The nanotech project had first entered Tony's mind after he'd got his arc reactor removed and how unprepared he had been when his suit lost power. Instead, he had put it on hold as designed his watch gauntlet to keep him safe. He'd restarted it after he had been nearly murdered by Rogers and he wanted a suit on him at all times but being, well, kidnapped kinda put the nanotech project on hold. However he knew he was close so it shouldn't take longer than a day or two.
While he had that going, he brought up the signatures of the two stones he had seen and set it up to cross reference across the planet. He knew that the mind stone and the tesseract had slightly different signatures, so it was simply stripping them to the bare energy and using that. He asked Fri to run it in the background, making a list every match it got. The places with a better match at the top of the list.
Finishing that, he grabbed a sample of the nanotech he had already got and began rewriting and updating its code. He added an oxygen recycling method into it. This would mean that it would make it more compatible to space travel as he would have recycled oxygen. Continuing from this, he also added that it would take any oxygen from around him and store it, so the more time he spent with it on earth, the more oxygen he would have stored before falling back on recycled oxygen. He then made it only compatible with his DNA. Try and steal his suit now. Final he built a compartment to hold them, he of course shaped it like the arc reactor because by now it was synonymous with Iron Man. It would fit plenty of nano particles in it to create a full suit and have lots left over to fix any damages and such. He also added any additional tricks from his old suits. He glanced at the smooth platform at the other end of his workshop and winced, so much for never being Iron Man again.
The nano tech had a two-hour update time, and the cross reading was still working in the background, when Friday told him his guests had arrived and Rhodey had taken them to an empty floor two floors below the penthouse.
"Cool, I can do this,"
"The Coronel says he also has the food," yeah, Tony was hungry, and it made him speed up to get to the elevator. He arrived on the floor, and was immediately passed a burger by Rhodey, he ate it carefully and observed the three beings before him. No one could get a hold of Vision quite yet, it seemed. He was probably still hanging around the witch.
"Right, this is the common room, you can do whatever you want here, kitchens through there and rooms are thought there, you can pick one. If you need anything ask Friday and of course the Tower is also monitored. The bottom floor up to the 6th floor are working spaces so I would appreciate it if you didn't go down there, and the penthouse is off limits. Any questions?" Loki lazily raised a hand,
"Can I have my drink," Tony glanced at him, his lip twitched,
"Sure the bars over there," he waved at the island at the end of the common room. "Rhodey you can take your usual room, the list of places to search for the time stone should be ready soon and I'll call you when it's done,"
"Are we going to be stuck here or can we search too?" asked Nebula, already looking slightly uncomfortable in his Tower. Tony just shrugged,
"Don't see why not," they were probably used to moving about instead of being stuck in one place. Tony could relate. Staying in one place for too long made him antsy. Thinking that they were done, Tony turned to head back to his workshop. However Rhodey stuck his hand out, he didn't grab him, but it was clear that Rhodey wanted him to stop. "What?"
"Stay for a bit or go to your penthouse. I'm sure you've spent the entire time in the Workshop since you got back," Tony narrowed his eyes, but didn't say anything as he truly didn't have anything to do since both projects could finish on their own. Of course, he could just start a whole new project if he wanted to, just to spite Rhodey, but uncharacteristically his mind was blank. He huffed, picked up another burger and plopped down on a couch next to Nebula. Rhodey eyed Tony, it was never that easy, before shrugging and joining him on the couch with a burger of his own.
"So what is it you actually do in Space? What are you Guardians of?"
"The galaxy," sniffed Gamora, clearly not caring for the title, Tony raised an eyebrow,
"You Guard the entire Galaxy? Bit of a lot, isn't it?"
"I think it's stupid," rasped Nebula, taking a slow bite out of a burger,
"We know what you think," counted Gamora, who obviously didn't like the name more than Nebula. That when Loki decided to be typical Loki and make the entire conversation awkward. At least for Tony,
"Why are you wearing an exoskeleton?" He gestured at Rhodey's legs. Rhodey had probably had a lot of people ask so he was hardly even fazed,
"I'm paralysed, it's so I can walk." Loki hummed clearly wanting a story.
"And why are you hanging around them, didn't think guarding the galaxy was your style," stated Tony,
"They're both assassins and four of us have a grudge against Thanos, seems like the best group for me,"
"Who's the other one?"
"Drax. Thanos killed his wife and kid," Tony winced, Thanos was sounding worse and worse. Murdering innocents, stealing children, and training them as assassins and had no qualms with using mind control, and probably torture to if Tony remembered what Loki looked like in 2012 correctly.
"And what is going on with your righteous friend? Well, I thought you were supposed to be friends,"
"We had a falling out," Tony had no need to spill his life story to Loki of all people. Rhodey huffed next to him, falling out was probably the nicest way to put it. Loki didn't look satisfied with that, he probably wanted to use it against them Tony thought. The awkward silence in the common room was interrupted by Friday.
"Boss, there has been an 87.4% match for the infinity stone signature,"
"Really, already? Where?"
"I have narrowed it down to Bleeker street. It is the highest match," Rhodey looked at Tony, a look dawning on him.
"That's where Doctor Strange lives," Tony looked at Rhodey,
"No way." He chuckled, "what are the odds?"
"Where is this Bleeker street," asked Loki, looking at the ceiling,
"It is in New York, at the heart of Greenwich village, Sir," supplied Friday, Loki raised an eyebrow before looking at Tony,
"I like her, she's very polite," Tony grumbled, but couldn't keep the pride of his face, his baby girl was growing up quickly. He liked it when people recognised his AIs, they deserved it.
"I very much doubt we can all just go waltzing into the streets of New York without drawing attention to ourselves, so we'll have to call the others," Tony got up but spotted the look on Gamora's face, "What's wrong?"
"It is strange how three of the most powerful items in the galaxy have found themselves on an unknown planet like earth,"
"And how they are all in the same city," added Nebula. They both knew how much Thanos wanted the stones and for so many of them to be found here… it was suspicions,
"It's probably a coincidence." Shrugged Tony, "And as you said, earth is quite unknown, who would think to look for them here, maybe it's some sort of defence or something." Tony thought that he had spent enough time interacting with people, "Right, Fri, send the info over to the compound, I'll call Fury to sort everything out and put the world on alert I guess." He turned back to the elevator, glad Rhodey didn't stop him, "Have fun," he said, waving his hand. The day he didn't have to deal with the Government would truly be a blessed day.