Like I said in the summary, this is an angst-filled story about how each of the Avengers deals with his/her problems. My apologies, just for future reference. Everything I know about Natasha and Clint I learned from The Avengers, so I'm not super friendly with either one of them.
Disclaimer: I own nothing, everything you recognize probably belongs to Marvel.
THOR
Thor stood, alone, on the roof of the newly-named Avengers Tower, his shoulder-length blonde hair gently billowing behind him in the crisp breeze, along with his deep red cape. His upturned face was illuminated by the very few stars twinkling above him and the yellow light emitting from the many street lamps below him. He held his hammer in a loose grip by his side, giving him the overall appearance of exactly what many humans thought he was – a god.
The Asgardian sighed heavily as his intense blue eyes searched the polluted sky. Finally giving up the hunt for a glimpse of his homeland, he closed his eyes and rested his chin on his chest. The light hit him differently now – it highlighted the lines in his face and the dark shadows under his eyes. The face that had just a few seconds ago looked so young and full of life now appeared weary and pale. Thor furiously rubbed his face with his hands, as though he was trying to scrub the unnatural lines off. However, when he removed his hands from his face, his eyes looked even more tired than they had before the harsh movement.
He remembered, when he was younger and had not a care in the world, running out to the balcony every night so he could gaze up at the universe above him while his father told him, in a low voice, about his adventures in the other realms. He'd been content to simply relax in his father's comforting tones, but Loki, ever the curious one, had always asked –
Thor brought his mind to a screeching halt. He refused to think about his brother. It was too hard.
And yet . . . isn't that what had brought him up to the roof? Loki? He'd hoped the clear air would allow him to forget about his brother, as it usually did, but it obviously wasn't working quite as well tonight.
Loki . . . just hearing his name would send a flood of anger and bitterness through him. And, more often than not, confusion.
Why had his brother, his best friend in their earlier years, turned on his kingdom? His father? His own brother? How could he? True, Thor had begun to notice the jealous glances in his direction whenever he'd mention the coronation, but never would he have expected this. Thor could still see the complete, utter hatred burning in Loki's cold green eyes when they'd fought in Asgard.
His little brother couldn't stand the sight of him.
And that wounded him more deeply than any weapon ever could.
He shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts. Suddenly a bright, flashing light passed overhead, and he was momentarily distracted by the object. It might've been a shooting star, but Thor thought it looked more like one of the metal contraptions that he'd found Loki on -
He practically snarled in anger. Lately, it seemed like he couldn't see anything without somehow connecting it to Loki. He was sick of it. Without another thought, he swung his hammer up and soared high above the city, away from the skyscraper and memories of his brother.
NATASHA
Natasha quickly made her way toward her room in the Avengers Tower, diverting her eyes from anyone who tried to talk to her. She kept her red curls in front of her face, hoping desperately that the short hair hid the wetness that was starting to build up in her eyes. She finally reached her room and yanked the door open, slipping in and turning to lock it with trembling fingers. She fumbled with the lock for several minutes, her efforts growing more frantic until she finally succeeded in sliding it in. She leaned against the door, her chest rising and falling rapidly as she sucked in air.
Then Natasha allowed herself to break.
She almost collapsed to the ground, the solid wood against her back the only thing that prevented her from actually laying on the floor. Sobs racked her body as she bent her head forward until her forehead rested on her knees. Tears streamed down her face, and she made no move to stop them.
Part of her job was not letting emotions control her. So she did the only thing she could – she ignored them. At least, she tried to. Sometimes, on days like today, her poker face and pretense of not having any feelings weren't enough. Sometimes she needed to let go.
Usually, on the rare occasion she had them, these "breaks" were triggered by something or someone. Today it had been then news report about the Greene family, who'd recently lost their husband and father.
Their faces were burned into her memory – she wouldn't be forgetting them anytime soon.
The mother was a small, petite figure with long, curly brown hair and almond-shaped dark eyes. She'd been bawling as she'd talked to the camera, her mascara streaking down her cheeks. Next to her had stood a young girl of about thirteen years. She would've been an exact, younger replica of her mother if not for the smattering of freckles across her nose and cheeks. She'd been clutching her mother's hand in a tight grip and her eyes had been red and puffy, but she'd refused to cry in front of the camera.
