Tony Stark had always lived above the ordinary world.
Even setting Iron Man aside, the titles attached to his name alone created an enormous gulf between him and the average person.
Billionaire.
Playboy.
Genius inventor.
World-renowned philanthropist.
Those weren't things ordinary people could easily relate to.
As a result, Tony had always possessed a certain distance from the public. Not out of malice, but because his life experience was fundamentally different from almost everyone else's.
Expecting Tony Stark to truly see himself as just another ordinary citizen was unrealistic.
If the man inside the armor ever started thinking that way, he probably wouldn't be Tony Stark anymore.
"Please, Drex. Just hear me out."
Tony grabbed Drex's collar in frustration.
Drex glanced down at the hand gripping his shirt, then calmly looked back up at him.
Tony took a breath.
"I want to call it the Illuminati."
Drex immediately gave him a look that said of course you do.
The name fit Tony perfectly.
The Illuminati.
The enlightened ones.
Those who guided others through darkness.
Even the name revealed Tony's mindset.
Not merely protectors.
Guides.
Architects.
People who believed they should help shape humanity's future.
"Exactly."
Tony mistook Drex's expression for approval.
"We'd be a guiding light in a dark world."
His confidence was unwavering.
"We'd help direct civilization toward a better future."
Drex, however, could already see exactly where this road led.
Because he'd seen this story before.
The Illuminati.
A secret organization composed of some of Earth's smartest, wealthiest, and most influential heroes.
Unlike the Avengers, the Fantastic Four, or the X-Men, they wouldn't operate as a traditional superhero team.
They would exist to confront threats too large for anyone else to handle.
Threats to Earth.
Threats to the universe itself.
Their philosophy was simple:
Accept smaller sacrifices now to prevent greater tragedies later.
Their existence would remain hidden from the public.
Hidden from allies.
Hidden even from their own families.
On paper, it sounded noble.
Efficient.
Necessary.
In reality?
It demonstrated exactly why Drex had been arguing with Tony from the beginning.
The Illuminati only gathered when they discovered a potential catastrophe.
They met in secret.
Shared information nobody else possessed.
Made decisions behind closed doors.
Sometimes members didn't even physically attend. Sorcerers like Doctor Strange could participate remotely through astral projections.
The group often knew things that other superheroes couldn't even imagine.
And despite their intelligence, their history was a monument to unintended consequences.
Their intentions were almost always good.
Their results rarely were.
Take the Hulk, for example.
After one of Bruce Banner's rampages caused massive destruction, members of the Illuminati secretly decided to exile him into deep space.
Not everyone agreed with the decision.
Some future members weren't even involved.
But the choice was made anyway.
And that single decision eventually led to the catastrophe known as World War Hulk.
Then came the Skrull crisis.
In an attempt to deter an invasion, six members of the Illuminati traveled directly to the Skrull homeworld.
Their goal was simple:
Warn the Skrulls not to invade Earth.
To make the warning convincing, Black Bolt demonstrated the power of Earth's heroes with a single whispered word.
Entire military formations vanished.
The display was impressive.
The consequences were disastrous.
The Skrulls responded by hunting them down.
Their ship was intercepted.
The six heroes were captured.
While imprisoned, the Skrulls subjected them to extensive study, dissecting every aspect of their powers in an effort to replicate them.
Eventually, Tony Stark managed to escape and free the others.
Together, Doctor Strange and Professor Xavier created an illusion of Galactus so convincing that it terrified the Skrulls into retreat.
The heroes escaped.
They thought the crisis was over.
It wasn't.
What they failed to realize was that Black Bolt had already been replaced.
The real Black Bolt remained imprisoned while a Skrull infiltrator took his place on Earth.
Later, when the New Avengers discovered the body of a female Skrull operative and brought the evidence to Tony, the Illuminati convened again.
The implications were horrifying.
By that point, suspicion had already infected the superhero community.
Even Doctor Strange attended through an astral form rather than in person.
Then the fake Black Bolt revealed himself.
The meeting nearly turned into a massacre.
Only Doctor Strange's intervention allowed the others to escape.
By the end of that gathering, the Illuminati reached a grim conclusion:
War was inevitable.
An interstellar war.
One that would displace countless civilians and destroy untold lives.
And all of it stemmed from decisions made by a handful of people who believed they knew what was best.
That was the problem.
That was always the problem.
When a small group began acting as though their judgment represented everyone else's, disaster followed.
Drex had seen enough examples to know that good intentions weren't protection against catastrophic mistakes.
Sometimes they made those mistakes worse.
Truthfully, many supervillains couldn't match the sheer scale of damage caused by well-meaning heroes convinced they were right.
Especially when Tony Stark was involved.
Of course, this universe wasn't identical to the one Drex remembered.
There were no mutants.
No Professor Xavier.
No Beast.
But that didn't mean the X-Gene would remain dormant forever.
In fact, one of Drex's growing concerns was that dormant X-Genes across the planet had begun displaying intermittent signs of activation.
The pattern wasn't widespread enough to alarm anyone yet.
But he had noticed it.
And he suspected he knew the reason.
Back when he was unable to fully control the higher-dimensional attraction surrounding his existence, nearby parallel universes had begun drifting closer together.
The effects had been subtle.
At first.
Fortunately, he had eventually discovered two methods of suppressing that attraction.
Otherwise, the outcome might have been catastrophic.
At best, reality would have merged with neighboring universes and transformed into something entirely new.
At worst...
The universe could have collapsed outright.
Tony, meanwhile, continued speaking.
"I've already thought about the membership."
Drex rubbed his temples.
Naturally he had.
"Let me guess."
"You."
Tony pointed at himself.
"You."
Then at Drex.
"And that popsicle."
Drex raised an eyebrow.
"I was under the impression you couldn't stand him."
"I can't."
Tony answered immediately.
No hesitation.
No embarrassment.
No attempt to hide it.
His dislike of Steve Rogers went back decades.
Back to childhood.
Back to listening to Howard Stark constantly compare him to Captain America.
Back to hearing endless lectures about how he should try to be more like Steve Rogers.
Tony's rebellious streak had taken root early.
And despite everything that had happened since, some parts of it had never gone away.
"That doesn't mean I don't respect him."
Tony sighed.
"Our organization would be dangerous."
For once, there wasn't a trace of arrogance in his voice.
"We need someone rational."
"Someone genuinely honorable."
"Someone people can trust."
He paused.
"And Steve is smarter than most people give him credit for."
Tony folded his arms.
"He's running S.W.O.R.D. right now, and he's doing a damn good job."
That, coming from Tony Stark, was practically a declaration of admiration.
...
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