Secretary of State Thaddeus Ross arrived at Avengers headquarters.
All the Avengers were there except Thor, Hulk, and the retired Barton.
Every one of them possessed extraordinary skills, capable of destroying an organization single-handedly or taking down a fortress as a one-person army.
The Super Heroic Age.
Secretary of State Thaddeus Ross still remembered that the first person to introduce that concept to him had been a man with a youthful face.
Back then, he had not been Secretary of State, either.
Although that man always had ideas that struck people as dangerous and untrustworthy, he had been right about one thing.
The arrival of the Super Heroic Age meant the balance of power would change.
While S.H.I.E.L.D. still existed, the World Security Council controlled it from behind the scenes, while the United States pulled the World Security Council's strings.
With S.H.I.E.L.D.'s dissolution, Hydra's scandal had been exposed.
The Avengers had broken away from S.H.I.E.L.D. and become a truly independent organization.
They were a group of people with extraordinary powers, with a witch, super agents, and super soldiers among their ranks.
It was an organization capable of overthrowing a nation.
The Avengers saw fighting crime and protecting the world as their duty.
Those in power, however, disliked a group they could not control.
Secretary of State Thaddeus Ross himself was a firm advocate of bringing superheroes under state control.
Crime?
What constituted a crime?
Bullying the weak, or invading another country?
If one day the superheroes decided those in power were playing the villains, would they assemble the Avengers again, as they had before?
No one wanted a sword hanging over their head. They would much rather hold that sword firmly in their own hands.
There was already precedent for the Avengers turning their blades on those in power.
Death