And the thing that had set Natasha off had been resting in the pre-teens free arm. A boy, no older than three. But his age wasn't what had caused Natasha's tears. It'd been his curly blonde hair and striking blue eyes that looked so much like his father's that had done her in.
Natasha squeezed her eyes shut as images began flashing through her head.
"Your target is Robert Greene."
"Who is he?"
"That's none of your concern, agent. Just get it done."
"Okay. How soon?"
"Immediately."
She'd killed him.
Natasha's nails dug into the palms of her hands as she clenched her fists. She'd taken away two young children's father and a beautiful woman's husband.
She sobbed harder.
CLINT
Clint released three arrows at once, watching them thud into the target, a straw-stuffed dummy, in a straight line. He frowned at what most people would've considered a perfect shot. One arrow was embedded in the dummy's head, while the other two had hit its stomach. Running a sweaty hand through his damp hair, he bent down to a crouch before sprinting to the other side of the large room and back several times. After receiving this room in the Avengers Tower, he'd "borrowed" some training dummies from the workout room in the basement to "decorate" it.
Only after his legs began screaming in protest did he stop running. Instead, still breathing heavily, he picked up his bow again and aimed at the mutilated dummy. Get it right this time, he commanded himself as he readied three more arrows. His first arrow was supposed to hit the head, the second the chest, and the third the stomach. Carefully raising the bow up, Clint took aim at the target. Just as he was about to let go of the taut string, a screaming woman's face flashed in his mind, and he jerked, sending the arrows slightly off-course. They landed, one after the other, on the wall. Grumbling to himself, Clint tried to ignore the woman who kept appearing in his mind's eyes as he began tugging the arrows out of the wall. But he couldn't. That woman had died because of him.
The arrow he'd been holding snapped in half, but he barely gave it a second glance.
He'd been on a mission for S.H.I.E.L.D. Some big, ugly dudes had entered a bank and acquired a couple of hostages, one of them an important guy in the government. Clint couldn't actually remember who it'd been, but he'd obviously been pretty special, seeing as how S.H.I.E.L.D. had gotten involved.
His task had been simple. Shoot the bad guys, save the citizens. Pretty straight-forward.
And he'd been doing fine. From his perch on a nearby building, he'd been able to pinpoint each of the men's positions and fire his arrows through the glass and into their various body parts.
There'd been one person left. Clint had been feeling pretty awesome and hadn't been worried when the guy, frightened out of his mind by the sound of shattering glass, had grabbed the nearest hostage and held a gun to her head. The woman must've been in her early thirties.
Clint had coolly aimed his next arrow at the man's head and released the string. His accuracy had been perfect . . . until the man had shifted a little to his left, unaware of the deadly projectile about to connect with his skull. Instead of hitting him straight on, the arrow had only grazed his temple after passing through one of the gaping holes in the bank's window (courtesy of Clint). The man had flinched horribly and shouted something incoherent in pain and confusion. This had caused the woman to start screaming, and the man, disoriented, had pressed down on the trigger.
It'd been a quick death. The bullet had entered her brain through her temple.
Clint clenched his teeth and hastily blinked away the water (that was not tears) from his eyes. Then he picked up his bow. He might not have been the one to pull the trigger, but it was still his shot that had killed her. And he was going to make sure it never happened again.
Removing three arrows from his quiver, he stared hard at the dummy.
Then he fired.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
BRUCE
Bruce stared at the wall without really seeing it from his position on a hard-back chair in the lab in the Avengers Tower. His eyes were wild and his dark hair was unkempt, sticking up in random places. That, along with the rigid way he was sitting, made him look like he'd been electrocuted. He didn't care, though. The way he looked didn't matter. His appearance would never be able to hide the . . . thing he was on the inside.
He'd lost control today. He hadn't been able to keep a rein on his emotions, and the Other Guy had seized its chance.
Bruce snorted in contempt. The "Other Guy". That's what he'd named it, but deep down inside he knew that calling it that was wrong. He was lying to himself.
He let his thoughts drift and instantly regretted doing so.
