Gathering the Avengers

Skye lowered her head and silently thought about Fanny's words for quite a while. Fanny had no idea what Skye was thinking about, but she finally agreed, with her face slightly red.

While Fanny was persuading Skye, Nick Fury left the base to contact and persuade the council.

"This might be the first interstellar war on Earth, and we are not ready. I need a team to deal with the threat and prevent the war."

"You are playing with fire, director!" A council member said accusingly through the screen, "With forces that you can't control."

Several others shared similar objections in their heart against Nick Fury's Avengers Initiative, especially since Nick Fury deliberately stated that the team would not be strictly controlled. None of them spoke up for him.

"Have you been in a war, councilman?" Nick Fury glared at the council of office hermit and said in a deep voice, "In a firefight? Did you feel an overabundance of control?"

"You mentioned that Loki has an army. Does this mean Asgard is declaring war on Earth?" A female council member changed the topic to break the stalemate.

"It's not Asgard, but Loki." Nick Fury recalled that Fanny said the Thunder God might come to help Earth's side, so Loki's army most likely didn't belong to Asgard.

"Where is his brother? This Thor?" The female council member asked again.

"Our intelligence suggests that Thor is not a hostile, but he is worlds away. We can only rely on ourselves," Nick Fury replied.

"What about the Silver Knight?" The female council member mentioned Fanny. "Can't the Silver Knight stop Loki?"

Only the people in the research base knew about Fanny's disappearance, and he had returned today, so Nick Fury replied with a normal expression, "Not alone. He needs this response team, and so are we!"

After half a day of long and arduous negotiation, Nick Fury was able to get tentative approval from the council to scout and prepare his team, although whether the team would receive continued support would still depend on their performance.

Nick Fury didn't waste any time and rushed to his next objective.

In an old yet distinguished boxing house, a muscular man with well-developed pectorals and perky buttocks was ravaging the sandbags.

A left straight and a right hook, his movements were simple yet fierce, backed by his immense strength.

"Trouble sleeping?" Nick Fury asked Captain America, who was sweating from the intense exercise.

"I slept for seventy years, sir. I think I've had my fill."

"Then you should go out. Celebrate. See the world."

Steve Rogers finally stopped beating the sandbag when he saw Nick Fury approaching. He removed the bandage on his hand and asked, "Are you here with a mission, sir? Trying to get me back to the world?"

"Trying to get you to save it!"

Nick Fury offered a folder. Steve hesitated before taking it and opening the folder. The picture of the Tesseract was right on the top.

Nick Fury roughly told him about Loki and then slowly said, "This world has become even stranger than you could ever imagine."

"At this point, I don't think there's anything that could surprise me," Steve replied expressionlessly, still angry about the Cube. He then packed up and prepared to leave.

"There's a debriefing package waiting in your house." Nick Fury thought for a moment as Captain America prepared to leave with a sandbag and added, "Is there anything specific about the cube that you think we ought to know?"

"You should have left it in the ocean!" Steve said without looking back. He left the boxing house and returned home.

Steve sighed when he saw the conspicuously-placed debriefing documents that Nick Fury had left for him. He opened it and read it carefully.

The package didn't include any mission plan or directions. Most of the documents were information about other people, including Asgard, Thor, Loki, Banner, and Tony's identity as Iron Man.

…

On the top floor of the Stark Tower.

Following Nick Fury's instruction, Coulson went to the Stark tower to find Tony and Banner.

Tony and Pepper were chatting about something when Jarvis suddenly interrupted them, "Sir, special agent Coulson from SHIELD is looking for you."

"Tell him I'm not here!"

Despite his tentative role as a consultant, Tony didn't have much good impression of SHIELD.

"I'm afraid he wouldn't believe it, sir." As Tony continued to level up, Jarvis' intelligence level also grew along with him.

"Come on, Jarvis. I'm on a date!" Tony said casually, reluctant to part with Pepper.

Unfortunately, Pepper knew the importance of social relationships and had a good impression of Coulson. She advised Tony, "Let's hear him first. It could be something to do with Fanny!"

Tony's expression immediately changed. He finally answered the call.

"Mister Stark, we need to talk. This is urgent!" Coulson's calm but serious face appeared on the video call screen.

"What's wrong? Is the world ending yet?" Tony joked as usual.

"More or less!"

Tony obviously didn't expect Coulson's answer. Coulson's serious face indicated that the agent was not joking. Tony bypassed the security clearance and let Coulson take the elevator all the way up.

"What kind of trouble are you guys cooking this time?" Tony asked unhappily as Coulson entered the room with a computer in his arms.

"You should take a look at this." Coulson handed the computer to Tony.

"I don't like to be handed things. You can put it on the table." Tony did not take the computer and instead shrugged before sitting down on the sofa, waiting for Coulson to put the computer in front of him.

Pepper saw that Coulson was a little anxious and nervous, so she took over the situation. She casually took the computer from Coulson and saved him a face, "It's fine; I like people handing me things."

She then went over to Tony's side and shoved the computer into his hands.

Tony held the computer, looked at Pepper, and then at Coulson. He pouted helplessly as he turned on the computer. After copying the data to the building's servers, he turned on the holographic projectors in the room.

Pepper looked at the information around her in surprise. Suddenly, she seemed to recognize something. She turned to Coulson and asked, "Has Fa— has the Silver Knight returned?"

"This is the latest intel that the director had organized." Coulson nodded. He had not seen Fanny return with his own eyes, but he had received the full debrief, including that Fanny had arrived along with Loki.

Tony subconsciously grinned when he heard the news. "I knew that guy wouldn't get into trouble so easily."

"By the way, please inform Dr. Banner that it would be in his best interest that he participate in this mission!"

Due to Fanny's intervention, Natasha didn't have to carry out the dangerous mission of contacting Banner—although this might also cause Banner to miss the chance to meet his star-crossed lover.