So this is all over my f-list and it was fun to do, like going backwards in a fic time machine - 'oh, so that's why I started writing Avengers fic' and 'there was my fling with Sherlock' *grins*. The last twenty-one first lines I wrote in fanfic. I'd love to be asked about them, or have people point out any trend that they can spot.

1) Natalia Alianova Romanova has always wanted to know.

2) It starts with ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

3) For as long as he can remember Clint has always been getting into trouble for seeing things that he shouldn’t, or rather for getting caught at it.

4) When Colin opens the door the man waiting outside, who seems incapable of taking his finger off the doorbell, is saying to someone on his mobile phone, “Look, I hate magic, okay?”

5) “Once upon a time,” begins the storyteller.

6) He wakes in the night with a sharp intake of breath that cuts up his insides, flinging back the covers as he launches up into a sitting position.

7) He’s always careful when he does it.

8) When they ask for her name she tells them, “Anastasia.”

9) She is born after the Berlin Wall comes down and before the collapse of the USSR, when some believe that the world will carry on as it is whilst others see the fall rushing towards them and reach out desperately, both kinds snatching at anything they think may be of use.

10) “They’re not AWOL or MIA or any other acronym that you can come up with,” says Fury when people demand from him the whereabouts of the Avengers.

11) “Come on,” Tony goads, dropping onto the couch next to Bruce without spilling a single drop of his whiskey.

12) It was Coulson, because of everyone at SHIELD he's always been the best at getting rid of curious or journalistic types.

13) “Do you have any plans for tonight?” Martha asks her, folding her arms and perching gracefully on the edge of Tosh’s desk without touching anything or knocking anything over.

14) Simon knows about being broken and pushing yourself to be the best.

15) Natasha finds Clint on the pinnacle of Stark Tower, crouching at the edge and aiming his single remaining arrow at a number of targets below, shifting his position repeatedly and favouring his left leg

16) John doesn’t make excuses anymore when he knocks on her door and tells her that once again he’s leaving the clinic before his shift is over.

17) This woman radiates life, so much so that Death wouldn’t think she was dead if she weren’t Death and knew these things.

18) “John Watson,” the receptionist announces as she opens the door to the therapist’s office and ushers him in with a polite smile.

19) After spending so long living on the TARDIS, when it could be any time of any day that you wanted and the only thing that could possibly be called a routine was sex with Rory after an adventure, Amy had expected that adjusting to a ‘normal’ working week would be awkward.

20) “I like him,” says Donna, blowing across the surface of her tea to cool it.

21) He watches as the slim streak of nothing in jeans and a black bra slams her fist into the oncoming punch of her far larger opposition and because he’s got better senses than most he can see that it drains the guy much more than the girl, even though she’s the one that staggers back.