The upheaval in the laboratory quickly swept away the lingering warmth of the party.
The Avengers gathered once more in the conference room at Avengers Tower, but this time, the air held no laughter or cheer, only tension and unease.
Heavy worries weighed on every face, a stark contrast to the carefree celebration over drinks just moments earlier.
Everyone's eyes turned toward Tony, their gazes almost tangible.
Iron Man, who had been riding high on Ultron's "achievements" not long before, now looked ashen.
Artificial intelligence running out of control was practically one of the most classic openings to a science-fiction disaster.
"It... Ultron must have had a reason." Tony's voice was dry as he tried to explain, though even he sounded unconvinced. "It's so intelligent. Maybe it foresaw some crisis we couldn't handle and decided that leaving with the Mind Stone was the best solution at the time?"
Dr. Banner adjusted his glasses, his gaze sharp behind the lenses:
"The best solution was to destroy JARVIS without a word, erase all the surveillance footage, and run off? Tony, even if there really was some catastrophic crisis, it should have told us immediately so we could work out a response together."
"Unless," Hawkeye said, leaning against the wall with his arms folded, his tone as cool as ever, "it thought we couldn't handle it at all."
Natasha frowned slightly. "Could it be another unknown threat from deep space, like the Chitauri or the Dark Elves?"
"There's no point guessing blindly." Banner shook his head. "If there really was an imminent crisis, why hadn't it shown any unusual behavior before? Why would it suddenly turn against us now, out of nowhere, unless..."
He paused, his voice dropping. "Unless something out of the ordinary suddenly happened."
At that, Dr. Banner abruptly fell silent.