Chapter Text
Nick Fury is a strategical man. With every decision he makes there is always an outcome planned. So when his men found the Tesseract, Fury knew the chances of someone trying to take it was too great to ignore. Originally he was going to create a team of his best agents to deal with it, but after the discovery of Captain America and Tony Stark announcing he was Iron Man, Nick knew that those agents wouldn't stand a chance. If someone really wanted the cube they would need to be pretty powerful to think they could get to it.
It took two weeks for Fury to come up with a Plan B. If you want to fight against powerful villains, use powerful heroes. After his realization it was almost easy to decide who would go on this team.
Tony Stark, Iron Man.
Steve Rogers, Captain America.
And Bruce Banner, The Hulk.
The only problem was that Fury knew with Rogers on the team they'll want to separate from SHIELD at some point. So to keep control of the team he added two agents Nick knew could play with the big boys, Natasha Romanov and Clint Barton.
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The conference room was buzzing with tense energy. Stark was poking Banner repeatedly, Rogers was looking around the room in overwhelming awe, and Romanov and Barton were trading glances at each other in their strange form of communication.
Nick sighed and took place in from of the room. "I've called you all here today to give you a proposition." Five heads turned their attention to the director. The director loomed over them as he continued in a clear yet firm tone.
"Recently I have come to the realization that SHIELD is not prepared for some of the villains coming out of the wood-work. People are developing ways to become more invincible than ever before and soon they will have the upper hand. In preparation for this advancement I have decided to form a response team that could go toe to toe with these forces. You all, are this team."
Nick waited in anticipation as the five adults deliberated. Natasha and Clint were a solid yes, they understood the need for this team first hand. Rogers was a possible yes also. Stark and Banner were a toss up, though. Banner seems to want to stay away from confrontation and Stark just didn't like working with others. If this works out they'll have to do a lot of team building before they are field ready. And they'll need a base to work in. If not Banner with run for sure, and Barton and Romanov will feel out of the loop which is never good. Dear god this is gonna be tough.
Rogers looked at Fury with a determined smirk on his face, "We're in."
And with that, the Avengers Project was born.