Summary: Taking a look at the Avengers through a series of one word prompts. Rated for language.

Disclaimer: Not mine or necessarily in chronological order.

Through the Window Panes

Hot

Nights in Calcutta were no cooler than days in Calcutta, Natasha realized with dismay. She had never really acclimated to the warmer climes, no matter how many missions she completed near the equator. The second she set foot in the city, she'd purchased a modern version of the traditional dress, hoping it would help her keep from overheating. When Dr. Banner walked in wearing a full tweed suit, all she could think was, how is he not dying in that?

Son

The three of them quickly emptied the Quinjet of any remaining SHIELD agents, sliding seamlessly into place. Natasha made herself comfortable in the copilot's chair as Clint took the wheel without hesitation, Captain Rogers lingering behind them.

The plane was warming up as they waited for Stark to arrive when Clint's lips twitched. Warm chuckles bubbled from his chest, Natasha and the Captain staring at him with unabashed curiosity. When he finally settled himself, he turned to a rather confused Captain Rogers, a smile still playing about his face.

"Son?" he asked, one eyebrow raised sardonically as he eyed the terribly young face that was staring at him bemusedly. "Really?"

True

Loki was arrogant.

It wasn't exactly a secret, even to himself, but it was something that should have been given a bit more thought.

Clint never missed. He could calculate trajectories and wind speeds and exactly the right angle he'd need without hesitation, but it was more than that. Clint could anticipate, and that was why he was the best.

Loki had chosen Clint for his heart, not his aim, and that was part of his undoing. Clint had heart, but he had logic and intelligence and a passionate taste for revenge born of seeing too many sorrows in the world and, most of all, he had the ability to predict.

Loki chased Natasha, confident, sure in his chances of success, knowing that the arrow Clint was drawing back would never touch his blood. The problem was that Clint knew it too.

So he let it fly, unfailingly, and didn't flinch when Loki caught the projectile in his hand. When Loki gave him that knowingly smug look, Clint grinned as wide as he possibly could, relishing the feeling as he clicked a simple button for detonation.

Clint never missed.

Tired

It wasn't sudden.

The tired aching in his bones was so subtle that Tony barely noticed it as he rode out the biggest adrenaline high of his life. But the ache twinged as they picked their way back to the Tower, nettled when they apprehended Loki (who, despite himself, Tony kind of liked), and it grew to a throb at the back of his neck as they devoured shawarma.

The exhaustion finally, completely, caught up with him, somewhere in between the Shawarma Palace and the decimated Tower lounge. He made a halfhearted attempt to situate the others in the guest rooms, but he ended up leaving them mid-sentence to simply fall into his bed because he was too tired to do anything else.

Pray

Tony stopped and backtracked momentarily, looking through the window. Rogers was sitting at one of the tables in the break room on the helicarrier, staring dubiously at a laptop screen. Tony smirked to himself.

"Problems, Spangles?"

Rogers glanced over at him, a fleeting glare on his face, then back at the monitor. "One of the younger agents lent me their laptop and opened the internet," he replied, the twenty-first century words flowing more easily from his tongue than Tony would have guessed.

"So you've delved into the deep, dark, seedy underbelly of the 'net," Tony said, moving further into the room. "It's a dangerous place for innocents such as yourself."

This time the glare was less than fleeting and far more sardonic. "Innocence implies small girls and rainbows and chirping birds," the soldier commented wryly. "That hardly applies."

"And kittens," Tony pointed out. "Never forget the kittens."

"How could I? That seems to be all I can find."

Tony finally pulled up a chair and sat next to the Captain, snorting out a laugh when the browser tabs indicated multiple cat videos on YouTube. Rogers looked at him with something akin to desperation in his eyes.

"This can't be all this is for, right? With something like this," he gestured to the screen, "someone has to be using this for something more serious than cats."

Tony thought about yanking his chain a little more, he really did, but there was something in the soldier's tone that sounded vaguely like pleading. "No," Tony finally responded. "There's more. There's a whole wide world in there."

Taking control of the laptop, he opened CNN's website. Rogers seemed to visibly relax. "Thank God," he muttered, the words sounding almost like a prayer. "Real news."

Celebrate

"That was the single most exhausting thing I have ever done, hands down," Clint muttered tiredly, throwing himself onto the couch. Had he been less tired, Clint mused, he might have laughed at the comically defeated expressions the team wore after their first press conference together.

