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“Have you ever thought of it?” Tony asks suddenly.
Steve looks up from his sketch, frowning. “Thought of what?”
Tony shrugs eloquently, waving an arm around as if asking him to look at the workshop “Of them. The Writers. Of reaching them.”
Oh. Okay. They have had this conversation before. He supposes they will have it again, and again. Can’t blame Tony. The engineer’s default mode is fix – even if it is something neither he nor anyone in this world can possibly fix.
“We can’t, Tony” Steve knows how much it irks the genius to admit helplessness in this matter. His feelings aren’t much different, anyway. “Only Wade Wilson can cross the Fourth Wall, and he is far too unstable to trust with a mission like this.”
There was a plotline with that very premise, he knows. Fortunately, it is an Elseworld comic – an alternate dimension. None of them had to go through that particular disaster.
Tony smirks slightly, knowing where his mind has gone “Yeah… No one wants a replay of Deadpool Kills The Marvel Universe. Though at least it did end with him gutting those Writer bastards, so…”
Steve raises an eyebrow “I hate this at times, but not enough to pull a suicide attack on the Writers – not if it will take the entire world with it.”
After all, it isn’t like the Writers are completely puppeting them, 24/7. Off page, they are free to be themselves…
“I could build something” Tony muses “I really could. If I had to. if I really really tried to. Some way to break the Fourth Wall. A dimensional transporter that will take us beyond the Fourth Wall. Especially if we get Strange and Reed to join us on the design. I mean, Strange can mess with the Fourth Wall already, can’t he?”
“He can’t cross over” Steve points out “He can see what happens beyond, but it is not always completely accurate. Not even with the Eye of Agamotto.”
He has tried. More than once. Like Tony Stark, the Sorcerer Supreme is also obsessed with fixing whatever might be wrong – and this, oh God, this… This is most certainly wrong, if nothing else in the world is.
But even his powers have a limit. Especially in the world beyond the Fourth Wall. The Writers’ world.
“I could do it” Tony continues, unshaken in his confidence “It won’t be happening on page, the Writers won’t be able to interfere. I could build a transporter… Go over and…”
“And?” that is where these plans always get stuck, Steve knows.
He knows full well what his comrades are capable of. It is entirely possible – even likely – that one or the other of them would manage to find a way beyond the Wall. But if they do... Then what?
“What can be done? Convince the Writers to stop? Will we be able to? And if we do convince them… What happens? What happens if it all stops?”
Tony pauses “What d’you think would have happened if Doom had actually killed the Writers that time? You know, when he tried to teleport that zombie virus beyond the Fourth Wall?”
That… is an extremely troubling question, and one that Steve has asked himself over and over again. They are born of the imagination of the Writers – what happens if the source of that imagination is shut off?
Not just halted, as it is when one writer dies or is fired or something, leaving room for another to take over, but if it is all..just gone? All the Writers, and Readers, the fans, the collectors, the film actors, all who have brought their own facets into forming the Marvel Universe… If they were all gone?
He hopes they never have to find out.
“I mean… We won’t just blink out of existence or anything” Tony comments “Even if they nuke themselves out or something. A lot of worlds whose Writers are long dead is still around. Unfortunately”
Steve can’t help a slight smirk at that. Tony’s rivalry with Sherlock Holmes is only too well known. Especially once it came out both of them were played by the same actor in at least one of Holmes’ several on screen iterations.
“I think we are enough of… Our own selves to survive” he says. He is almost certain of that. “Me, you, Strange, the other Avengers… We are all Established Characters. We have become Real enough to continue even if we are cut off from the Writers by something like that. But the others… There are the new characters, or those who have never been all that popular… Will they make it? How many of them will make it if it comes to that?”
That question gives Tony pause. “I… They are still people, right?”
“Off page, yeah. But if the source is cut off… I don’t know, Tony. Even if there was a way to breach the Fourth Wall, I don’t know whether we can risk doing it – not unless we know for sure what it will do to everyone here.”
Tony sighs, turning back to the suit he has been fine tuning. On-Page, Tony Stark is forced to learn the same lessons over and over again, make the same mistakes over and over again, but the real Tony has learnt it for good. He may – well, he does – occasionally over reach and make blunders, but not as many as he once would have. And not as recklessly as he once would have.
The possibility of causing their comrades to be destroyed is enough to halt him on the topic of meddling beyond the Fourth Wall.
Just as well. Steve knows Tony might very well be capable of building such a device – but as for what could happen if they do cross over… No. Too risky.
“I just hate this” Tony admits, his voice lower than usual.
It is unusual for the genius to admit vulnerability – even before Steve. But of course, they are all pretty much on the edge now.
The new plotline is to be released soon, and there’s no telling what they may be written into next. Especially given the fact that the Writers seem to be going through a Grimdark phase.
“I mean… I do love parts of this, of course, the eternal youth thing is awesome” he admits with a grin, trying to cover for his slip.
