The group filed out of the conference room and into an adjacent one—a place where they could have a private conversation, to discuss the meeting they had all just sat through.
Though the room they entered wasn't empty.
No. Inside sat Charles Xavier.
Waiting.
Expecting them.
They had agreed beforehand that it was better if he didn't show up for the meeting. People really didn't like being around a mind reader, even if they pretended otherwise, and the only reason they tolerated it was because they believed in their own measures to protect their minds.
"Erik," he muttered lowly as they entered, his eyes on Erik—his longtime friend. Someone he had mixed feelings about.
Yet Magneto was clearly not in the mood to discuss everything. He had already dragged his past into the light, and he didn't want to dissect it further.
Thankfully for everyone, Tony spared them the burden of dealing with feelings, past lives, and other sensitive topics.
"Well," Tony said as he stepped inside, letting the door slide shut behind him, "that went… great. No one flipped the table, no one tried to stab anyone else, and we only threatened half the room with divine-level retribution."
Charles exhaled softly.
"That is what passes for progress these days," he replied.
Tony threw himself into a chair and put his feet on the table. "Well, it's something, isn't it? But I will be serious now that Fury and his goons are gone… how did it go?"
Steve felt like telling Tony that he didn't look like he was being all that serious, but then again, he had started to suspect Tony did it to break the ice—that he acted like a fool so everyone could feel less self-important.
It really did ruin the atmosphere Doom and Magneto often tried to build up.
Charles lowered his gaze.
"Not good," he said quietly. "Not at all."
He folded his hands together, fingers tightening slightly.
"Those people…" he continued. "They are not good men. The amount of blood on their hands is difficult to comprehend. And their desire for peace—true peace—is nonexistent."
Charles might not have been in the room in person, but that didn't mean he didn't know what was happening in there. He knew most of it because he didn't just know what happened inside the room.
No. He knew what happened inside the heads of the people inside it.
He knew which promises were empty before they were spoken. Which words were calculated. Which concessions were lies rehearsed long ago.
And what he had seen inside those minds had been far worse than anything voiced aloud.
Overall, while the meeting itself hadn't been smooth, while it hadn't been clean, what went on inside their heads was even worse.
"They have no intention of peace," he said, voice echoing the exhaustion visible on his face. "Though at the same time, many of them care little about Wakanda itself."
"Wait," Steve said. "If they don't care about Wakanda, why don't they want peace, then? Why are they even fighting?"
Once more, Steve felt like he was the only one in the room who didn't get it.
He was fairly used to it; he had decades of knowledge to catch up on, so often he didn't get a reference. But he really tried his best—he had read up a lot on this situation on the way over—so it was jarring to be out of the loop again and again like this.
Tony let out a long sigh. "Cap," he said, "sometimes I genuinely don't know whether we should keep you this innocent… or finally rip the bandage off and show you how ugly things actually get."
Steve's jaw tightened. "I'm not a child," he said firmly. "I don't need to be coddled. I can handle the truth. So tell me—what am I missing?"
The room went quiet.
The Illuminati exchanged glances—not spoken words, but silent understanding—as they collectively decided who would be the one to answer him.
Finally, it was Charles who spoke up. He was the closest to Steve ideologically, so he drew the short end of the stick.
"It's complicated, and every one of them has their own reason for fighting. Some truly hate Wakanda, or rather, they hate what Wakanda represents—what they have been denied," he began.
"Stability. Sovereignty. Power. Choice," Magneto added.
"Correct," Charles said, not minding the interruption. "Most of them are aware they can't defeat Wakanda, nor are they trying to. There is a reason so many people are dying out there—it's on purpose. They use this as an excuse to kill people."
He spoke calmly, but the words themselves were chilling.
"To kill their own people?" Steve asked, a note of disbelief in his voice.
"To kill whoever they want," Charles corrected gently. "The chaos of war provides excellent cover for settling old scores. For removing political rivals. For 'disappearing' journalists. For testing new weapons on living subjects."
Steve looked around the room at the others—Magneto, with a dark expression; Doom, whose expression was hidden beneath his mask but who seemed not to care; Tony, who looked away for a moment as if to compose himself; Reed Richards, eyes closed.
They all knew.
They had all known.
And they hadn't told him.
"I don't understand," Steve said, voice strained. "Why would they do that? How can anyone justify such…"
He struggled for the word.
…evil.
"Because they can," Tony said quietly. "Because power doesn't corrupt, Cap. Power reveals. And what it reveals about some people… well, let's just say that most people in the world today, if given the power to do whatever they want without consequence, would do exactly that."
