Captain Steve Rogers
He sketches a before and after self-portrait. It's as good as the rest of them, full of every detail that life has to offer. The details have details and even then he feels the need to scrap it and start over at least twice so that he can just get it right.
Because Steve needs to see it himself. What everyone else sees. Why the kid he was before needed a super serum to turn him into a hero. To turn him into someone who could actually do something that counted. When he's finished, all he sees is a kid that turned into a man far too quickly. Well… physically, at least. He did get some muscles out of the deal.
Other than that, he didn't change much, but when he looks at this sketched version of his two selves, he can see why everyone else misses that little detail. Some things just can't be drawn.
They don't see him. Not here. Not in this era.
Then he wakes up decades later and finds himself surrounded by other "superheroes". Turns out, he doesn't stand out because of his stature anymore.
"And for gosh sakes," Stark begs (teases) him. "Watch your language."
He just shakes his head with a small smile. Yes. They see him now.
Clint Barton
"And this," he says slowly, "is you." He flicks the pencil, quickly adding five tiny lines for hair and a lopsided smile. The recently completed stick boy smiles down from the top of a hastily drawn house. "Up where you aren't supposed to be, but don't tell mom."
Cooper shoots his father a gap-toothed grin and giggles a little. "I won't tell!"
Clint takes the grin and stores it away. Back in a brightly-lit corner of his mind that he turns to when things get bad. Laura and Lila are there too. They've kept him alive more times than he's given them credit for. "Good. Maybe you can help me fix the roof when I get back."
His boy's smile disappears. "How long will you be gone this time?"
"I don't know, kiddo," he sighs, dropping the pencil. He raises his hand to run it through Cooper's hair. "I don't know."
Cooper looks back at their piece of art and picks up a green crayon. "We forgot Lila."
He hums in agreement. "We did. And mom. They should be here." He points to a blank spot at the side of the house.
The grin returns, but this time it's lopsided. A more mischievous version of the one in the drawing. "Yeah. Yelling at us."
"At you," Clint clarifies. "You're the one on the roof by yourself."
"Cuz they're scared. They're yelling at you cuz they're mad."
Clint purses his lips. "Whatever."
Natasha Romanoff
She carries a small sketchpad with her on every mission. Clint's idea, not hers. "I can't draw," she remembers telling him.
"Sure you can. You just suck at it."
"Exactly."
He made her do it anyway, so she still has it. Tucked away in a slim back pocket at all times. The one she has right now is her eighth. The other seven are tucked away in her suite at Stark (Avengers) Tower. Clint's the only one who's seen them.
Until now.
"Nat?"
He'd caught her looking at it. Remembering. It's the first time they've seen each other since the whole Ultron thing and she'd stupidly forgotten he was there. Natasha sighs, resigned and yet surprisingly relieved. Maybe having another person to share her thoughts with is a good thing, even if she hadn't invited him.
Or had she? She's not the type to just forget about people who are in the same room as her.
So she turns and smiles softly at Bruce. The poor man looks awkwardly (endearingly) lost as he stands just inside of her door scratching the back of his head. She still hasn't forgiven him for just up and leaving without so much as a real goodbye, but it is good to see him again. "Here, let me show you some horrible drawings."
He smiles too. That goofy genuine smile that he can't seem to ever hide. "Horrible?"
"Yes, and don't you try to say otherwise."
He takes them and begins to flip through them and she can tell he's trying not to laugh. The idiot never has been good at hiding anything. "So. You drew all of these? Why? You don't exactly seem the type…"
She's studying him, looking for any sign of mockery even though she knows she won't find any. "To remember. It was Clint's idea. Every mission, both of us draw a terrible drawing of something we find beautiful. To remind ourselves that the world isn't as bad as we usually think it is. Cheesy, yes. But… helpful."
Bruce looks serious when he sits next to her. He flips back a few pages and points. "Is this supposed to be me?"
Natasha studies the gorilla-armed humanoid surrounded by pointy, misshapen trees and smirks. "I think so. Back on Sokovia. It was the last time I saw you."
"The Hulk isn't beautiful."
"Well my drawing doesn't do you justice does it?"
"Nat…"
"Just shut up, Bruce."
He sighs, huffing out a tired laugh. "Okay."
Thor Odinson
He used to do this with Loki. Sit in the gardens and gaze at the rest of the universe while his younger brother pointed out various constellations and the places where other realms were located. The other man would talk for hours about the way their planets and galaxies were all connected, how the slightest alteration would leave everything off-kilter and… messed up. Thor can't remember the word Loki had used, but that had been the meaning of it.
If it had been anyone else, he would have been bored within minutes. Coming from Loki, though, it was akin to listening to a lore master recount tales of glorious battles. Poetic, romantic, and full of meaning. Full of life. His brother could make the constructs of the physical realms sound important. No matter that Loki's passions had been misplaced and unfit for an Asgardian prince. Thor had to admit that Loki had been brilliant.
Is brilliant. Now there's just a touch of madness there too.
It makes him sad.
But his Lady Jane is brilliant in a similar way and the way she smiles warms his millennia-old, battle weary heart. Her science is gibberish to him, but Thor can at least pass on what Loki used to show him from an entirely different time and place.
"Draw it for me again?" she asks, dark eyes glinting with firelight. It's their tradition now. Whenever they can see each other, they build a fire the first night and stare at the stars. Thor finds it romantic, but he knows Jane only finds it academically worthwhile.
