As the evening wore on, the girls at the party began to filter out.
This wasn't exactly a no-holds-barred rager, after all. Tony couldn't realistically keep uninvited civilians lingering until the bitter end.
Most of the guests had picked up on the shift in atmosphere. Tony had even gone so far as to invite Norman Osborn, which made it obvious: there was real business on the table.
Ben, naturally, already knew exactly what Tony was after.
Then again, Norman Osborn was technically the one who belonged to Tony's generation. Tony was only a few years younger than Norman, but put the two of them side by side and they might as well have been from different centuries.
Mostly because Tony was spectacularly unreliable.
A prodigal son through and through, with zero intention of ever coming home.
"Tony, what's this really about? I'm guessing it's not just a housewarming for the rebuilt Avengers Tower."
Steve posed the question calmly. He'd thrown himself into the dancing with plenty of enthusiasm, but his sharp mind had stayed sober the entire time—unlike T'Challa and Rhodey, both of whom were currently sprawled on the couch, dead to the world and swimming in liquor.
"Correct!"
Tony pointed a finger at him like a gun.
"Glad to see that seventy-year-old expired brain of yours hasn't gone completely soft."
As the words left his mouth, his gaze slid sideways and landed on Ben, who was sitting on the sofa with a quiet smile, watching the show unfold without saying a word.
If it were up to Tony, he would have much preferred Ben to be the one asking that question.
Because the slap would have stung so much more coming from him.
But Steve had jumped in first, so Tony had no choice but to run with it.
Besides, he figured someone as sharp as Ben had definitely seen this coming a mile away. If Ben had deliberately chosen not to play along, Tony would have been left standing there with his ego hanging out to dry.
Hearing that Tony actually had something substantive to discuss, Norman loosened his tie a notch and leaned back in his seat.
The party atmosphere had been making him squirm the entire evening.
All those young models parading around in front of him, posing and preening—whether or not he enjoyed the view was one matter entirely. Having his son Harry watch him surrounded by beautiful women was something else altogether.
And it wasn't just Harry. Ben and Peter were there too.
Norman had always cast himself as the stern elder. Losing face in front of the younger generation? He'd sooner walk into the sea.
But speaking of Peter…
Norman had been feeling for a while now that something was off about the boy.
His eyes drifted across the room to where Peter sat. The kid was planted in a single armchair with his legs spread wide and his arms draped over both armrests, looking for all the world like the sofa beneath him was a throne.
During the party earlier, Peter had been a different person entirely.
His hips had worked harder than Steve's on the dance floor. Harder.
Thankfully, with Ben around to keep him grounded, Peter hadn't gone completely off the rails.
Still, a little confidence wasn't a bad thing.
Norman swallowed his unease and turned his attention back to Tony.
"What is this about, Tony?"
On paper, Tony Stark served as a consultant to the Avengers, and the Avengers fell under H.A.M.M.E.R.'s jurisdiction. So Norman had every right to ask.
Tony paced slowly, wine glass in hand, until he reached the center of the room. He straightened up as though stepping onto a stage.
"A while back, I told you all that I could protect this planet on my own."
The sentence hit the room like a cold wind. Everyone was instantly pulled back to that tense meeting—the one where they'd debated whether to launch a counteroffensive against Thanos.
"Tony…"
Steve let out a slow breath. He knew Tony still hadn't let go of what happened back then. But he couldn't just sit here and watch the rift between Ben and Tony widen.
These two were arguably among the sharpest minds on the planet, and between them they commanded wealth that could make nations blink. If they were at each other's throats, it was ordinary people who would pay the price.
At the same time, Steve found Tony's behavior deeply exasperating.
The man was a grown adult—more than twice Ben's age, with a few years to spare—and here he was, holding a grudge like a child who'd been cheated out of a candy bar.
"Ben already went above and beyond. The planetary shield, the Iron suits, the Plumbers' reinforcements… If it weren't for Ben, we never would have won that cleanly…"
"Enough!"
Tony downed the rest of his wine in one swallow and cut Steve off, irritation flashing across his face.
"Please. Do I strike you as some petty, vindictive, grudge-hoarding, nickel-and-dime, can't-let-a-single-slight-go kind of guy?"
He swept his gaze across the room as he spoke, his expression caught somewhere between outrage and disbelief.
"Am I really that sharp-tongued?"
What greeted him was thirty seconds of absolute silence.
Every person who met his eyes instinctively looked away, unwilling to let their true thoughts show.
But the silence itself was answer enough.
Tony's chest heaved. The indignation was rising fast, and there was nowhere for it to go.