Steve looked down at his hands, at the shield that lay on the table beside him—the shield that represented hope, justice, and the very ideals he had fought for, bled for, and nearly died for.
"And they have reasons," Tony continued. "They are backed by countless states—China, the U.S., Russia, and more. They're the ones who really want Wakanda's secrets, and they're paying the African nations to wage war for them."
"And they are paid extra for every loss they suffer," Charles added, exposing one of the truths he had pulled from their minds. "A lot of the war is for show. They send out men to die just to get a bigger paycheck from the U.S., and the U.S. gets to claim they are not directly involved. That's how they wash their hands."
"They pay them to suffer losses? Why?" Steve asked, baffled by the logic.
"Because," Magneto explained, "every casualty, every burned village, every atrocity becomes another piece of propaganda. More footage for the news cycles. More outrage to manufacture. More justification for eventual intervention."
Tony nodded. "It's the long game. Create enough chaos, enough suffering, enough perceived injustice, and then when you finally step in with your 'peacekeeping forces,' the world will thank you for it. They'll welcome you as liberators, not conquerors."
Steve stared at him, unable to process what he was hearing. It was a level of cynicism, of calculated cruelty, that defied everything he believed in.
"And what about Wakanda?" he asked. "What happens to them in all this?"
Charles's expression grew even darker. "They become the villain in this narrative. The unreasonable isolationists hoarding technology that could save the world. The obstinate kingdom that refuses to share, that values its sovereignty above global progress—above human lives."
"And it isn't like Wakanda is innocent in all this," Doom's cold voice entered the conversation. "Their isolation has caused countless deaths. Diseases that could have been cured. Famines that could have been averted. Natural disasters that could have been mitigated. Their technology could have saved millions over the years, but they kept it to themselves."
Magneto shot him a sharp look. "Don't pretend this is about humanitarian concerns, Doom. It's about power, plain and simple. Wakanda refused to bow to the world order, and now the world order is making them pay."
"Indeed," Doom replied, unperturbed. "But their refusal has consequences, as does every action. Or in their case, every inaction."
Reed opened his eyes, speaking for the first time. "There's truth in what both of you are saying. Wakanda's isolationism has certainly cost lives. But the motivations of those arrayed against them… it's not about saving those lives. It's about gaining control of what Wakanda has. The vibranium, the technology, the knowledge."
He turned to Steve, expression grim.
"It's a perfect storm of conflicting interests and moral ambiguity. There are no clean hands here, Steve. No clear-cut heroes and villains."
Steve looked around the room at these men—some of the most powerful and intelligent individuals on the planet—and saw only resignation in their eyes.
Finally, he sighed. "Alright. What do we do? We are the Illuminati. We are the ones entrusted to solve this issue—how do we do that?" he asked.
A long, heavy silence settled over the room.
The question hung in the air, charged with impossible weight. How do we do that? It was the question that had brought them here, the one that had fractured them before and threatened to do so again.
Tony was the one to break the quiet, the usual smirk gone from his face.
"The problem, Capsicle," he said, voice uncharacteristically low, "is that 'we' can't simply solve this. This is all about countless interests, and countless people. There is no one perfect solution."
He clearly had more to say, but he hesitated to say it out loud.
Doom, however, had no such hesitation. "The only way to solve it is through force—to force everyone to stand down, to obey us, or die for their defiance."
"I may not go quite that far," Tony quickly interjected, "but unless Charles here found something we didn't in their heads, there doesn't seem to be any peaceful solution."
Tony looked at Charles, the telepath.
Charles didn't have to read Tony's mind to know what he was asking. He had spent the entire meeting sifting through the thoughts of the various leaders, looking for any hint of genuine willingness to compromise, any crack in their facade of belligerence.
But he had found none.
"No," Charles said quietly, shaking his head. "There's no desire for peace. Not truly. They see this as an opportunity to gain something from their people's lives, yet to them, those lives are worth nothing compared to the dollars they can put in their pockets."
His gaze was heavy, the weight of all those selfish, violent thoughts pressing down on him.
"They are all profiting from this war. Some with money, some with power, some with revenge. But none of them will stop unless they are made to."
"Made to," Magneto repeated, a dangerous glint in his eyes. "What a nice way to say forced to by a greater power."
Charles just sighed again. He didn't correct Magneto because, despite their differences, he knew there was no other path—none he could see, at least.
Yet Steve couldn't accept it. He wouldn't let the Illuminati become gods. He had promised himself he would be the heart of this team, the human heart Arthuria had wanted.
And that meant doing what he felt was right, not what was easy.
So he refused to use force… but what did that leave him?