How we cite our quotes: All quotations are from The Avengers.
Quote #4
THOR: You speak of control, yet you court chaos.
BRUCE BANNER: It's his M.O., isn't it? I mean, what are we, a team? No, no, no. We're a chemical mixture that makes chaos. We're...we're a time-bomb.
We can't blame Dr. Banner for being a little pessimistic—he's had a rough road, after all—but his phrasing suggests that persistence needs to work more quickly than perhaps they'd like. The team is too volatile to handle a lot of getting-to-know you time.
Quote #5
TONY STARK: He made it personal.
STEVE ROGERS: That's not the point.
TONY STARK: That is the point. That's Loki's point! He hit us all right where we live. Why?
STEVE ROGERS: To tear us apart.
TONY STARK: Yeah, divide and conquer is great, but he knows he has to take us out to win, right? That's what he wants. He wants to beat us, he wants to be seen doing it. He wants an audience.
This is the point where the team—having gotten their butts kicked during Loki's escape—starts to figure it out. And it's Tony who does the most changing, taking his own hunger for the limelight and using it to figure out what the heck Loki's up to. Did someone say "assemble?"
Quote #6
LOKI: The Chitauri are coming. Nothing will change that. What have I to fear?
TONY STARK: The Avengers. That's what we call ourselves; we're sort of like a team. "Earth's Mightiest Heroes" type thing.
LOKI: Yes, I've met them.
TONY STARK: Yeah, takes us a while to get any traction, I'll give you that one. But let's do a head count here: your brother the demi-god; a super soldier, a living legend who kind of lives up to the legend; a man with breathtaking anger management issues; a couple of master assassins, and you, big fella, you've managed to piss off every single one of them.
Loki's happy to rub their noses in their failures, but Tony's finally on the team. In this case, persistence isn't just about forming a team, but giving Loki a chance to make them all hate him much more than being irritated at each other.