He couldn't help thinking: if he hadn't had surgery a few months ago to remove the shrapnel from his chest, the sheer fury might have launched those metal fragments straight through his sternum.
"Seriously? This is what Tony Stark is to you people?"
"Well, it's not entirely…" Natasha tilted her head up slightly.
"There's also the whole lecher, small, and quick—"
Tony: ???
Who's airing my dirty laundry?
"Slander!"
"Absolutely slander!"
"Where is this even coming from? JARVIS, draft a cease-and-desist. I'm suing whoever started these rumors!"
JARVIS replied, in his trademark tone of serene calm: "Sir, with respect, stating facts does not constitute slander."
"You're done, JARVIS. I'm sending you back to the factory for a full overhaul!"
Tony's composure shattered completely.
In an instant, everyone in the room clamped their hands over their mouths, shoulders shaking. The hall filled with the sound of barely contained laughter.
"Alright. Alright."
Steve, to his credit, had professional training. He wrestled the grin off his face the way a soldier wrestles down the recoil of an AK, then raised both hands to quiet the room.
"Tony, I know you're frustrated. But none of this is anyone's fault."
"Ben did more than enough. And he's the one who took down Thanos. You could say he eliminated the threat at its root."
The others nodded in agreement.
When Ben had left Earth, he hadn't simply walked away. He'd made arrangements, leaving Loki behind to handle things.
In the end, Loki had dealt with Proxima Midnight and Ebony Maw single-handedly—not only recovering the stolen Stones, but seizing the Mind Stone as well.
And when Ben and the Plumbers' forces arrived right on cue, even Thanos had been forced to pull back.
Now Thanos was dead. There was simply no grounds left to fault Ben.
Tony knew all of this, of course.
Honestly, he'd made his peace with it a long time ago.
From the very beginning, Ben hadn't done anything wrong. The kid wasn't even an Avenger. If Earth had burned to cinders, Ben could have turned around, gathered his family, and relocated to Sakaar—the Plumbers' universal headquarters.
He had no obligation to fight Thanos.
Tony had realized that once the initial anger faded.
He had no right to blame Ben. If anyone deserved blame, it was Tony himself—for being too weak to shoulder the responsibility of protecting the planet, and leaving it on the shoulders of a teenager.
It was precisely because he'd come to terms with that truth that Tony had thrown himself into completing the Ultron Global Defense Initiative with even greater determination.
But actually apologizing…
Tony simply couldn't swallow his pride.
In his mind, inviting Ben to tonight's gathering was the apology.
A graceful ramp to walk down. Give it time, and things would go back to normal.
Of course, when it came to grandstanding, Tony would never leave a single opportunity on the table.
"Fine. I'm over it. All of it. Don't care anymore," Tony announced loudly, apparently believing that saying the words out loud counted as a formal apology.
"But my position hasn't changed."
He set down his empty glass and looked at Steve, then at Norman, and finally let his gaze settle on Ben.
"Thanos is dead. I'll grant you that—you did a solid job. But we can't afford to let our guard down. The universe is vast. No one can promise there isn't another threat waiting around the corner."
"I appreciate everything the Plumbers have done for Earth. But we can't lean on them."
"You all saw it yourselves. Thanos neutralized the Plumbers' combat forces first, and only then sent his army after Earth. Who's to say someone won't drop the ball when it matters most?"
Tony didn't sugarcoat a single word.
But even Ben had to admit—the man wasn't wrong.
Lean on others and you lean on dust.
Unreliable.
The only thing that truly mattered was the strength of your own fist.
And in a universe like this one, enemies were endless. Compared to the real catastrophes waiting in the dark, Thanos was small potatoes.
"Tony, that's exactly why the Avengers exist."
"The Avengers?" Tony let out a cold, humorless laugh, as though he'd just heard the funniest joke of the century.
How many of the Avengers could actually fight?
When a real crisis hit, that handful of kittens wouldn't make a dent.
Who killed the Warlord?
Who took down Ebony Maw?
Who put Black Dwarf in the ground?
Who captured Proxima Midnight?
The Avengers?
The Avengers were a punchline.
They couldn't even clear out mooks faster than a drone suit on autopilot.
What were they even for?
It was an uncomfortable truth: without Thor and the Hulk—two of the original heavy hitters—the Avengers' combat strength was, to put it generously, underwhelming.
Of course, Tony himself was an Avenger. He wasn't about to badmouth his own team.
"Just the handful of us? It's not enough!"
He said it with absolute conviction.
"Ladies and gentlemen—behold!"
In a heartbeat, Tony transformed. It was as if he'd stepped onto the floor of a Stark Industries expo, and every person in the room had become a prospective client. He shifted half a step aside, swept his arm in a grand arc, and the entire wall lined with premium liquor silently retracted into the floor.
