In which Fury tells Coulson he is an Avenger.
Agents of Shield s1e22 The Beginning of the End
What I love about Nick Fury is that he’s such a lying, manipulative, stonewalling hardass. He’s willing to go as low as he has to, get himself dirty as he has to in order to get things done.
But he also has a clear vision of a world where people don’t have to do that, and he wants that world ferociously. He wants superheroes so much that he’s even willing to give up his obsessive control over them in order to have them, even though he knows how dangerous they are, how much disaster they can bring with them. Because he knows they’re fighting a battle for the world, for its heart and soul, on a level he never can. And he knows it’s the one they need to win the most.
He also knows, with the clarity of a man who gave up being an idealist so other people wouldn’t have to, what a real hero looks like when he sees one.