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"Accursed gnats!" Thor bellows in frustration, swinging his hammer around him. He creates a blurring wind to drive away the insects, but there are so many that they simply dive at him from the opposite direction. The 'insects' are small robots, each barely an inch in length and light as leaves— but their sharp mandibles are steadily eating their way through a great deal of nearby metal, hungrily seeking out more material for the next being rapidly constructed in the eaves of the Great Bay District Power Plant. No doubt drawn by the electricity and steel, it's hard to say what'll collapse the power grid first, their eating or Thor's inevitable use of thunder and lighting to drive them away— but it'll be one before the other unless someone comes up with a brilliant solution.
Thor swings his hammer in a wide arc and *splats* six of them against the concrete, to absolutely statistically no effect. More are coming, and from the drone of larger wings, even bigger soldier insects are en route to support their smaller drones.
Not far away, at CUNY, the robotics lab director alternates between frantic planning and drinking a lot of the gin near his elbow. "No! They weren't supposed to self-replicate!" he moans, scrabbling on design blueprints. "How are we going to stop them?" He stares at the tiny insect brain mounted on tiny little elctrodes inside a tiny jar, sparking away with dim insect instincts and lacking a body to direct.
The nice thing about being an Avenger? You're never alone, even when you think you are. There's a quick blast of energy, as several of the robotic insects are vaporized by Captain Marvel before they can regroup from the wind gust. She then flies down towards Thor, "Thought you might need a hand, hope you don't mind." She grins a bit, "Hoping the other person with me might be able to come up with a solution, since that's really his forte."
While Thor and Carol are off smashing insects like the literal bugs that they are, Batman is off to deal with the man behind the killer insects. The CUNY director. After his words of panic and how his own experiments are failing him, the lights in the lab flicker for only a second it seems like, and someone is behind him, breathing down his neck.
The Goddamn Batman.
Gripping him by the collar and slamming him back first on his desk, but not with enough force to knock him out, Batman is wearing his full armor as per his usual motive. "Director." he says simply, staring right at him. "How do I stop the insects? They self replicate too quickly by my calculations to wipe them out with brute force. So Talk!"
If he says 'I don't know anything, I swear to god!' Batman will appropriately yell:
"SWEAR TO ME."
"I don't know anything! I swear to god!" the fellow dutifully protests, then faints when Batman screams him down.
"It's— okay! Look, it was a lab experiment!" he protests, shrilly. "Just trying to build a better bug! But then it start building bodies for other bugs! One or two at first, but then they realized they could use METAL, and now—" he gestures helpelssly at the far end of the lab, where a fine mesh cage has been utterly consumed into tiny, twisted fragments of scrap. "They're out of control!"
Thor stomps his foot and slaps at his arm, killing several of the little beasties. He's got more than a few stinging welts on his skin, which is pretty good considering the damage they're doing to power lines and conduit. "I hope your friend has some clever solution!" Thor bellows at Carol, too offput to be his normal cheery self. "These vicious little vermin have a wicked bite, and they seem to spawn ten for every one I crush!" He smashes down a dozen more, and the swarm *BZZRTS* in angry response, flying around him like a strangely coordinated murmuration, driven by some unseen willpower.
Carol grits her teeth, generating enough of an energy aura to sizzle the critters that get too close, but that's using a lot of power for her… and she has a finite amount. "Well, he's the cleverest, but don't tell him I said so… he'll never let me live it down!" She grins and blasts at another grouping… "Think you could use your wind to gather them up so I could fry a bunch at once? Might help thin the numbers down some!"
Batman stared right into the eyes of the scientist as he screamed and nearly fainted at the threat of the Dark Knight. He was a scary dude, after all. Though when he hears that this was mostly just an accident that flew out of control, he looks -deep- into his eyes. Before he gets to work. Man, if Batman knew Carol said those things? Hah! He'd never let her live it down.
He tosses the scientist aside. "If I find out you're lying, you'll wake up seeing the back end of an ambulance." he trheatens in that batman-voice of his, clearly with the intent of terrifying the man.
Then? he gets to work jerry-rigging an electromagnetic pulse device by ripping out pieces of the console and adding one of his shock-batarangs.
Thor steps back at Carol's suggestion, whipping his hammer by the thong on the end of it. It moves so fast that even to superhuman reflexes, it is just a blur of force and energy, crackling with power. The wind roars like a giant taking a deep breath and he flings the gout of insects at Carol in something close to a hose of momentum—but this time as they slam into her brilliant radiance, they crackle briefly and die in glittering firefly twinkles.
And that might be why the Avengers call her Princess Sparklefists, as Carol fires a blast right along the wind tunnel-driven robot-insects, which actually does a fair job vaporizing the lot of them…
At least, those ones. Because even before Carol can say any sort of congratulations, there's another massive cloud of the insects approaching, far too many to catch with another wind-tunnel. Captain Marvel grimaces at that, then says under her breath, "Come on Bats…"
Well, Batman can hear the ruckus those two are making outside before he, in impressive time, manages to build a miniature EMP device. fries after one use, but eh…what can you do. Beggars can't be choosers! With a narrowed gaze, he presses a simple button and the electromagnetic wave bursts forth from the device, hopefully shortcircuitting all the mechanical insects.
"Hmph, lets see if that worked." now enshrouded back into his cloak, he starts to move….
and he drags the Scientist by the collar to tie him up to one of the support beams. "Stay here."
The scientist is thoroughly terrified— he is all too happy to be left behind. The cavalcade of energy sets up a cascade effect, shorting out not just one bug, but the ones near it. One by two by four by sixteen, a long line of thousands of the insects flickers across the city like a line of flashpowder on the sidewalk. It hits the largest concentration near the power plant not far away, and with a *KSSSTHP* the insects glow with an intense, crackling blue. There's a flash of light, a smell of sharp ozone, and then the little insects start dropping like— well, like flies.
"Well done, fair maiden!" Thor shouts at Carol, approvingly, his hammer slowing down. "Your magics seem to have silenced those foul beasts more effectively."