How we cite our quotes: All quotations are from The Avengers.
Quote #1
CAPTAIN AMERICA: Stark, we need a plan of attack!
IRON MAN: I have a plan: attack!
Here's our team in less-than-fighting form: each going their own way and some of them flat-out refusing to listen to what the others have to say. That's what they need to overcome to win this thing: an obstacle as big as Loki's whole army in some ways.
Quote #2
CAPTAIN AMERICA: Are we done here?
Cap, at least, is a team player from the beginning…and the sound of this line suggests he's pretty disappointed in the other heroes refusing to play nice with each other. Getting them on the same page is going to take some doing…
Quote #3
TONY STARK: No hard feelings, Point Break. You've got a mean swing.
Tony's a narcissistic jerk, but his kinder nature can come out to play sometimes. This line shows, for the first time, that this gang can become a team.
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.
Quote #7
CAPTAIN AMERICA: Stark? We got him.
IRON MAN: Banner...?
CAPTAIN AMERICA: Just like you said.
IRON MAN: Then tell him to suit up... I'm bringing the party to you.
The Hulk is the last piece of the puzzle—the one hero left who hasn't joined the "party." Tony clearly figured he was going to show, even if Captain America had his doubts. Time to whoop some alien behind.
Quote #8
IRON MAN: Call it Captain.
This is the final sign—in this movie at least—that all that macho chest-beating is done. Tony's the Number Two in this equation, and Cap needs to take the lead: signaling that the Avengers have finally truly assembled.
Quote #9
IRON MAN: What else you got?
HAWKEYE: Well, Thor's taking on a squadron down on Sixth.
IRON MAN: And he didn't invite me...
Once they've accepted that Cap calls the shots and the rest of them need to function together, it all clicks. Tony's banter here is just a nice way of saying it.
Quote #10
IRON MAN: What just happened? Please tell me nobody kissed me.
CAPTAIN AMERICA: We won.
IRON MAN: Alright. Hey. Alright. Good job, guys. Let's just not come in tomorrow. Let's just take a day. Have you ever tried shawarma? There's a shawarma joint about two blocks from here. I don't know what it is, but I wanna try it.
And again, there's the jokes. But in this case it's very intimate. Tony basically risked his life on a suicide mission to A) get rid of a nuclear bomb and B) shut down the alien invaders for good. The jokes are a way of deflecting that intimacy (Tony has trouble in that department), which still signals that this team is good to go.