"Avenge what?" Tony scoffed, raising an eyebrow. "Sorry, I'm not interested in joining your boy band."
Nick Fury didn't flinch. He was used to difficult personalities.
"It's not a boy band," Fury said calmly. "It's a response team. For threats that make werewolves and vampires look like cuddly pets."
"Like the ones mentioned in Lucas's diary?" Tony cut to the chase.
Since Fury had already brought up the diary, there was no point dancing around it. Fury clearly had a copy, or at least access to the information.
"Yes," Fury admitted. "Since we're being honest... you've read it. You know where he comes from."
"A Transmigrator," Tony said, testing the word. "From beyond the Fourth Wall. A universe where we are just... fiction."
"Characters in a story," Fury corrected. "NPCs in a cosmic game."
"Speak for yourself," Tony retorted instantly. "I'm not an NPC. I'm the Protagonist. Do you understand the difference? The plot armor? The character arc?"
Fury sighed. Stark's ego was truly bulletproof. Even the revelation that his existence might be fictional hadn't dented his self-importance.
"At first, I couldn't accept it," Tony admitted, his voice softening slightly. "I drank myself into a stupor for days. But then Jarvis said something smart. Maybe the story existed first, and the writer just... tuned into it."
"I am Tony Stark," he declared. "I am real. My choices are mine. No writer controls me."
"Philosophical debates aside," Fury steered the conversation back on track. "Lucas's diary mentions catastrophes we can't even comprehend. And he loves using obscure pop culture references as code."
Tony nodded in agreement. The amount of memes and inside jokes in that diary was infuriating.
"To handle these crises," Fury continued, "I'm forming the Avengers. A team to fight the battles that ordinary military forces can't win. Like your uncle Obadiah."
"The Iron Monger," Fury pointed out. "A single suit that could wipe out a tank battalion. If it had gone mass production..."
"It was a prototype based on my scraps," Tony defended. "But yes. It was powerful."
"And you almost died fighting it," Fury reminded him. "If not for a certain... mysterious intervention."
"According to our satellite footage and witness reports," Fury said, sliding a photo across the table. It was a blurry image of a red and blue streak. "You had help from a new player on the board. The streets call him 'Superman'."
"This is the kind of intel you miss when you work alone," Fury pressed. "We have eyes everywhere. Satellites. Spies. Algorithms. Even your fancy AI can't match the reach of SHIELD."
"Join us, and you get access to the network. You get backup."
Tony looked at the photo. He looked at Fury. A mischievous grin spread across his face.
"So," Tony chuckled, leaning back in his chair. "You guys don't know who Superman is, do you?"