflection. Clint had walked up next to her, and she could see that she was the same height as him when she was wearing the boots.
Both Clint and Natasha were pretty tall people, but dysphoria didn't conform to what was supposed to make sense, and so Natasha realized that seeing herself in the boots actually did help quite a bit. It was something about the design of the boots, along with the way they changed the way she looked just a little bit.
Natasha felt warmth spread across her chest. Even though she was really struggling with dysphoria lately, there were solutions, there were things that she could do to make it feel better. She felt so content and hopeful at that moment. It was going to get better.