"What the hell Stark?" asked Barton, staring at the holographic screen that was hovering over the island in the middle of the table showing a perfect picture of Rhodey and Tony standing in what Barton recognised as the workshop in the tower, Stark, the bastard, simply shrugged,
"Never mind that, I heard our guests wanted to speak to me?"
"Indeed," that came from Loki, "as Thanos holds interest in you and you caused the most damage to him we want you present, I suppose this will do,"
"I'm glad you think so," grumbled Tony, pulling out a chair and waving Rhodey to another, the picture immediately adjusted to eye level. Sometimes Tony loved what he made. "You believe Thanos is planning something, what?"
"My father has always held interest in balancing the universe as he puts it," stated Nebula, Gamora adding on from where she stopped,
"He often spoke of the infinity stones, which hold great power and when you have all six you would be practically unstoppable," Tony narrowed his eyes slightly,
"What exactly is your relationship to Thanos," the two women exchanged looks, Gamora continued,
"We were taken from our home planets which he 'balanced'" She didn't use finger quotes, but Tony could almost see them. "He then trained us to become assassins,"
"Wow okay, that's a lot, and the infinity stones are…?"
"The stone in Visions head is one of them, the mind Stone," said Natasha, who had walked closer to the screen.
"From what we know, three stones are currently on earth, which is why we came here,"
"So earth randomly has three of these super powerful Stones that Thanos needs to what…balance the universe? What does that mean?"
"It means he will destroy half off every life on every planet, supposedly to make resources last longer and control overpopulation,"
"Well that's bullshit," said Rhode, leaning back in hie chair, arms folded.
"So what? We destroy the stones so Thanos can't get at them?"
"It won't work, with the time stone still around Thanos will always be able to get them,"
Tony rubbed at the bridge of his nose,
"Okay start at the beginning, what is every stone, what do they do and where are they?"
"Mind, power, space, time, soul and reality. The tesseract is the space stone, the time and mind stone are both on earth,"
"We know that the power and reality stone are with the collector as we gave him the power stone,"
"And I am the only one who knows where the soul stone is, which is why Thanos is hunting us," that was from Gamora. Tony was slowly putting all the pieces together, Thanos attacked Earth, giving Loki the Mind stone to succeed. The tesseract was on earth as was the time and Thanos wanted both. When Tony destroyed the Mother ship, he had put Thanos' plan back as he hadn't got the other two stones and had actually lost ones as well as losing a huge portion of his army. Then when Wanda had planted those images in his mind, he built Ultron to protect the planet, but the mind stone had influenced Ultron and caused him to see humanity as a parasite much like Thanos he assumed. And now Thanos was coming to get his hands on his daughter and the three other stones here,
"So we're assuming Thanos is coming to Earth, so what are we going to do?" then a thought struck Tony, "You said the tesseract was on earth, but Thor took it back to Asgard, I'm guessing you stole it?" asked Tony, looking at Loki. Loki held his hand out and that familiar blue cube appeared in his hand,
"Brother, when did you take that?" asked Thor looking at Loki with disapproval, but unsurprised.
"When you gave the Aether to the Collector and returned to earth, I took the Tesseract from Fathers collection and joined the Guardians as they were also trying to escape Thanos,"
"So we have to hide the stones, make sure he doesn't get any and then what kill him?"
"If we have the stones than there is nothing Thanos can do," agreed Gamora,
"So we have to keep Gamora and Nebula away from Thanos, while the rest off us get the other three stones?" asked Quill, wrapping an arm around Gamora, who leaned into his side slightly.
"We should leave the soul tone where it is, with me he will not be able to get at it,"
"Why are we planning to listen to these Terrans again?" grumbled Rocket, who had until this moment observing the room, looking for things to steal guessed Tony. He knew that look in the Raccoon's eyes.
"They beat Thanos once, they can do it again," said Nebula, who even reclined on the couched looked like she could slit all of their throats in seconds. Tony doubted her words though, last time they had been working together, yet now Tony and Roger's couldn't stand to be in the same room and so far, Tony hadn't seen Maximoff, but he wouldn't be hanging around her anytime soon.
"So what, we split up, half on earth, looking for the time stone, half going to space to find the other two?" asked Barton, switching from ass to spy.
"We shouldn't split up, we're a team," butted in Rogers, who Tony hadn't seen re-enter the room. All eyes went to him.
"That's the most bullshit I've heard all day," shot back Tony,
"It's also impractical," concluded Natasha, dismissing Rogers's point
"Since we're leaving Gamora and Nebula we should take two of you with us,"
"As I am familiar with the universe and the Collector I should come with you," said Thor, swinging his hammer back and forth slowly.
"I should stay here then, if Thor is gone you don't only want humans protecting the Stones on earth." Added Loki.
"Right so the Guardians minus Nebula, Gamora and Loki plus Thor and two others will meet with the Collector. Those left on earth will contact Vision as well as find the time stone and talk to Fury to warn the rest of the world about the imminent threat of another attack from space. Nebula, Gamora and Loki can prove this, anything else?" summarised Tony, there were head shakes from all around,
"Clint and I can go with Thor, I'm sure we can be useful," came from Natasha,
"I like the red one, she seems like she can fright well," muttered Drax who seemed more interested in watching the goings on then adding his plans.
"I'm guessing you have a ship you can use. If you take the rest of the day to sort out supplies and the like, that will work," stated Tony, knowing that this was wrapping up.
"Yeah, that could work well, we won't need too long," added Quill, another thought hit Tony,
"Loki, Nebula, Gamora and Vision should stay at the Tower. The security is a lot more advanced then at the compound. I suppose Thanos would expect them to be with you lot." Rhodey nudged Tony's leg and Tony looked over at him, frowning, he had to help.
"Sounds reasonable," agreed Loki, "I don't wish to spend any more time with Rogers,"
"Great I'll send a car over or something. Since this seems sorted, I'll hang up now, the rest is up to you lot," Friday took that as a signal to cut the feed, leaving the hologram screen blank.
"Tony are you sure about this? Getting mixed in with all this space stuff,"
"Come on Rhodey, I can't not help." He paused for a moment unsure if he wanted to share this with Rhodey, he pushed himself out of his chair and went over to his monitor, searching for a long-forgotten project that would be useful for this purpose. "You know since New York I've been having nightmares. I knew this was going to happen. That New York wasn't the end. That's why I designed Ultron, to protect the world from Thanos." There was silence from Rhodey, and Tony looked over, understanding was in his eyes, Tony was glad there wasn't any pity, but that was Rhodey, he never pitied.
"Okay, what are we going to do?"
"I still have the records of the mind stone and the tesseract when we were studying it. So if I cross reference the energy signature with similar signatures around the earth then hopefully, we can narrow it down and we can send teams to each location to find it."
"Sounds smart, I'll head over to the compound and grab my stuff. I'm not leaving you with Loki alone, if that's okay with you?"
"Er, yeah sure. It'll be nice to have your company, maybe you can bring the others back too?"
"Sure," Rhodey turned to leave, knowing that Tony was in a focused mood and won't be very talkative. "See you in a moment," Tony nodded, still focused on his monitor. He waited until he heard the elevator leave before addressing Friday,
"Okay Fri, I think it's time we revived the nanotech project,"
"Of course, Boss,"