He slowly awoke, his head pounding and his body aching in a terribly familiar way. He knew he needed to open his eyes, see how much havoc he had wreaked, but he couldn't. Well, "couldn't" would be implying that the task was physically impossible. In reality, he simply didn't want to. Someone's sobs finally were enough to get him to force his eyelids up. He was staring at the ceiling of an abandoned building. Allowing his gaze to flicker to the right, he saw a huge, monster-sized hole in the building's brick wall and a small figure crouched near it. Bruce's heart nearly skipped a beat when the person looked up, showing his frightened, tear-filled green eyes. The boy looked about nine or ten years old. He was cradling his left arm to his chest, and Bruce noticed with concern that blood was quickly being soaked into the boy's shirt.
Feeling self-conscious without his clothes on, Bruce wanted to search for something to hide behind, but the doctor in him was yearning to help the child. He slowly stood up, wincing as his sore legs protested the movement. Then he took a step toward the boy, hoping he looked comforting. "Hey, what's your name?"
The kid jumped, his eyes wide. "N-Nick," he stuttered.
"Okay, Nick," said Bruce softly as he took another step forward. "I'm a doctor. Can I look at your arm and try -"
Nick's panicked shouts stopped him cold. "No! No no no! Get away from me!" He scrambled to his feet and backed away from Bruce, his good arm's finger pointed at him accusingly. "I saw what you did! I know who you are!"
Bruce's stomach did a slow roll.
The boy continued his rant, still backing out of the hole in the wall. "You destroyed all those houses! And you threw that car! You -" he started crying. "You're a monster!"
Even now, several hours later, Bruce was left with the feeling of being sucker-punched in the gut.
You're a monster.
Bruce let out a hollow laugh. The name "Other Guy" was a joke. It wasn't the "Other Guy". It was himself.
Suddenly he stood up. He had to distract himself from his dark thoughts. He walked over to the table, on which there sat a combination of different liquids he'd been testing earlier in the week. He feverishly began working, his mind so busy applying formulas and deciding with chemicals to mix that it didn't have time to dwell on anything else.
TONY
Tony's eyes snapped open and he quickly sat up in his bed, his sweaty T-shirt sticking to his chest and back. His dark eyes darted around the pitch-black room until they became adjusted to the lack of light. Then he let out a heavy sigh and fell back on his pillow, trying to even out his breathing.
He'd had another frickin' nightmare about Afghanistan.
They were beginning to get old.
He lay in bed for a few more minutes, silently debating on whether or not he should risk sleeping again. When he closed his eyes, images of explosions and dead bodies crowded his brain, so he decided that sleeping, along with blinking, was no longer an option. He stumbled out of bed, his mouth open in a huge yawn. After walking into the wall for the fifth time, he managed to find the door. He opened it and instantly squinted as the bright light reached his sensitive eyes. Mumbling to himself, he slowly made his way toward his safe haven – the bar. Upon reaching it, he grabbed a glass from underneath the counter and clumsily opened the bottle of scotch he kept on the counter. Once the glass was full, he downed the entire thing, enjoying the way it burned his throat.
Burning bodies littered the ground after the truck in front of him exploded. . . .
More alcohol.
He reached for the bottle again, but his hand-eye coordination didn't seem to be working properly. The back of his hand collided with the bottle, and it slid across the countertop before falling to the ground. It shattered on impact, scattering glass shards and scotch everywhere.
Bullets pounded against the vehicle, smashing the windows and drilling holes into the doors. . . .
Tony slammed his hand onto the counter. "Stop!" he shouted.
More alcohol. Yup, that's what he needed. Then he'd get drunk and he'd forget and he'd be fine.
He rifled through the cupboards until found another bottle of . . . something. He didn't care if it was eggnog as long as it got him drunk. This time he didn't bother with the glass. He twisted the lid off and drank straight from the bottle. In his haste to get drunk, though, he poured too much of whatever-it-was into his mouth and began choking.
He was plunged underwater again, his lung screaming for oxygen. . . .
"AARGH!" Tony turned and chucked the bottle as hard as he could. It smashed loudly against the wall, instantly breaking into smaller, deadly pieces. He stared at the wet spot on the wall, his chest heaving. Then he slumped down onto one of the stools despondently. "I should start buying plastic bottles," he muttered to himself. He gazed at his glass and realized there was still a little bit of scotch left at the bottom. He raised it into the air, said in a sarcastic voice, "Cheers," and tipped it up into his mouth.