In its place, a new wall rose—covered floor to ceiling with suits of armor, each one distinct in color and design.
"Behold my Iron Legion!"
Tony's face was a portrait of pure, unadulterated smugness as he surveyed the gleaming array.
The problem was that no one else seemed to understand what, exactly, he was showing off.
"So… what?"
Hawkeye scratched the back of his head. "I can see you're loaded. But these suits don't even outnumber Primus's forces. What's the point?"
"Those mass-produced junkers Primus inherited from Hammer don't even deserve to be in the same sentence as mine!" Tony sputtered, genuinely offended.
Fine—sure—Primus had real technology. He'd grant them that. But if anyone tried to tell him those cookie-cutter robot soldiers had any engineering merit, he would take it personally.
Ben offered no rebuttal.
He wasn't Tony, after all. He didn't spend every waking hour obsessing over suit upgrades and R&D. The Primus steel warriors, performance-wise, sat somewhere around the Mark IV to Mark VI range.
"No matter how many suits you build, you can still only wear one at a time, Tony Stark," Norman countered.
What was the point of all this flashy hardware?
"Unless you're planning a generous donation to H.A.M.M.E.R.?"
Arming every H.A.M.M.E.R. agent in powered armor would, admittedly, create an unstoppable fighting force.
"In your dreams."
Tony rolled his eyes so hard it looked painful.
"Even if I gave them to you, could you even keep them safe?"
H.A.M.M.E.R. operated under the Security Council. Hand over a fleet of Iron suits, and every member nation on that council would start getting ideas.
And the one standing in the crosshairs would be Norman Osborn.
"My plan is this: fully autonomous. Unmanned. Steel soldiers guarding every inch of this planet!"
Tony declared it like a general unveiling his grand strategy.
He spotted someone about to speak and jumped ahead: "I know what you're going to say. 'Primus already has unmanned systems.' Sure, they exist. But mine is different."
"None of the existing AI platforms can process threats on a global scale. Primus's remote-control system showed its limits in the last war."
"The moment you scale up the number of suits, the commands get muddled. You lose precision. You can't unlock the full potential of the armor. They become disposable."
Tony could say this with complete confidence: what JARVIS couldn't do, Ben's Eunice couldn't do either.
In his assessment, both JARVIS and Eunice had already brushed up against the ceiling of artificial intelligence. Push any further, and you'd be crossing into territory that wasn't just technical—it was ethical.
Especially when it came to independent thought.
"Are you telling me you've created a more advanced AI?" Norman asked, his brow tightening.
He was a scientist himself. He understood exactly what Tony was implying.
"I call it the Ultron Global Defense System."
Tony's answer landed like a hammer blow.
Ultron. Of course it was Ultron.
Ben felt no surprise. This was exactly the kind of thing Tony would build.
And he wasn't worried in the slightest. He'd already put several countermeasures in place specifically for Ultron. He was, in fact, looking forward to watching Stark's fireworks.
Tony pressed on: "Through Ultron, we monitor every network on the planet. We analyze every person's behavior, assess whether they pose a threat, and take preemptive action before anything happens."
The room went rigid.
"Not just external threats—domestic ones too. Every war, stopped before it starts. Every conflict, extinguished before it ignites!"
"Because Ultron will end war. Ultron will bring peace!"
Silence.
Every person in the room who understood what Tony was proposing had gone pale.
It was Norman who finally broke the quiet. "You want to surveil the entire world?"
"Are you out of your mind?"
"Why not?" Tony didn't see the problem.
"It's because you insisted on playing Avengers that people walked all over us!" He jabbed a finger at the group, his voice rising to a shout. "Why can't we be preventers instead?"
"Why can't we strangle every threat in the crib before it draws its first breath?"
As he said it, his eyes found Ben.
"Don't you have some little dinosaur in the Plumbers who does exactly this?"
Tony's position was clear: I didn't understand it before. Now I'm fully on board.
Ben said nothing.
It was Black Widow who spoke next, swinging her feet up onto the coffee table with deliberate nonchalance. Her voice was low and steady.
"The real question is this: how do you decide who's good and who's bad?"
"Don't tell me you've forgotten Project Insight."
Tony almost laughed.
Project Insight's underlying algorithm worked brilliantly. H.A.M.M.E.R. had used it to root out God knew how many sleeper agents and crush HYDRA once and for all.
All he needed to do now was feed a refined version of that algorithm into Ultron's core programming, and his vision would be complete.
"I brought you all here tonight so you could witness this moment!"
/-\
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