Ultron's words poured fuel on an already explosive situation.
The air between both sides crackled with hostility.
Even Tony had a pounding headache over it. He sat rigidly on the opposing side from Cap and the others — not because he believed he was right, but because he refused to back down. He wasn't about to swallow his pride and admit defeat.
He figured Ultron's analysis was almost certainly correct. The people of Earth couldn't even fully trust each other — how could they trust aliens? Especially someone like Venom. That thing was vicious. The battle against the Chitauri vanguard had made that painfully clear. Peter had been out front in the suit, fighting, while Venom had secretly sprouted a second head and grabbed Chitauri soldiers left and right, biting their heads clean off. Venom didn't eat them — Chitauri skulls contained no nutrients whatsoever — but his savage nature was on full display. He was undeniably a volatile element.
Tony had disliked aliens from the very start. He didn't even like the aliens in the Celestial Union. Earth belonged to Earth's people. What gave aliens the right to call the shots here?
But there was no denying that Venom had genuinely participated in defending the planet. Now Ultron wanted to arrest him before he'd even done anything wrong — wasn't that just discarding the bridge after crossing the river? It was utterly disheartening.
And besides — just because you say Venom will commit a crime in the future, does that mean he definitely will? That level of certainty was far too arbitrary. No one could accept that. Who gave you the authority to decide someone else's future with a single sentence? To arrest someone based on nothing?
If you could arrest Venom today, what's stopping you from declaring tomorrow that Natasha is a former Soviet spy? That the day after, Steve is secretly a Hydra captain? That the day after that, the Thunderbolt Agency has fallen to dark forces and the Avengers are about to be turned by Norman Osborn?
It was absurd beyond belief.
"I will never agree to this!" Steve slammed his fist against the table, his neck flushed crimson with rage.
He was a soldier. He had seen far too many veterans abandoned by society after their service, and that made him acutely sensitive to matters like this.
"This is betrayal!"
Steve jabbed a finger at Tony's face.
"Ultron's predictive models have never been wrong," Tony insisted.
That was why he refused to yield.
Months ago, when Ultron first began apprehending potential criminals who hadn't yet committed any crimes, there had been an enormous public outcry. Under that pressure, Ultron had halted immediate arrests and instead limited itself to publishing its predictions. The result? Every single one of the crimes it forecast came to pass — without exception. If not for that track record, Tony would never have let it run rampant.
Now that Ultron had flagged Venom as a potential threat, the reality was probably exactly as it said. Tony didn't see a problem with it. If there was any fault to be found, it was only that Peter Parker shouldn't have been targeted.
"This isn't the same thing at all!"
Steve was choking with frustration. He roared, "Those potential criminals you arrested before — they already had criminal records, and after being released they were still skirting the edges of the law. But Venom is nothing like them! Our relationship with the symbiote species has been good! Venom may have some personality issues, but he hasn't actually done anything truly out of line!"
And he was right.
Venom was certainly unruly, but he wasn't purely evil. With Peter acting as his tether, the worst he'd done was some petty mischief. Those minor transgressions were nothing compared to everything else he'd contributed. Having a foul mouth wasn't grounds for arrest.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
Tony let out a cold laugh. "You think a few insignificant contributions entitle him to special treatment? I think you're just looking for an excuse to shield your good buddy!"
Tony glared at Steve, furious. "Don't think that just because he's run a few missions with you now, all his old debts are wiped clean!"
The two of them went at it again.
That left Peter and Venom staring at each other in bewilderment. The whole thing had started because of them, but by now, they had somehow become bystanders, watching Steve and Tony tear into each other.
Neither man was willing to give an inch. Fortunately, Bant arrived not long after.
The moment Tony saw Bant, he instinctively shrank back a little, some of his bluster fading. No matter what else could be said, the fact remained that Ultron laying hands on Peter was something he was in the wrong for. Of course, he was only willing to apologize for that one matter — beyond that, he still stood firmly by Ultron's algorithmic conclusions and insisted that Venom needed to be contained.
Bant, naturally, wasn't about to agree.
Truth be told, he didn't mind watching Tony embarrass himself, and he fully intended to hammer Ultron so thoroughly it would never get back up — if only to prevent Tony from cooking up another uncontrollable disaster. He could already guess what Ultron's real objective was, so he played along with it, projecting righteous fury and indignation.
In the end, the meeting collapsed without resolution.
The more unyielding Bant was, the less Tony was willing to bend. Neither could overpower the other, and continuing to argue risked triggering an open conflict between Ultron and the Celestial Union.
Ultimately, Tony couldn't do anything about Venom. But he still stubbornly insisted that everyone could just wait and see — Ultron's analysis would not be wrong. No one paid him any attention.
