The room was one of the most secure facilities on the planet. In the center of the room was a circular table.
On one side of the table sat Steve Rogers. In the three days since he had been brought to Geneva, he had been given comfortable quarters, good food, and access to any historical records he wished to see.
He was an old man, dressed in a comfortable sweater, but his posture was still ramrod straight.
On the other side of the table sat the six primary members of the Illuminati Council.
Standing at a distance were the second in command: Sharon, Bucky, and Pietro.
"Captain Rogers," Aryan started. "Thank you for your cooperation over the last few days. I know this has been... disorienting. We are here to explain the situation, as we have come to understand it, and to ask for your help."
Steve gave a nod. "I'll help in any way I can."
"Good," Aryan said. He paused, collecting his thoughts. "Captain, we have spent the last seventy two hours analyzing the technology you brought with you from your home reality. What Tony Stark and Princess Shuri were able to conclude is... staggering."
He looked at Tony, who leaned forward. "It's a masterpiece, Cap," Tony said. "Science is a generation beyond anything I've ever conceived. But it's also a sledgehammer. It punches a hole through the very fabric of reality to get where it's going."
"When you used that device to travel here," Aryan continued, "you created a connection. A sub atomic scar that links your original universe directly to ours. For fifty years, that connection has been infinitesimally dormant."
Steve listened, his brow furrowed, the quiet life he had lived suddenly feeling like a cosmic crime. "A thread," he repeated.
"Yes," Aryan confirmed. "But a thread that has begun to unravel. We believe that your continued existence in this reality acts as a form of... temporal friction. Your very being, your every action, every breath you take, is a paradox our universe must constantly work to reconcile. You are a note that is fundamentally out of key with the rest of our song. And that friction, over decades, has begun to pull on that thread."
The pieces of the puzzle began to fall into place in Steve's mind.
"What... what does that mean?" Steve asked.
Aryan's expression was of regret. "It means the two universes have begun to attract each other. That microscopic thread has become a cord, and now it is becoming a rope. The two realities are being pulled towards each other."
He then looked at T'Challa. "T'Challa, as we have explained, possesses a unique ability. A. It grants him glimpses of high level threats to our world."
T'Challa leaned forward "Captain, a few days ago, I had a vision. I saw two Earths, occupying the same space in the sky. I saw them grinding against each other, annihilating each other in a cascade of failing physics. I saw the death of two realities."
He paused, his gaze locking onto Steve's. "And a voice from that dying future... sent a message. It told us that you were 'unraveling'."
"We immediately ran our most advanced temporal simulations, using the data from my vision and the residual energy from your device. The models are... conclusive."
Aryan took over. "The multiverse is a complex concept, Captain. For the sake of clarity, our temporal physicists have assigned designations. Your home reality is Earth 199999. Ours is Earth 719. And based on the current rate of temporal acceleration, the catastrophic incursion between Earth 199999 and Earth 719… will occur in approximately one year."
Steve felt the blood drain from his face. One year. His happy life, his selfish choice, was going to cause the death of not one, but two universes.
Trillions upon trillions of lives, all extinguished because he had wanted a dance.
The monumental scale of the catastrophe he had unwittingly authored was a weight so crushing it felt physical, a pressure in his chest that made it hard to breathe.
"My God," he whispered, his hands trembling slightly. He looked at the faces around him. They were all standing on the precipice of the same abyss.
"What you have done... it was not an act of malice," T'Challa said. "You made a choice any man would be tempted to make. You cannot be blamed for a consequence you could have never foreseen."
"But it happened," Steve said, his voice rough with a self recrimination that was absolute.
He looked at Aryan. "How do we stop it?"
This was the question the entire meeting had been building towards.
"That is the problem we now face," Aryan said. "The technology you used to create the link is a dead end. As we explained, it decayed upon arrival. We have no way to replicate it, and therefore no way to 'push' the universes apart using the same method. As far as our science can determine, the connection, this 'rope' that is pulling our realities together, is permanent and irreversible... as long as its anchor remains."
He let the implication hang in the air for a moment before addressing the horrifying thought.
"And to be perfectly clear, Captain," he said, "simply killing you will not solve the problem. Your physical presence here may have started the process, but the link is now between the two realities themselves. Removing you from the equation so bluntly would only destabilize the connection, potentially accelerating the collapse. It would be like cutting the rope on a climber; it doesn't stop the fall."
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