But she still always asks for the picture. He always smiles when she does, because that is romantic.
"Why do you need me to draw it?" he teases.
Jane smirks. "I don't, but it makes you feel like you've contributed something."
Thor booms out a laugh. "I suppose it does! Very well, my lady, I shall draw the Tree for you once more."
Jane's smirk turns into a gentle smile. "Thank you." A pause. "Tell me a story. Something new."
Thor stops drawing to look at her. "About?"
She tilts her head. "Your mother. Frigga."
"Jane…" He sighs, looking away. Back at the drawing. Anywhere but at her pleading, pitying eyes. "It's too soon."
"You tell me stories of your brother. Why is your mother so different?"
Thor isn't sure. Not in this moment. Not when they've been talking about science and stars and the World's Tree. Loki's expertise.
And Frigga's. The two had been utterly alike in that regard. Equally brilliant in the ways of seidr and the means by which everything in existence was sustained and kept from crumbling into nothing. Seeing reality from a platform he would never be able to stand on.
But he does have memories. He has tried to understand.
Thor looks at Jane, watches her give an encouraging smile, and sighs again. "Okay. I will tell you only one, and it will be short."
Jane nods, leaning back. "It's enough."
Bruce Banner
Bruce draws what's in his head. Often times what ends up on paper is unintelligible to anyone else. Sometimes Tony gets it, but usually it's even too far out into left field for even his genius inventor friend to pin it down.
Still. He has to get it out before it disappears. He's found that if the Hulk decides to make an unexpected appearance, he sometimes loses his train of thought in the midst of it. It's a rare occurrence, to be sure, since he's almost perfected his control over his beastly alter-ego, but sometimes he slips up.
"Whatcha workin' on, Brucie?"
Tony saunters into their shared lab space, coffee in hand, scorch marks covering the left side of his sweat-soaked shirt. Bruce just shakes his head. "Did you blow everything up again?"
The engineer waves dismissively. "Dummy's got it covered." He blinks. "Literally. It's all covered in fire retardant. I can't do a thing."
Bruce laughs, still shaking his head. "So what… you've come down to blow up my stuff now?"
Tony looks offended. "Of course not."
They fall into their usual, companionable silence in which Bruce continues to scratch out equations and particle conversions while Tony tries to decipher it all through a caffeine haze using a brain that's hard-wired to process whatever the heck he'd been working on and nothing else.
Still. Bruce lets him try just so that he can give his over-worked jaw a rest. The man is a good friend, but he talks way too much.
"Your math's wrong."
Bruce blinks. "Tony. My math is fine."
The other man takes another slurpy gulp of his precious coffee and shakes his head, jabbing a finger down on his notebook. "Right here. See. This… what is this thing? Some puffed up gluon on steroids?" Bruce takes a breath while Tony gives a little shake of his head. "Whatever it is, your conversion rate is off."
"Tony."
"What?"
"Go check on Dummy."
Tony arches a single singed brow at him. The man's hair is flying in every direction and for a moment Bruce thinks he is staring at some twisted, smarter version of the Mad Hatter. Without a hat, but nonetheless…
"You're kicking me out? Because I'm trying to help? Seriously?" When Bruce says nothing, Tony shrugs. "Fine. Whatever. But your puffy gluons aren't doing their job right according to your pigeon scratch sketch. Check the math Brucie."
Bruce sighs and waits until the man is safely out of the door before he returns to his work. He studies his calculations through narrowed eyes and then snorts out a laugh. Shaking his head once more, Bruce scratches out some numbers and scribbles down some new ones. Tony may not be able to tell a gluon from a pion, but the man certainly knows his math. Bruce does too, but he still makes the occasional mistake.
But Tony doesn't need to know that.
Anthony Edward Stark
Tony learned how to draw a long time ago, but not in the traditional sense. Inventors are rarely confused for artists and he is no exception. He draws what's in his head, puts pen to paper and makes the imaginary real. Back home, he uses his own hologram tech to do this, but here he's a bit… limited.
Or so they'd like to think. Restricted to the materials they provide for him and nothing else. Bound by a promise he never made to make a weapon he's beginning to wish he'd never invented.
The Jericho.
Whatever.
Because he doesn't want to be included in the collective of poor, miserable human beings to have been drowned after being repeatedly dunked in a little water, he begins to work on something. Anything to make them think he's broken (which he kinda sorta is, but he didn't exactly shatter the way they wanted him to).
He draws this one in pieces, sketches it in soft lead on actual paper laid out on a cold, marred, filthy surface. This is the worst lab he's ever worked in. Tony doesn't care. Yinsen comes over and stares down at the piece of paper in obvious confusion. "What is it?"
There are at least half a dozen sketches lying in a cockeyed pile that he straightens out and proceeds to flatten into a single, uniform design. What comes together is a menacing portrait of his shattered psyche's second creation. A weapon to end all weapons. Irony abounds and he loves it (perhaps he's gone a little insane).
"It's our ticket out of here." And it is… but it's also more than that. This design is rudimentary. Basic. The first of many, many more.
His newly acquired friend (his fifth, if he's counting right) just stares. "Impressive."
It is impressive, but not just because it's a drawing. A talented pre-teen could have drawn it. But Tony's never been confused for an artist; he's an inventor. His drawings come to life.
They don't waste time admiring the two-dimensional pieces.