In the blink of an eye, Avengers Tower emptied out, leaving Tony alone with his machines.
Walking out of the building, Steve couldn't help but sigh.
"What's wrong, Cap?"
Seeing his expression, Bant asked.
Steve shook his head. "Nothing. It just feels like the Avengers are already a team in name only."
Not so long ago, they had stood shoulder to shoulder against all manner of powerful enemies. Now they were fracturing over internal divisions. The thought left him heavy-hearted. Sure enough, no matter how mighty an organization, the moment cracks appeared within, it became fragile beyond belief.
Bant privately thought that at this rate, a civil war was likely to break out ahead of schedule.
And that was actually a good thing.
If a civil war started under Ultron's influence, it would remain controllable no matter how it unfolded. Dragging everything into the open and dealing with it once and for all now was far better than having it blow up at a critical moment later.
Still, he understood that Steve was caught between Tony and Bucky, quietly torn apart by the tension. But Bant offered no words of comfort. He simply clapped Steve on the shoulder — and discreetly slipped something into his hand.
Steve froze.
He glanced down. In his palm was a key and a slip of paper with an address written on it.
He was puzzled, but said nothing.
Bant had clearly gone out of his way to pass this to him beyond the reach of any surveillance. That meant these two items might prove useful down the line.
So Steve silently committed the address to memory and tucked the key away.
They parted without a trace.
Steve walked alongside Sam for a short distance, then stopped and looked back — at Avengers Tower, at the receding figures of Bant and the others. A deep unease settled in his chest, the familiar sensation that a new crisis was closing in fast.
Steve said nothing of it. After leaving the tower, Bant returned to Queens with Peter, Uncle Ben, and Aunt May. Felicia came along too. That evening, Mary Jane joined them, and the family had dinner together. With Bant present, Ben and May took the opportunity to rein Peter in a little, hoping to prevent things from ever spiraling into the scenario Ultron had predicted.
Venom was, of course, thoroughly displeased. He was convinced that Stark and his little mustache, along with that tin can Ultron, had it out for him. But in front of Bant, he naturally didn't dare voice a word of complaint. He hid inside Peter's body like a turtle in its shell.
Peter put in a good word for him in front of Uncle Ben, insisting that Venom's nature wasn't really all that bad — even if Peter's personality had shifted somewhat lately, he still behaved himself at home. After all, he was just as afraid of Bant disciplining him as anyone else.
"Still, I can't help feeling that Stark seems a bit..."
Ben thought back to everything he'd witnessed at Avengers Tower and struggled to find the right word.
He was, at his core, very much like Captain America. Tony's reckless actions genuinely worried him. He had the sense that a genius sitting alone in his computer lab day after day, watching coldly through a screen as machines slowly took control of humanity, could never be a good thing.
"The crime rate in New York has definitely dropped lately, but people's lives have also become deeply oppressive. The line Ultron's robots draw when managing humans keeps getting blurrier..."
Ben was full of concern. It felt as though those machines were quietly encroaching on some boundary, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it.
"I feel the same way. But you can't talk him out of it."
Bant shook his head.
If Tony were the type to be reasoned with, that would be the real surprise. If he wanted to mess around with Ultron, let him. At least Ultron was tangible and visible. After learning this lesson, he might actually wise up a little. If someone tried to stop him and he ended up building Ultron 2.0 instead, that would be far worse.
Besides, Bant was honestly a bit too lazy to bother with this matter anymore.
Eunice's upgrade was nearly complete. He had already briefed Banner, Connors, and Wanda on the next phase of the plan, and even specifically reassigned Wanda and Quicksilver back to Plymouth. There were basically no more problems on Earth.
But there were still matters out in the universe that required his attention.
Sakaar was the Celestial Union's true headquarters!
The Union's reputation across the cosmos was growing by the day, but the universe was full of other powerful factions. Plenty of them didn't fear the Celestial Union in the slightest. Most of the time, sending Kaela to represent them was enough, but he couldn't stay out of sight forever.
Case in point: Kaela had just messaged him. The ruler of the Kree Empire was requesting a meeting. The Kree had likely finally confirmed that Thanos was truly dead, and were now beginning to take the Celestial Union and Sakaar's strength seriously. They wanted formal negotiations — including discussions on releasing Ronan the Accuser.
Beyond that, he was also needed at the Galactic Federation Council. Three great empires might soon become four, and no one could afford to ignore that.
On top of everything, there seemed to be developments in the Nine Realms as well...
Compared to all of that, a single Ultron — without even an Infinity Stone, manipulated by Bant from the very beginning, every countermeasure laid out in plain sight — was barely a threat.
Nothing but a clown, really.
/-\
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