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America, the Colonies?
Chapter 4: The Avengers Project
Nick Fury was a busy man. A very busy man. He was sitting in his office, looking through the files of the people his agents had gathered information of, all labeled "top secret". There were at least fifty of them, of which he'd need to find the most suitable group of people for his project. The Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. sighed as he stamped "DENIED" over someone who called himself 'Wolverine'. James Howlett, it read. Fury had never met the mutant in person, but knew that the man was dangerous to everyone, especially himself, and preferred doing things by himself. In short, not someone that the Avengers needed.
Fury closed the file and added it to the growing pile of "DENIED" files. Only "ACCEPTED" ones so far were Steve Rogers, 'Captain America' and two agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Natasha Romanoff, 'Black Widow' and Clint Barton, 'Hawkeye'.
Fury took a new file and sighed. It was Anthony Stark's: the playboy, billionaire, genius, and so on. When the man had revealed himself to be the 'Iron Man', even Fury couldn't help but crack a smile. Only someone like Stark would and could invent something like that machine.
He was just about to stamp "DENIED" over it, when someone barked in his office. Without knocking. Fury glanced at the person with his "this better be important or you lose your job" -look, making the agent sweat.
"Speak", Fury said simply. He didn't have time for random interruptions. He was, after all, a busy man.
"D-Director Fury, Agent Romanoff requests to see you", the agent said, his shirt wet of sweat already. Nick Fury nodded and looked at Tony's file, before closing it.
"Send her in", he said. As the agent left the room, Fury heard a sigh of relief from the man. "Ah, the feeling of being in charge", Fury thought, inwardly smirking.
Couple of seconds later, Natasha Romanoff stepped in with her report and Fury gestured for her to begin.
"Mission to make sure the pirate doesn't escape, failed", she said, calm as ever, making Fury's eye narrow so slightly it was almost unnoticeable, "Anthony Stark arrived and distracted me long enough for the pirate, Jack Sparrow, to escape. We went after the man and came across Thor Odinson with the pirate. Now, Sparrow is located at the Stark tower", Natasha finished her report and offered the paper version of it to Fury.
Fury took the report and read it over in a couple of seconds, before looking at Natasha again.
"I see, dismissed", he said calmly, but inwardly, he was cursing the very existence of Anthony Stark. Now he couldn't deny the billionaire.
Cursing silently, Nick Fury took Tony's file again, and stomped "ACCEPTED" over the man's picture with more than enough strength.
Tony Stark smirked as he stepped out of the clothing store. He hadn't bought anything to himself, no. He had Pepper for that. He had just accompanied Jack Sparrow in the quest to make him attract less attention.
"Do I really have t' wear this?" the pirate's voice asked from behind him, making the billionaire smirk. Turning around, Tony saw the clothes he had chosen for the pirate. It was a bit unusual and not really Tony's taste, but it fit the pirate.
Jack Sparrow was wearing blue jeans, with a black leather belt and a white button-up shirt that had three of the top buttons unbuttoned under a black leather trench coat (Jack had said that a pirate needed a coat). He also had black snakeskin cowboy boots, black finger-less cloves and black aviators (Tony had forced Jack to wear them) and, last but not least, he had his dreadlocks in ponytail and, on his head, he a black stetson (again, Jack had said pirate needed a hat.)
"Come on, Jack! It ain't that bad. I think it suits you", Tony said with a smirk, getting a childish glare from the captain.
"It's Captain Jack for you", Jack replied, making Tony roll his eyes.
"Whatever, Jack. Come on, let's get back to the tower", the billionaire said while opening the door to his Acura and sat down on the driver's seat. When Jack sat down on the other front seat, they left towards the Stark tower.
Later that day, news articles read: "Tony Stark hanging around with a freak, so Tony", with a picture of the two of them talking outside the clothing shop.
Nick Fury sighed for the hundredth time that day when he placed the last file to the "DENIED" pile. He had been hoping for more candidates, but he had to deal with what he had.
The people accepted to the Avengers were 'Captain America' Steve Rogers, 'Black Widow' Natasha Romanoff, 'Hawkeye' Clint Barton, 'Iron Man' Anthony Stark, Thor Odinson, 'Hulk' Bruce Banner and 'Cyclops' Scott Summers.
Of course, he was keeping some at reserve, for the case of some of them refusing to join. One of the reserves was that pirate, Jack Sparrow. Even if Nick Fury didn't know much about the pirate, the old pirate legend told about how the man fought the likes of Davy Jones. To say the least, he was a good candidate.
Now, what should he do for the rest of the day? Maybe he should visit the Project P.E.G.A.S.U.S. and see how the research of the Tesseract was going.
"Sounds like a plan", Nick Fury thought and stood from his seat.
Couple of days later, Tony Stark stepped out of his limo. He was at the airport, having gotten an invite from Nick Fury regarding the "Avengers Project" the man had talked about when they'd met last time. He had been surprised to hear about the gathering of the Avengers, and had been even more surprised when Phil Coulson, the agent who delivered the invite, had told him to take Jack with him.
So, here he was, at the place he had been ordered to go. The billionaire saw a helicopter approaching in the distance. When it got closer, he could clearly see the S.H.I.E.L.D. logo on it.
"What might that be?" Jack asked behind him. Tony turned around in surprise to see Jack Sparrow staring at the helicopter warily, with a confused look on his face. The way the pirate walked behind him without him noticing was pretty creepy.
"That, Jack, is something we call a helicopter. To put it simply, it's a machine used for flying", Tony explained, not even bothering to tell anything about its functions and mechanics, which was good since the pirate looked to have hardly understood even the thing he had said. Jack muttered something Tony couldn't quite hear after that, not that it bothered the billionaire.
When the copter landed, Tony saw Jack keeping a hold of his hat with both hands, cringing from the sound the copter made. The copter's door opened, and Tony made his way to it before sitting down, answering to the greeting of the pilot. He waited for the copter to get moving, but when it didn't, he was about to complain, but then he saw Jack. The pirate was still staring at the copter, making Tony sigh.
"COME ON JACK! WE GOTTA GO!" Tony shouted over the noise of the copter, making the pirate flinch and move slowly towards the copter.
When they were finally able to get to the air, Tony relaxed and looked out of the window. He was aware of the stare he was receiving from Coulson, who was with them in the copter. Tony glanced at the man and asked very Tonyly: "What?"
Coulson just blinked once and answered: "Do you know why you were invited here?"
Tony looked thoughtful, before answering: "Actually, it could be many things. For exampl-", Tony started, only to be cut off by Coulson.
"You have been accepted to the Avengers Project. The world's mightiest heroes." Coulson said seriously, but Tony couldn't help but laugh. After couple of minutes of silence, Tony glanced at Coulson seriously, before asking dumbly: "You're serious?"
Tony glanced warily at Jack, who was looking out of the window in awe and muttering something. "What about that guy?" Tony asked, pointing at Jack, who didn't seem to notice it.
Coulson just shrugged and replied: "He was accepted too. Apparently, someone called 'Cyclops' didn't accept the invite. He was stuck with the X-Men and Jack was a reserve, so he took his place."
Tony stared at the agent over his sunglasses for a couple of minutes, before shrugging and looking out of the window. They were nearing some kind of ship, on which they were probably going to land on.
When they landed, Nick Fury was waiting for them.