The Tower ran quiet at this hour, the good kind of quiet, the kind Tony actually trusted. Larvitar had claimed the corner of the desk an hour ago and hadn't moved since, curled up against a stack of schematics like it belonged there.
Then F.R.I.D.A.Y. lit up the main display without being asked.
"Tony, you're going to want to see this."
"I'm always going to want to see this. Be specific."
"Grid anomaly, three cities, same signature. It's spreading while I talk."
He was already up, already pulling the feed apart with both hands, sorting real problem from noise the way he did everything else. The pattern underneath it looked wrong in a way that itched at something old.
"Pull the last time we saw this exact profile."
"You already know the answer."
"Say it anyway."
She said it anyway, and it landed the way he figured it would. Larvitar's tail flicked once against the desk, sensing the shift in him before he'd said a word out loud.
Steve came in first, already dressed, already moving like a man who'd guessed the call before it came. Tony didn't ask how. Steve had a nose for this kind of thing, the specific flavor of bad news that used to follow both of them around.
"Tell me I'm wrong," Steve said.
"You're not wrong."
Thor was next, rolling one shoulder like he was warming it up for something that hadn't started yet, energy coming off him the way it always did before a fight, too big for the room to hold comfortably.
Vision and Wanda came in together, not touching, not needing to. Tony clocked the distance between them out of habit, filed it, moved on. T'Challa slipped in behind them, already working something over on his own display, quiet in that particular way he got when he was three steps ahead of a conversation nobody else had started yet.
Clint and Natasha arrived like they'd rehearsed the entrance, which, knowing them, they probably had. Bruce came last, hanging back near the door instead of committing to the room, arms folded tight.
Nine people. Tony had run scenarios with worse odds. He didn't love how this one was shaping up.
"Say it," Thor said, looking at Tony.
Tony didn't dress it up. Dressing it up wasted time nobody had.
"Ultron."
The name sat in the room for a second before anybody touched it. Wanda's hand found Vision's arm, finally, fully, like she needed the contact more than she wanted to admit. T'Challa's jaw went tight. Natasha's eyes flicked to Clint, and Clint's flicked right back, some old conversation passing between them without a word spent on it.
"We've done this before," Steve said. "We know what he does."
"We know what he did," Tony said. "Different thing. Don't confuse experience with a plan."
"I'm not confusing anything. I'm saying we move."
"And I'm saying moving blind cost us last time. You remember how that went, or do I need to walk you through it again."
Steve's jaw worked. Tony watched him decide not to take the bait, which, credit where it's due, was more restraint than Tony usually managed.
"Last time cost more than a lesson," Wanda said, quiet, not looking at anyone specific. "It cost pieces of people that didn't come back whole."
Nobody argued with that. Nobody could.
"So what," Clint said, breaking the silence before it calcified into something worse. "We sit here debating strategy while he keeps doing whatever he's doing out there?"
"I'm not saying sit," Tony said. "I'm saying think for ten seconds before we—"
F.R.I.D.A.Y. cut him off, and for once he was glad of it.
"New data. Grid failures just tripled. He's not testing anymore. This is deployment."
That settled it faster than any argument in the room could have. Tony felt the whole shape of the conversation collapse into something simpler, cleaner, the kind of problem he actually knew how to solve.
"Cap, Thor, industrial sector, grid's dying fastest there. Vision, Wanda, city core, comms hubs, shut him out before he locks them down. T'Challa, you've got street coordination across Brooklyn. Clint, Natasha, warehouse district, choke his supply lines before he builds anything else with them. Bruce, outlying facility, that one needs muscle if it goes bad."
"And you?" Steve asked.
"Staying put. Somebody's got to keep the Tower's teeth in its mouth, and that somebody's better at architecture than punching."
Nobody argued that one either. Nine directions, nine people already moving toward the door, the room emptying out fast the way it always did once the talking stopped mattering.
Larvitar was awake now, up on all fours on the desk, watching the room clear out with the kind of alertness that meant it had already figured out something it wasn't going to like.
"Hey." Tony crouched down to its level, which felt a little ridiculous given the armor half-assembled around him already, but he did it anyway. "You're staying here."
Larvitar made a sound that wasn't quite a growl and wasn't quite anything else Tony had a name for. Its claws found the edge of the desk and held on like that settled the argument.
"I know," he said. "I know you want in on this. Not happening tonight."
It butted its head against his hand, stubborn about it, the same stubborn it pulled every time something twice its size showed up at the sanctuary gates. Tony had liked that about it from day one. Liked it a lot less right now.
"Look, I don't have a good version of this speech. You'd get hurt out there, and I don't have room in my head tonight to worry about that on top of everything else. So you're staying. Not because you can't. Because I need you here, safe, so I've got one less thing eating at me when things go sideways."
Larvitar went still, watching him with something that looked a lot like it understood every word, which, honestly, it probably did.
"I'll come back," Tony said. "Both of us in one piece. That's the deal."
He didn't wait for an answer he wasn't going to get. He straightened up, helmet sealing down over his face, and the room around him snapped back into focus through the HUD, cleaner, faster, easier to manage than a Pokémon that wouldn't stop looking at him like that.
The others were already gone, suits and gear clearing out through the launch bay in a rush of motion that swallowed the quiet whole. Tony went last, the doors sealing behind him with a sound that used to mean nothing and tonight meant something he didn't have time to name.
The Tower went quiet again almost immediately, systems still humming, lights still on, all of it running exactly the way it was supposed to with nobody left to see it.
Larvitar stayed on the desk a long moment after the door sealed shut, ears up, listening to a room that had nothing left in it to listen to. Then it settled back down against the stack of schematics, small and alone, watching the space where everyone had been standing a minute ago like it might fill back up if it waited long enough.
It didn't.
***
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