Steve was from another time and there was just too much he missed in the ages of espionage that followed his time on ice. Adrian had lived through the Cold War, watched the Cuban Missile Crisis unfold on TV and there were just some things he could do that Steve was unwilling to do or uncomfortable doing. “King did more damage to all of us in ten days than HYDRA did in nearly ten decades. Worse still, he did it on our doorstep.” While the other Avengers were captured or underground, some like Adrian, Rhodey, Barton and Price were doing everything they could to coordinate the fight against HAMMER and each of them had to evade numerous attempts to kill or capture them, Adrian himself had nearly been taken out on three different occasions - Tony and Bruce had been caught and things got so bad that Thor brought Asgard to Earth so that the Avengers could regroup.
“Barnes was an army grunt, I might be an old Jarhead but there’s an unspoken code between soldiers that we don’t leave a man behind.” Yeah there was and still is a rivalry between the Army and Marine Corps but they were still brothers and sisters at the end of the day. “To be honest I have no idea where the other Avengers are, been radio silent since I went to Venezuela but I can look into their whereabouts after the job is done.” It might not be what Fury wanted to hear but Adrian didn’t half-ass his job and it wasn’t his style to call people and see what they were up to when he was deep undercover - that was a quick way to get yourself killed.
“Before I left for Caracas I was asked to head a second Avengers team, I told Steve I’d think about it but I think I’m gonna take the posting when things slow down again. The team does a lot of good, but the west coast has next to nothing operating in the area and Cage is too far from there to fill in the gap.” SHIELD had a supermax out that way that specialized in holding Gamma goons and to Adrian’s knowledge that’s where Blonsky was transferred after Hulk beat the green shit out of him. “I was actually wanting to talk to you about sending captured meta criminals to the Cube if I operate out there, the Wrecking Crew and Absorbing Man have been known to operate in California and I’d rather not have to fight Thor and The Hulk’s punching bags without somewhere secure to put them.”