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"Director," said Widow, "the initiative has to fall back to the tower. We believe it has been compromised and that the attack was a distraction. We need to ascertain that suspicion. There are still survivors who need aid."
"Fine. Keep me updated," Fury said, shortly.
As fast as they could, the avengers got to the tower, Tony arriving first. When the others arrived he was frantically tapping away on a keypad, mumbling to himself.
"Tony, what's the situation?" asked Cap.
"I can't find Jarvis. I can't even find a single piece of his programming. He's been wiped from my servers. All my servers. Along with the security footage for the last twenty minutes. And the shield vault has been broken into because the shield is missing. Am I missing anything? Oh, yes, the bomb that was rigged to blow that was left here as a thank you, that I diffused like five minutes ago." He took a deep breath after his rapid fire discourse.
There was silence for a moment while everyone took in Tony's too calm fury, before Natasha asked, "Do you have a back-up for Jarvis?"
"I did. I had a constant back up where Jarvis would send ever thing that happened to the backup drive, every hour. But even the backup drive is wiped clean. The back up in Malibu should still be fine though but Jarvis will be a week late, since I update that one weekly."
"So we basically have no idea who walked in here and got pass your super secret, and impenetrable vault to steal something we shouldn't even have in the first place. And left a bomb. And tried to kill Jarvis," stated Barton
"What I want to know is why?" said Cap.
"I agree," said Widow, "There is something else going on here."
"Too many plots," said Loki, wearily, from where he was resting on the couch.
"Exactly," nodded Natasha.
"If they wanted us dead and the shield, why not just come and take it when we were less ready? Those robots would have been much more difficult to defeat inside the tower," said Barton.
"Whoever it is wanted to hide their face," said Tony, "That's why the security footage was wiped and he killed Jarvis."
"That's one reason," said Cap, "But if he was going to kill us, why bother? He didn't even bother to kill the civilians when he could."
There was a moment of silence and then Loki sat up. "Me," he said.
"What?" the others swung their gazes to him.
He gave them a withering look mixed with pity, "How can you mortals stand being so dull is far beyond even me," he said with ample disgust still managing to ripple through his voice despite it being dry and scratchy. "The axis of this plan revolves around me. And the shield. Whoever came to the tower wanted the shield but it is for more than one reason. The first is obvious. He wants the use of it. The second though, is to stop us from using it for what it was created for. Namely me. To hide my presence on Midgard, something 'Our world Above' is still unaware of. Of course, normally I don't need the shield, my magic does the same function far more efficiently. So he has to get rid of my magic, at least for a time. Long enough for the watcher to see me and hence my cover, as you say it, is blown, as we will have no shield. He does this by the blast he created using the robots, which is something he couldn't do in the tower because it would have destroyed the shield, which he wants."
"Yeah, except that that blast, still couldn't harm the vault," Tony interjected.
"He couldn't know that," said Loki simply, "And you mistake the force of the blast. It was far more powerful than you believe, you misinformed wastrel. It would have to be, to deplete my well of power. Or ," and here he fixed his eyes on Tony sharply, "do you doubt the extent of my ability?"
"No one's doubting you Silver," said Cap. before Tony could reply, "But how powerful was it really?"
Loki narrowed his eyes at them for a few moments more and then said, "About as powerful as the bomb Stark flew through the portal to destroy the Chitauri."
There was a moment of startled silence and then Barton gave a low whistle and said in a voice of awed disbelief, "A nuke. That blast was initially as powerful as a nuke and you confined it to what it was?"
"I would not have been so drained if I did not have to save your petty civilians and your equally fragile mortal bodies," said Loki distastefully.
"Watch the tongue Silver," said Tony bitingly.
"Hey!" said Natasha.
"Watch yours," said Loki coolly, in reply.
"Hey!" said Natasha again, and this time they both looked up at her tone.
"Stop that," she said, "Stark I know you're angry but that's no reason to snap on your team mates. And Silver, I know you're tired and concerned, but no reason to spit out threats. Am I clear? Can you two play nice now?"
When either side showed no inclination to answer, Steve said, his voice hard, "Answer the lady!"
Both of them glared at each other and then said a grudging yes. There was a moment of tense silence afterwards which was broken by the Hulk suddenly shrinking down into Banner. Steve grasped his arm to steady him and Tony went to get a drink. Barton contacted Fury to update him on the status of the tower. Tony came back with two drinks and held out one to Loki. Loki eyed him and then with a sniff, took the glass and sipped from it. Steve escorted Bruce, who was wrapped in Loki's cape, to his floor so he could change. Barton finally got off from Fury and said, "Fury wants us to come in."
"Tell him to come to us," said Stark, "We don't want Long John Silver here, to be moving around a lot."
Barton relayed the request to Fury choosing to omit the reason for safety reasons. The stolen shield, being of course one of the most classified things ever, considering they weren't supposed to have it at all because Asgard would take it as an act of war as it was built to hide thing's from Heimdal's sight. Something Asgard would not take kindly to. And the shield was now in the hands of an enemy who had considerable resources and power. If there was a definition of messed up, Barton was pretty sure this was it.
Fury was going to be the definition of furious.
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