I will eviscerate you in fiction. // Steve & Tony actually share the same one: they...

Beth. 20. I walk, I talk, I shop, I sneeze. I’m gonna be a fireman when the floods roll back. A mess of tea and pop culture references, chewed pens and empty notebooks.

"Murder Your Darlings" by Chris Piascik; stuff available on society6.

on twitter as @umbrella_seller

Steve & Tony actually share the same one: they smoke. Very, very rarely. Tony was a regular chimney back when he was a teenager, used to lock himself away in workshops with a cigarette between his teeth and a bottle of whiskey by his elbow and invent something too crazy for patents. But then Tony’s always been kind of devil-may-care about what ends up in his system. He stopped right around the time he had to step up to the plate and run Stark Industries, cut out most of his vices except the drinking, and even that he’s trying to quit. So yeah, every now and then he sneaks out onto the roof for a cigarette, because dammit, he’s earned it.

Which is where he finds Steve, and Steve smokes… well, just because he can. Because for the longest time his lungs were so weak he’d probably have had an asthma attack if he tried. He didn’t smoke in the army either; the first time one of the men handed him a cigarette he coughed reflexively, and he hated the taste. But he didn’t like the taste of alcohol either, and that didn’t stop him going out for a drink with the rest of the guys. It was… camaraderie, y’know? He loved his men, and so he sat with them while they smoked and drank and told dirty stories about the women back home and even though he sipped water and breathed secondhand smoke and blushed at the tales they told he was still one of them. Sometimes he needs to remember that feeling, and he sneaks onto the roof and lights one up for the men he left behind. He’ll stop eventually. When he stops missing them, he’ll stop.

Thor: Thor does not believe that there should ever be guilt involved with pleasure. Pleasure is pleasure and there is no shame in it. Midgardians hide the things that make them happy, secret them away and act as if something terrible will befall them if they enjoy themselves. It is odd and absurd and he doesn’t understand why, so yes, Bruce, he likes the feel of warmth on his skin, and he will continue to lie naked in the sun because it pleases him.

Bruce: Pretty much everything Bruce enjoys makes him guilty. He’s always punishing himself (and not, says Clint, in the good way). But he can persuade himself to sit down and watch several hours’ worth of Telenovelas, for some reason.

Natasha goes to all-male strip clubs. No, really. The rest of the team only figured this out when Pepper started disappearing along with her, and after the third time the two of them came back more than a little drunk and giggling, Tony cracked and asked Pepper. The reason they go is this: Natasha spends half her life being ogled. By her marks, by her coworkers, by her employers, by the people she’s spying on. It doesn’t matter if she’s in her jumpsuit or her streetclothes. And it doesn’t bother her, not really, she uses it, it’s a freaking weapon; but every now and then it’s nice to just sit back, drink a martini, and let someone else be ogled for a change.

Clint: Sings karaoke. He actually has a pretty nice voice, and hell, he goes for it. You should hear him sing Tiny Dancer. Standing ovation, every time.