STEVE
Steve absent-mindedly brushed the sweat from his brow as he faced his opponent – a punching bag. He'd found a bunch of them in the workout room of the Avengers Tower, to his relief. He liked punching bags. He could vent all of his anger and frustration onto them, and they wouldn't try to offer hollow words of comfort. He lowered himself into a half-crouch before he began throwing punches.
A few years ago for Steve, seventy years ago for the rest of the world, he'd gone into the gym and tried to beat the living daylights out of some punching bags. Of course, it'd been before he'd received the serum, so by the end of his "workout" he'd looked like someone who'd picked a fight with a girl and lost. At least, that's what Bucky had said.
Bucky. . . .
Without realizing it, he began hitting the punching bag harder.
He'd been less than a foot away from him him. If only he'd stretched his fingers just a few more inches. . . . But he hadn't. Instead, he'd been forced to watch as his best friend fell further and further away. . . .
The punching bag flew across the room. Steve stared at it for a few seconds before walking over to the large pile of punching bags he'd assembled and hooking another one up. He began pummeling the new bag, for a while forgetting about anything but the steady thuds his fists made against the leather.
But he could only keep the memories at bay for so long.
Watching Peggy walk into the bar, her bright red dress lighting up the dim room, her perfect curls arranged around her face. . . .
Laughing with his "elite squad" as he ordered another round of drinks. . . .
Finally learning the meaning of "fondue" from a smiling Howard. . . .
Walking back to base with the weary but joyful former prisoners, Bucky at his side. . . .
And now.
Every.
Thud.
Single.
Thud.
One.
Thud.
Was.
Thud.
Dead.
THUD.
The punching bag landed near its brother, but Steve wasn't paying it any attention. He sank to the floor, his face in his hands.
He'd never hear Bucky laugh again.
He'd never see Peggy smile again.
They were gone.
And they'd left him behind.
By the time Steve got to his feet, his face was wiped clean of any emotion, and his eyes seemed almost empty. He robotically grabbed another punching bag and slung it up.
Thud.
EVERYONE
The Avengers were all gathered in the living room, watching a movie whose name no one seemed to be able to remember. Clint was sitting on the floor with his legs splayed out in front of him as he leaned against the couch. Natasha was curled up next to him, her head laying on the archer's chest and her eyes half-closed. Thor and Steve were sitting on said couch, the latter's head resting on the back of it so he was staring up at the ceiling. Bruce had placed himself in the love seat. His eyes were focused on the TV screen, not that he was actually paying attention to the movie. Tony was sprawled out in the armchair, his legs thrown over one of the armrests and his head lolling against the other one, his eyes closed.
No one commented on the dry tear streaks on Natasha's cheeks, Thor's windswept appearance, Bruce's singed eyebrows, Clint's sweat-covered body, Steve's bloody knuckles, or Tony's slightly intoxicated stupor. They all knew enough to respect each other's personal lives.
Then Tony opened his eyes and looked at each of them in turn. "Wow." He hiccuped, then continued. "You guys look like crap."
For a few seconds, the only sound was the crackling static of the television. Then Clint giggled.
Tony looked at him strangely. "That wasn't even funny," he slurred. Then he started laughing.
Thor shook his head. "You Midgardians have a strange sense of humor."
That made Clint and Tony laugh harder, and the laughter quickly became contagious. Thor's booming guffaws nearly drowned out Bruce's quiet chuckles. Steve couldn't help but laugh himself, and then he couldn't seem to stop.
Natasha rolled her eyes. "You're all so stupid," she said, but her lips were quirked up in a smile that she didn't seem to be in any hurry to get rid of.
A few hours later, they were all asleep in the same positions as they'd been in during the movie. That night, no nightmares plagued the Avengers.
They were a team – no, they were more than that. They were a family, and, at the end of the day, they were there for each other.
As strange as their idea of "support" might've been.
A/N: Yeah, I have no idea if scotch burns your throat. For the sake of this story, let's say it does, all right?