Chapter Text
The Avengers were assembled together in a small conference room on the Helicarrier—not one they’d ever been in before—waiting with varying degrees of patience for Fury to appear. He’d texted them all earlier that morning telling them there would be a meeting to discuss how things were going to work out, now that they were all living together in Stark Tower. Tony had, predictably, thrown a fit, stating that it was his tower, so that meant his rules, but he was just as predictably ignored by the rest of the team and dragged into the waiting QuinJet by Bruce.
Now he sat angrily stabbing at his StarkPhone, mumbling under his breath about Fury and how he shouldn’t have told them to get there at a certain time and then make them wait. Bruce nodded along absently, reading an article on his tablet and more or less ignoring everyone else in the room. Thor and Steve had similar postures across the table from each other, backs straight and waiting for the Director with more patience than the other members of the room put together (except maybe Bruce, who seemed to have nothing but patience.). Natasha and Clint were busy throwing pens and pencils into the ceiling with a mildly terrifying number sticking into it in close clusters.
They’d been gathered for about fifteen minutes (“Fucking hours!” according to Tony) when the door opened with more force than necessary and Fury strode in, giving everyone a familiar one eyed glare as he went to stand at the head of the rectangular table. He waited with his arms crossed over his chest for the few minutes it took for everyone (Clint and Tony, mostly) to give him their full attention.
“I called you here today because if you’re all going to play house with Stark, there are gonna be some rules.” Fury completely ignored Tony’s indignant squawk and kept talking. He laid out the ground work for rules that, he said, would undoubtedly be added to. Things like proper conduct in social settings because “you’re all socially defunct don’t even try to argue with me on that one, Stark,” and that, since the tower was now, basically, Avengers HQ, there would be no unauthorized civilian access past the necessary lower floors that housed offices and labs were actual civilians worked. He passed Tony a thumb drive with “necessary modifications” that would have to be made to the tower within the next few weeks before Fury finally paused for breath and looked around the room once more, carefully looking each Avenger in the eyes. “And, since what I’m looking at is basically the super-powered adult equivalent of six children,” He paused briefly so that Clint and Tony could voice their disapproval of that, before continuing in a much sterner tone, “You’ll be assigned a nanny.”
Clint straightened from his slouching pout and shot a quick look to Natasha before he looked back at Fury. “Is it Sitwell?”
Fury shook his head. “No. Agent Sitwell is a level seven, and we feel that this is an assignment for a level eight or higher.” The door opened just then, and every Avenger turned to look as a man entered the room and took calm, measured strides to stand beside the director with an unassuming smile on his face. “We felt that Agent Coulson was really the only one up to the task.”
There was a beat of silence before the room erupted into shouts—Clint, Tony, and Thor—and angry, if slightly quieter questions—Steve, Natasha, and Bruce. Fury let it go on for about a minute before he held up his hand and the Avengers miraculously fell silent, looks ranging from outrage to confusion to betrayal on their faces.
“Yes, Coulson’s alive, as you can see. Technically, his heart stopped, so he was dead. But modern medicine is an amazing thing.” He shot a loaded look to Steve, Bruce, and Tony at that, and then continued on as the team stared, “Yes, I lied to you. But we, the Earth, needed you to come together as a team. It was never going to work if you didn’t have something to avenge. A common enemy.” Fury’s face was carefully blank, and under the normal steel, his voice was carefully neutral.
Countless heartbeats passed in tense, furious silence before Thor stood, a storm in his eyes and his hands balled into fists. “You had no right.” His voice was a deadly quiet that no one in the room had heard him use before, and before Fury could respond Thor strode out the door, pulling it open with such force that it knocked a hole in the wall and stayed open.
Tony opened his mouth, murderous rage playing across his face, but Bruce put a hand on his arm and shook his head, once. There was a tint of green in his eyes that hadn’t been there before. He stood, pulled Tony up with him, and they turned to leave, the others following.
Steve was the last to leave. He stopped at the end of the table, and pulled out his wallet. He pulled out a bloodied, battered card and set it carefully on the table before he turned and left, too.
Coulson and Fury stood in silence for a moment before Coulson looked at the director from the corner of his eyes.
“That went well.” He said, voice soft and falsely pleasant.