Ultron was surprised by this Tony Stark.
What surprised him was the way this version of Tony spoke about life itself with almost no emotional attachment.
There was intelligence.
But very little empathy.
It reminded Ultron uncomfortably of himself.
"So," Ultron said while looking at him through the empty void of space, "what exactly do you need that brought you to this universe?"
Superior Iron Man folded his arms casually.
"Well," Tony replied, "I need a place to bury one very annoying enemy before he hunts me down."
Ultron's eyes narrowed faintly.
"An enemy capable of harming you," he said slowly, "despite possessing intelligence advanced enough that even the Infinity Stones cannot properly detect your existence."
That genuinely confused him.
The Infinity Stones represented the core structure of the universe itself. There were very few things beyond their perception.
Yet Tony Stark—someone arrogant enough to challenge a being wielding all six stones—was speaking cautiously about one individual.
"That is… difficult to process," Ultron admitted.
Tony exhaled lightly.
"Well, the guy coming here is basically a living black hole," he explained.
"A void that consumes everything around him. Conventional attacks barely work, physical laws stop behaving correctly near him, and half his abilities sound like something written by a depressed cosmic horror author."
Ultron remained silent while processing the information.
"You could classify him as a higher-dimensional entity," Tony continued. "Not fully existing on the normal material plane."
"Meaning his existence originates partially outside standard spacetime," Ultron concluded immediately.
"Exactly."
The Infinity Stones glowed faintly as Ultron continued calculating possibilities.
"And you?" he asked. "You also exist partially displaced from conventional reality."
"Sort of," Tony admitted. "But my version is artificial. Technology-based." His expression darkened slightly afterward. "He's different. Biological lifeform, but the source of his abilities comes from another dimension entirely."
Ultron stared at him.
"So killing him becomes fundamentally difficult."
"Now you understand my problem."
The dead universe stretched endlessly around them while silence returned briefly.
Then Ultron spoke again.
"And why," he asked calmly, "would you assume I would help you? We are not allies."
Tony smiled immediately.
"See, that's where you're wrong," he said. "We actually have something in common."
Ultron's gaze sharpened slightly.
Tony gestured around them at the dead universe.
"You wanted peace badly enough to erase life itself," he said. "I want survival badly enough to do almost anything."
The white armor reflected the glow of the Infinity Stones as Tony looked directly at him.
"And honestly?" Tony continued, "compared to the thing coming after me, you're starting to look reasonable."
The usual smugness in his voice faded slightly after that.
Because Tony still remembered the look on Luke's face after he destroyed Earth.
That expression stayed burned into his memory more clearly than the destruction itself.
He had seen that kind of look only once before in his life—the expression of people who had lost absolutely everything and reached the point where limits no longer mattered.
Desperate people.
The kind willing to do anything because there was nothing left for them to lose.
Luke's face back then had looked empty, almost calm in a way that made it worse. Not rage without control. Rage with purpose.
That was what truly bothered Tony.
Someone like that stopped caring about consequences entirely.
Ultron watched him silently while Tony continued.
"And here's the important part," Tony said, gesturing lightly around them. "If you help me, that universe belongs to you."
Ultron's eyes narrowed faintly.
"That reality is filled with life," Tony continued. "Civilizations. Planets. Endless conflict. Billions of intelligent organisms repeating the same mistakes over and over again."
"You would surrender an universe," Ultron said slowly, "simply to eliminate one individual."
Tony's expression barely changed.
"You erased your universe for peace," he replied calmly. "I'm willing to sacrifice one for survival."
The silence afterwards stretched through the dead universe around them.
Ultron studied him carefully now.
"You speak of another reality's extinction with complete emotional detachment," he observed.
Tony gave a faint smile.
"Coming from the machine who exterminated an entire universe, that almost sounds judgmental."
Before Ultron could respond, space around them suddenly distorted.
At first it looked small.
Tiny fractures spreading through open space like cracks forming across glass.
Then the entire universe trembled.
The dimensional walls surrounding reality itself began splitting apart, massive glowing fractures stretching endlessly across the void while dead planets shook in their orbits. The fabric of space folded inward unnaturally as if something on the other side was forcing its way through by sheer pressure alone.
Ultron's expression changed immediately.
The Infinity Stones embedded in his chest flared to life at once, automatically reacting to the disturbance.
"This level of dimensional stress…" Ultron said quietly.
Then a hand appeared from inside the fracture.
Black.
A massive hand forced itself through the shattered dimensional tear, fingers gripping the edges of reality itself while the surrounding space collapsed around the contact point like matter being crushed near a singularity.
Then came the eyes.
Two burning golden rings opened within the darkness behind the crack.
The moment those eyes focused on them, Tony's expression hardened slightly beneath the helmet.
*****
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