Both of them have been created in the Sixties in the Writers’ world – but neither has aged a day since then. Tony Stark is still in his early thirties, Steve Rogers still in mid twenties (of course, for the latter he also has the Super Soldier Serum to thank, but then again…).
They will remain so, except perhaps for some forays into Elseworld arcs. They will not age, will not fade away.
They are heroes, gods of a new age, conjured to keep darkness at bay. And gods are forever in their prime. The gods and the demons. No one ages. Not here, in the Marvel Universe.
“But what they make us do…” Tony continues. The suit’s fists clench, echoing its wielder’s mood “The kind of things… Most of it doesn’t even make sense! If they do have to write us into one horror or the other, can’t they at least keep us in character? Is that quite so much to ask?”
Steve stays silent. When Tony gets like this, the only thing to do is let him rant till he gets it out of his system.
Of course, it is worse for Tony than it is for him.
Over the years, Writers have had him do some really stupid things, but they have never made him do anything actually evil – probably they daren’t. After all, he was created as the personification and/or guardian of the American Dream, and all the Writers are American…
They have never made him do anything evil, at least not without a very good excuse that absolved him of all responsibility. Same cannot be said for Tony.
He isn’t sure whether the Writers genuinely want to write Iron Man as a semi-villain or if they are actually twisted enough to believe the kind of things they have Tony do are what heroes can do and remain heroes. He is not sure which possibility is more alarming.
Tony rambles on for about ten minutes nonstop. When he has detailed everything he wants to do to the Writers if he ever got his hands on them and starts over again, Steve decides it is time to intervene.
“They don’t know we are real, Tony. For them we are just pictures and words on a page. They don’t know they are actually hurting anyone real. They don’t know we can feel.”
Tony slumps back against his chair
“I’m not sure whether that makes it better or worse. I mean…” he lets out a slightly hysterical laugh “We found the Gods. And the Gods are a bunch of comic book writers.”
Steve sighs. Not much you can say to that.
The phrase ‘The Gods Must Be Crazy’ takes on a new meaning for those who are on the wrong side of the Fourth Wall. People who have absolute power of life and death and more on them, people who have absolutely no idea of the power they truly wield… Children playing with hand grenades.
“They always bring things back to normal, though” he points out.
Not that ‘normal’ is much of a consolation. Not when it is the comic book version of normal, maintaining the Status Quo. But at least, it means that for all the horrible deaths that are visited on them, for all the ways they are twisted into idiots or villains or both, there are rarely if ever any permanent losses.
“They always bring us back home.”
He and Tony definitely have reason to be thankful for that. How many times has either of them been dead? Or one or the other of their comrades dead? If those losses were real… Steve can’t suppress a slight shudder at the very thought. Fortunately, Tony seems not to have noticed.
“Yes…” Tony agrees softly. Steve supposes his thoughts have gone in pretty much the same direction. At least partly. There’s no telling with Tony “I wish they’d let me keep the Extremis, though”
Steve manages to stop himself from saying what he thinks of that idea. That, at least, is one decision he is extremely grateful to the Writers for making, mandated return to Status Quo or not.
Tony glances at him, with a slight grin, knowing what he is thinking. Steve gives him a slight shake of the head.
No, they are not going to have that debate again. They’ve had it so often and so thoroughly that neither has any new arguments to bring to the table, but that wouldn’t stop them from being there all night jawing it over if they once get started.
Tony pauses, clearly wondering whether he should start it all the same, but finally decides against it. “I just…. Steve, d’you think… D’you ever find it tough to just, you know, leave on-page stuff on-page?”
He knows what Tony means. It is one thing to intellectually know whatever the Writers make you do – or make anyone else do – is not your responsibility. It is quite another thing to actually convince your heart of that.
“Sometimes” he admits “But never when it has something to do with you.”
That is what Tony needs to hear. He would have said that even if it was not true, but it is.
What is On-Page doesn’t count. That is the motto by which they all lead their lives. Or at least, try to. It doesn’t always take, no matter how much you may want to.
On Page stuff doesn’t count. You don’t carry over grudges. You don’t carry over relationships. No one gets blame – or credit – for whatever happens on page. Off-page is what matters. Off-Page is where they live. Where they are truly real.
The Writers’ plotlines can’t cover them 24/7. It’s just monthly, or in worst case scenarios, weekly. Just the duration of a few pages, which for them can cover hours or days. Or maybe just minutes. Time is unstable when you are on-page.
They have to act it out, they have to do it. They have to bear the scars – but the fault or credit is not them. It is on the Writers. They have to hold on to that. That mantra is the only thing keeping most of them sane.
On-Page does not count. Ever. Whatever the new plotline is, whatever they are written into this time, whatever they are written as this time, it does not change anything. It does not change anything off-page.
“We’ll deal with it” he says. “Whatever it is, we will deal with it. Together.”
“Together” Tony echoes, tossing him a mock salute. But there is no mockery in the eyes that meet his. Win or lose, they will do it as they are meant to, no matter what the writers may want to make of them. Together.