Avengers One Shots

The Real Avengers

Steve Rogers is always cold to the touch. Not in the trivial way that someone is usually perceived to be 'cold'. No. His skin burns like ice and when you come into contact with him, it's as if he evaporates your body heat in an instant. He says that it's a side effect of the serum, and usually offers a genuine apology after he shakes hands with people. And they forgive him, but still they can't quite shake the feeling of a lingering shiver, even hours after meeting him. Steve spends most of his time trying to catch up. Catch up on movies, books, plays, catching up on life. Sometimes he feels as if his life is like a game of tag that he just can't seem to win. He has a picture of Bucky and himself taped to the inside of his shield, he figured that if he was to die in battle he wants the last thing he sees is the smiling face of his best friend. Steve's eyes are tired and crows feet crinkle in the corners when he smiles. His eyes are the only thing that really show his age. They're dull, a flat shade of blue that was once regarded as piercing. However, now they look as though they've seen too much, been through too much, perhaps even, lived too much.

Tony Stark dreams of claustrophobic caves and weapons with his name on them. He dreams of Yami dying in his arms and bloodied, bruised faces of his teammates. His doctor says he has PTSD and at first Tony didn't want to believe him but then one night he catches a glimpse of spaceship in the sky and suddenly he forgets how to breathe. He always carries at least two extra ark reactors with him at all times because he never wants to feel as powerless as he did when Obadiah turned against him. He has smile lines around his mouth, worn in from many moments of happiness and he has permanent purple bags under his constantly irritated eyes due to lack of sleep. Tony Stark is a short man, no doubt about that. However, he has the ability to be absurdly assertive and authoritative whenever he enters a room. Outsiders and journalists joke about how for such a small man his ego is so elated. His friends and family however, know that Tony Stark, short, platformed shoe wearing Tony Stark only has a slightly elated ego, but he definitely has a giant, kind heart.

Thor Odinson has scars in the shape of lightning bolts cascading down his biceps the only remaining evidence from a time when he didn't know how to control his powers. The intricate white lines a reminder of what happens when he lets his emotions - mainly the angry and sad ones - get out of hand. He already decided long ago that he wouldn't let that happen again. His skin burns hot like a furnace and the boom of his voice is so deep that when he laughs he shakes the walls around him. Thor Odinson smiles entirely too much. It's the same smile he had as a child. The smile he wore while chasing Loki around the castle; the same one he gave his mother after she read him a bedtime story; and when his father when he crowned him Prince of Asgard. It was always the same and it would always be the same. Thor Odinson has lost everything, everyone he had once held dear. His mother, his father, Heimdal, Loki. Smiling is the only thing he knows how to do right anymore. Every time he smiles, he's doing it for them, for his family.

Natasha Romanoff always wears long clothes. She hides the scars that run across her body from the years of torment she suffered in the Red Room. The ugliest one sits right on her stomach, it's the one she got when she completed the graduation ceremony. She still practices ballet, often in the early hours of the morning, and more frequently when the nightmares keep her awake. Sometimes, she talks in her sleep, slurs in Russian, words that the others don't know the meaning of. Clint was able to understand the mumbled word, "Помогите" once and he woke her up and stayed by her side when she cried. Natasha remembers the names of every single mission she's ever had, of every single person she's had to 'take care of', she can recite them like some twisted obituary. Her red hair has paled significantly over the years, less vibrant, less recognizable and she likes it that way. Her eyes are sharp, calculating and often distant. To the others it seems as if she's analysing everything she looks at, and more often than not, she is. After all, it was what she was trained to do. She says she's a monster, that she shouldn't be trusted, be loved. She regrets every single thing she has ever done in her life.

Bruce Banner's lips are always chapped, no matter how much balm he uses on them, they are always chapped. And he still doesn't know if it's from him chewing them constantly in his typical anxiety induced trance, or if it's from him hulking out and the radiation that's still lingering in his skin. It irks him that he still doesn't know. Bruce Banner wears clothes that two sizes too big for him, he hopes that at least when he does turn green that maybe the Hulk would appreciate some clothes that aren't as tight. He constantly tugs at the hems of his shirt and pulls down the sleeve of his lab coat, almost afraid that people will see that his skin is always red raw and irritated and never really settles because he's always itching at it - just like the hulk is always itching at his subconscious. He has stretch marks, tiny, almost transparent vines covering all of his arms, legs and torso, ones that he'll never get rid of, ones that will always be a constant reminder to who he is, of what he is.

Clint Barton hates the radio. The radio frequencies tap into his hearing aids and drives him crazy. Clint often has bruises on his body, no one really knows why, sure they're curious, but they know better than to question it. He has a photo of a dog on the back of his SHIELD ID card, he says the dog's name is Lucky the Pizza Dog, no one really wants to questions that one either. Clint has an outlandish else of humour that only Natasha seems to understand, he often makes the joke that he is just several, anxious, coffee fueled rabbits in a Halloween costume. Again Natasha is the only one who gets that joke, apparently it has something to do with Budapest? Clint is loud and often obnoxious towards his teammates. He hides his tired eyes behind a pair of purple glasses and covers his smile with his coffee mug. He finds that he can't look at Tony's reactor anymore, at least not directly, or for too long anyways. The blue light was similar, almost too similar to the blue glow of Loki's scepter. The same scepter that brainwashed him, beat him, broke him.