Two and a half days had passed since the last clash. During that time, Tony and Dr. Banner had worked day and night on the Ultron Project, while Wanderer, acting as their Observer, had stayed with them without leaving their side.
"Tony, I think there might be a problem here..."
His hair sticking up and his eyes bloodshot, Banner stared at the data streaming across the computer screen, beside himself with worry.
Thor had only given them three days. Once those three days were up, the Scepter had to return to Asgard. There was barely any time left before the deadline, yet the process of merging Ultron's data with JARVIS's was still moving slowly.
He was getting anxious.
"Tony, did we miss something? Tony, Tony! Hey!"
Banner craned his neck and shouted, his voice echoing through the lab.
"Oh, Banner, I'm not deaf."
Tony rubbed his face, then turned around with a frown to complain.
"You fell asleep." "What? No, you saw wrong."
"You fell asleep standing up. Oh, God, I miss my bed."
Tony blinked, downed the bitter coffee left at the bottom of his cup, then set it down and walked over to Banner.
He scratched his head irritably, then picked up a pen and tapped the keyboard with it. A string of symbols began to blink.
"There's nothing wrong with the data. I've checked it three times. Ultron is already decoding as fast as possible. We should be able to finish before Thor leaves."
"All right, all right, I must be overthinking it. God, I need to go get some sleep. We still have Thor's farewell party tonight. If I keep this up, I might actually drop dead."
Banner set down the documents in his hands and let out a long yawn. Halfway through, however, he met