A/N - This will be a few chapters, if I had to throw out a wild guess I'd say 5 or 6, but don't quote me on that.

The Avengers Initiative was labelled a time bomb from the very beginning. It was scrapped until Nick Fury decided the world had no other options. Even after New York, there was absolutely no way the ragtag group of solo superheroes (or the pair of maverick agents) was ever going to form anything remotely resembling a usable team.

Fury decided he'd have a go anyway, because the Council had said the same thing about some of his best teams until they were abruptly proved wrong. The Avengers deserved a chance to prove people wrong.

He hadn't really thought about the fact that they might refuse.

"So, let me get this straight." He turned his chair around to stare at Agent Hill with his one good eye. "Banner refusing, I might have expected. But all of them?"

The woman simply handed over a thin file folder of emails in response to the invitation. "Mister Stark and Captain Rogers seemed to agree on the fact that the Council could not be trusted. They elected not to completely associate themselves with SHIELD."

"Much as I appreciate that level of intelligence," Fury muttered, "the world still needs them, whether SHIELD has a hand in it or not."

"Sir?" Agent Hill raised her eyebrows, knowing that her boss preferred to have a hand in everything important going on in the world. The formation of something like the Avengers surely couldn't be the exception.

"Agent, get me Captain R-" he held up a hand and interrupted himself, looking thoughtful. "Agent Hill, get me Mister Stark."

Tony appeared on the screen in less than five minutes, holding a mug of coffee and looking utterly relaxed. "Please tell me this isn't about trying to get me on SHIELD's payroll," he started. "Honestly, I'd almost rather have another alien invasion."

"Not exactly." Fury placed a folder on the table, knowing Stark's hands would start itching immediately at seeing the file and not being able to open it. "These are the entire team's rejections of SHIELD's offer to make the Avengers a permanent unit. All six of them."

"Oh, I'm not going to like this conversation, I can already tell." Tony's face locked down into the mask he sometimes gave his own Board of Directors. "Tell me what you're pitching here."

Fury shook his head. "I'm not pitching anything. I'm giving you the facts and hoping you do the right thing with them."

The billionaire's eyebrows rose. This really was serious if Fury was appealing to his dubious morality. "...I like facts. Shoot." He couldn't help but be curious.

"Doctor Banner's reasons are exactly what you would expect. Too much danger to civilians if the Hulk is used." Fury pushed aside that paper and scanned the next one. "Thor believes the Avengers would not welcome Asgardian interference and that Agent Barton in particular probably wouldn't want anything to do with him. Also he apparently has a girlfriend in England he wants to spend his time with, not that he says that in the email."

Tony nodded slowly. "Well, I already know what mine says. In my defense, though, not a team player is in my evaluation. Did you ever really expect me to want this?"

"We were hoping that once you gained a little trust in your teammates you might decide this was a good experience to have," Fury replied honestly, something that was becoming a rare occurrence. "It can be helpful to have powerful people in your corner when shit hits the fan."

Tony considered that, and nodded for the intelligence director to continue.

"Captain Rogers is the only one who was even remotely open to the possibility, but he is, and I quote, fairly certain there are certain members of the team who would never accept my leadership or the direction of the military (SHIELD included), and you can't exactly draft them."

"Certain members plural?"

"Stark, I'm pretty sure he was just trying to avoid singling you out." Fury sighed. "Agent Barton is actually apparently fine with Thor's involvement, but he says he's more comfortable in a smaller team - which is bullshit, he'll work anywhere we put him up until now, so I have no idea what's rubbing him the wrong way."

Tony rolled his eyes. "Aren't you supposed to have all the answers, Fury? He's not in until Natasha is in, and I'm guessing Natasha isn't in."

Fury was pretty sure he was going to have a stroke within a week if Stark kept being so annoyingly correct all the time. "Agent Romanoff says she still feels like the team is a time bomb, with, and I quote again, a conflict at its core that runs too deep for any call made in battle to go unquestioned." He arched an eyebrow.

"Well, she isn't wrong. Look, if you're telling me to play nice with Spangles, you're going to be waiting a damn long time."

Fury pressed a button and cut the video conference. He had done the only possible thing he could do: presented all the information and left the problem to solve itself. Whether it would or not… well, Tony Stark couldn't possibly be as smart as his file implied. He would give 4% odds of the Avengers ever regrouping, and he felt that was rather generous.

But he also felt he had to try.