More Avengers fic recs

Now that the Americans have seen it, the stories are coming at warp speed.

First Name Basis: Natasha and Clint backstory! Very plausible getting-to-know-you tale from ye early days, as the dynamic we see in the film starts to establish itself.

Equilibrium: an alternate take on Natasha and Clint, and uncrossed lines.

Debriefing SHIELD debriefs Natasha and Clint, and then they debrief each other. Because sometimes, one is in the mood for a good and hot PWP. :)

Make or Mar: in which Clint deals (or not) with that spoilery thing that happened to him through the film. Contains one of the few fictional Lokis that feel to me like maintaining the right balance. As someone observed elsewhere, Loki tends to get written either as a misunderstood woobie in search of his hurt/comfort fic or the prince of darkness in a Cruella de Sue way (meaning: he's suddenly the most successful evil overlord ever and dispensing everyone else left, right and center), not to mention the type of fic where *insert Avenger/author avatar of choice* befriends/romances Loki with just a token moment of hesitation due to Loki's previous actions. Well, Clint, due to that spoilery thing, isn't inclined to feel sentimental about Loki any time soon. And still manages to be bitingly insightful in the middle of dealing (or not).

Aftershocks: Bruce and Tony, in the aftermath of the battle, holding on through the aftershocks. This friendship is one of the many Jossian perks added to the movie Marvelverse, and like Black Widow/Hawkeye, I'm thrilled to see fandom taking it to its collective bosom. As I said to harmonyangel elsewhere, trust Joss to come up with the one relationship all the pre-movie fanfic didn't and make it endearing as hell.

Which leads me to some not very original observations re: some of what makes The Avengers so appealing (to me) and what makes and doesn't make a team movie in general work. Because "put various different characters together, add infighting, give exterior opponent, mix, stirr" alone doesn't do the trick. As with romantic relationships: if you want to sell me on them, make them attractive to me, I need to believe that character A and character B bring something out in each other that wouldn't be there, or not in the same degree, if they were on their lonesome, and that this something adds instead of takes away from both characters. (And here you have the reason for the few couples I anti-ship as well.) With an ensemble film that means something emotionally to me beyond "look at the pretty people and explosions", I have to believe that teaming up does something like this to them as well. (On a more Doylist level, there's also the need to justify why this ensemble film instead of just leaving it at various solo outings.) And that's there. I think it was likeadeuce who in her review of the first Iron Man film mentioned that it says something about Tony Stark that the people he's closest to are all in his employ or, when you count JARVIS (and who doesn't?) literally created by him. (Well, if you want to get technical, Rhodey works for the army, but he is the liason to Stark Industries, so I think the point is sitll valid.) Whereas the other Avengers don't. A relationship like the one with Bruce Banner would not be possible in an Iron Man film, and I don't mean because of the equality of minds (a solo superhero movie being usually structured in a way that the hero is the best at what he/she does, or becoming so in the course of the movie, with the antagonist equal or superior at the start but not by the end), I mean because it's Tony being (in a Tony way) considerate and catering to Bruce's issues, not the reverse. And lilacsigil put her fingers in her review on why the very premise of a Hulk solo movie stakes the odds against it - if the Hulk is the main event and at the same time the very thing your protagonist tries to prevent coming out, then your build the audience satisfaction on your protagonist losing his struggles. Also, different as the two Hulk origin films were, they had Bruce Banner mainly interact with his designated love interest and various evil generals and ending up in lonely isolation. The Avengers by contrast offers Bruce Banner the chance to interact with various wildly different people, establish relationships that aren't based on romance or exploitation, contribute as Bruce as well as the Hulk and start to come to terms with the whole Hulk thing in a new way. It's a very satisfying storyline, emotionally, so no wonder yours truly and many another viewer went into the cinema being blah and meh about Bruce Banner and the Hulk and leaving it with sparkly hearts in their eyes.