Bruce was looking much the worse for wear, his eyes still brown, but barely. Natasha was quietly fuming at the audacity of the press, her lips drawn. Thor was quietly confused by the proceedings, his temper running a little short from a few misplaced questions regarding his brother. Even Steve was dragging himself into the room, clearly itching to collapse.

Tony clapped his hands, bouncing lightly on the balls of his feet.

"Well," he announced, grinning around the room at his friends' various states of rest. "We made it through that without killing anyone. Let's celebrate!"

Fail

Bruce blinked in bemusement as he walked out onto the roof of the Tower.

"Am I disturbing you?" Thor turned as he spoke, his cape billowing slightly in the wind, and smiled slightly.

"No, my friend. You are welcome here." Bruce nodded, slipping beside the demi-god and stared out at the rebuilding of the city. Long minutes passed, stretching into the silence, before Thor spoke again. "May I tell you something personal?"

Bruce nodded, feeling somewhat surprised. "Of course."

Thor shifted his weight, looking down at his feet in consternation and guilt. "I feel as though I have failed my brother, Banner. He was my responsibility."

"No he wasn't," Bruce replied, a hint of firmness in his voice. Thor raised a questioning brow at the scientist. "Loki might have been adopted, and you might have been the older brother, but that doesn't mean you are responsible for his fate or actions.

"Your brother was given every opportunity: a stable home, a loving family, a place to belong," Bruce continued, his words quiet but passion-filled. Thor watched him with undisguised interest and not a small amount of hope. "He threw it away."

"You speak with certainty," Thor murmured a few minutes later, eyeing Bruce with curiosity. The scientist shrugged.

"I was Loki's polar opposite," he said quietly, staring out over the skyline. "My family was broken and my father was abusive towards my mother. I pulled myself out of that hellhole, out of that life, and did something with myself." He smiled softly at Thor. "I'll be the first one to tell you that no one controls your fate but you. So don't go thinking that you failed your brother, Thor. You had nothing to do with it."

Sunrise

The military had done nothing if not drill routine into Steve, and routine was something that he clung to in the changing, quicksilver world he found himself in. His actions never changed, no matter where they were.

The sky was dark when he woke up and set the coffeemaker, one of the few cooking methods he approved of. (Microwaves, in his opinion, just made food soggy and foul-tasting.) And then, he ran.

Stepping out of the door, Steve ran for as long and as hard as he could, until his muscles screamed and his breathing resembled the asthma attacks he could barely remember anymore. He'd stop, take a breath, and turn his feet towards home.

The coffee was always ready by the time he got back and cool enough to drink when he finished showering. Pouring himself a cup, he'd walk up to the rooftop terrace and sip at the drink while he watched the sun rise, relishing the peace of the moment.

Peace

In a mansion full of extremely opinionated individuals and hair-trigger tempers, it was useful to have someone that excelled in keeping calm.

Clint and Natasha were slow to fight with each other and relatively quick to forgive in the event that they did disagree. They never came to blows, preferring to disappear from each other's sight and retreat to their rooms.

Thor wasn't around that often, and was too amiable to be caught in a verbal sparring match with any of the others.

Steve rarely argued with anyone, utilizing his leadership abilities to approach the situation diplomatically. The exception, of course, was Tony. He and the billionaire occasionally went toe to toe, resulting in Tony locking himself in the lab for days and Steve taking off on his motorcycle to cool down.

The real issue, that created knife-cutting tension and set the whole team on edge, came when Tony and Natasha locked horns. Each was convinced that they were correct in their opinion, and each was too stubborn to back down. When the snarling and insult-slinging arguments were finished, and each had stormed in opposite direction, it fell to Bruce, designated as the peacemaker of the team, to gently intervene.

Argue

Tony liked to argue for argument's sake, Steve sometimes thought with exasperation, as the billionaire picked another fight with Natasha over something insignificant. He would poke and prod and goad until his target simply snapped and lashed back.

It was something that Steve didn't understand at first, not until he'd gotten to know Tony better. He learned to read the subtle cues of the billionaire's behaviors and expressions, and when the realization finally hit like a freight train, Steve had never wanted to time travel so badly.

What he eventually (finally) realized was that Tony fought for attention. It was well known that Tony was an attention hog, there was no question about that, but after hearing the stories of how Howard had treated his son made Steve realize that Tony just wanted to be seen.

And there was no better way to be seen than pissing someone off so that their sole attention was focused on him.