Mischief on Midgard

End game

Things... didn't look good. They didn't look good at all.

Tony and Bruce had managed to create a brand new Artificial Intelligence using the Staff. Thanks to the Staff's power, that new being was a massive and nearly omnipresent intelligence that could connect itself to any electronic system. And it had escaped into the vastness space that was the internet. This meant that it was either anywhere on Earth, or at least anywhere that wasn't an isolated server, or it had managed to make its' way into every single bit of technology out there regardless of remote system setups.

"Oh, Tony," Natasha said as she looked over at the engineer with sad eyes.

"It escaped into the internet...? My god," Clint said with a groan. "That means he's likely to be everywhere. He probably already knows more about us than we know about each other. Not to mention the world's nuclear codes, military secrets. Hell, political secrets! All of it.."

Clint ran his hands through his hair and tugged at a few strands roughly. He let his hands fall to his sides a moment later.

"Shit, Tony. This is bad," Clint said in a no-nonsense tone.

"And the Staff is gone as well. Ultron took it with him," Natasha said as she closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. "So we'll have to retrieve it... again."

Loki rubbed at his eyes, trying not to growl. Seriously? After all the trouble they went through, years of work spent tracking down and raiding Hydra facilities, and now they were even worse off than before? By the Norns, why!? And yet even still, these simpletons were his best chance of trying to regain the damnable thing. Everyone's eyes turned to Tony, and his lips twitched. Then he started to chuckle. To laugh. Had the man gone insane?

"You think this is funny?" Thor asked, incredulous.

"Oh yeah, very funny," Tony said as he stepped forward, looking at Thor with a sneering grin. "Funny that you don't understand why we need this."

Loki growled in frustration and slammed his hands down on the table in front of him. The others jumped slightly and eyed him warily, but he was beyond caring at this point.

"I told you not to mess with that thing!" Loki said through clenched teeth.

"Oh, right, about that!" Tony stepped toward him, bracing his hands on the same table and getting almost nose to nose with Loki. "Look. Clearly, you know something about that Staff. You always knew about it, didn't you Martian man? Dammit, why should I listen to you at all?! You could have opened your stupid mouth sooner! Ever think of that, wise guy?!"

Loki's growl got louder. His fingers tightened around the edge of the table. Bruce stepped forward and held up his hands in a placating gesture.

"Tony, perhaps now isn't a good time to poke at him," Bruce said in a soft tone.

"Really, man? You're just going to roll over and give up?" Tony asked with a growl of his own. "Just because you met a little bit of pushback from the others?"

"Well, when you think about it, I accidentally helped to create a murder robot. So yeah, I'm willing to admit that we messed up," Bruce said.

"But we didn't mess up!" Tony shouted in frustration, hands lifting and then slamming back on the table before anyone could say anything. "It, Ultron, acted on its' own! It's not our fault it, he, decided to go all murder-hobo on us! And even if it was our fault, do any of you really know what is up there?! Do you have any god damned idea the danger we're all in?!"

Everyone shared worried looks—everyone but Loki, that is.

"I saw it. I saw that threat, do you understand me?" Tony said, lifting his hands upwards and gesticulating wildly. "The Chitauri forces that attacked New York? HA! That was nothing. Do you get me? Nothing! We faced only a teeny, tiny, itty-bitty god damned fraction of their army! All of the world's armies combined would be nothing compared to the numbers they had! Earth is all but defenseless!"