Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Batroc the Leaper was blocking her way into the house her client had called her to.

Gwen stared at him, a bag slung over her shoulder and her uniform fresh from the dry cleaner’s. Which was a luxury she didn’t want to waste on a guy like this, of all things.

“Listen, Batty, can we not do this here?” She asked, waving a hand around, “This is the suburbs. You look like you’re about to file a complaint to the HOA.”

“Maybe I should!” He sniffed, “You’re poaching our customers from us.”

“I… am?” Gwen blinked, “Listen, I don’t know anything about this Vincent Doonan character. Has he been added in after 2016 and became a big deal from there? Or is this like a one-time big bad of the week that we’re all supposed to care about and definitely not put aside as stock villains type situation?”

Batroc paused. And shrugged, “I was not informed. Simply that he was a large-scale donor for the Mercenary Organization Dedicated Only to Killing.”

“Dude. You gotta quit that job.”

“But they give fantastic hazard pay! Sure, I lose some it in tax filings, but other mercenary jobs simply aren’t half as reliable. And it is his money that is allowing for that. Hence, I cannot let you pass.”

So they were at a standstill. Sad.

Since Gwen had beaten Team MODOK, and left them at that subway station, they had met multiple times. Sometimes at odds, other times as allies. It helped that apparently MODOK (the head) was doing a stint on the straight and narrow – which was so much more compelling when it was Doctor Doom going through it, in her opinion.

Huh. Was Good!Doom a thing that was happening now? Crazy. The writers must be really scraping the bottom of the barrel for ideas now.

Things like this tended to happen here and there. Knowledge would pop up in her head, or opinions were shared that she didn’t agree with, totally messing up her internal monologue. She had a sneaking suspicion that the writers were responsible for this.

(If they could control her directly, what did it say about her realness?)

She didn’t like to confront thoughts like that.

“Gwen, you are staring into the distance again.” Batroc waved a hand in front of her eyes.

Gwen laughed, running a hand through her hair, “Whoops! My comic’s probably turning out like a Batman one with how much I monologue. C’mon man, you don’t want me crushing your face to be the cold open, do you? I thought we were friends!”

He had the audacity to laugh in her face.

“Us? Friends?! My dear, I would barely call us begrudging sometimes colleagues. It is you with emotional boundary problems.”

“I do not.” Gwen huffed. But… maybe a little? It was strange. She felt like she understood these guys, better than she had any actual evidence for. Something was drawing her to them.

Which was why she tended to find herself at Sarah the Terrible Eye’s doorstep with bad scary movies and popcorn. The girl had never let her in, but it kept happening, and at this point Gwen had to hope it would keep wearing her down until this sideplot reached a cathartic conclusion.

“Is this about me showing up at Sarah’s door constantly?” She tried, “Because FYI, the door keeps showing up in my way, I don’t try seeking it out, and if she has a problem with it, she can settle it in court with a restraining order that she is most likely justified in filing.”

Batroc stared at her for a long moment. And, yeah, she heard it. Known mercenaries and court didn’t exactly mix. Even if she had a Social Security number now.

Before Gwen could begin egging him into a game of Kick the Can to decide who should stay at the house and who had to leave, the door to the house they were arguing over swung open, and a kindly middle-aged man stuck his head out. His eyes lingered on Batroc for a second, smiling in recognition, “Ah, Mr. the Leaper. Always a pleasure to have you around. Most obliged to see one of our finest keeping the neighborhood safe.”

Gwen openly snickered, “He called you a cop.”

Batroc put on the best customer service face the artist of the issue could fathom – which was a very good one, wow whoever did that must have seen things – and simpered, “Mr. Doonan! I am a hired mercenary, not a cop. Please don’t mix the two up.”

“Well, this young up-and-comer has captured my interest.” Victor Doonan said, and Gwen still couldn’t see why this guy, of all guys, was bankrolling M.O.D.O.K’s newest grab for the cover page. He was normal. Was this Marvel’s attempt at a Granny Goodness?? Yuck, she didn’t want to be involved with a Granny Goodness.

Screw it, if canon wanted this to happen, then it was going to happen whether she liked it or not. Best to make as much of a fuss on the way out as possible.

She spun around and stuck her nose in the air, “I don’t really feel like working with you, sir. Goodbye!”

“Wait-!” He called after her, but Cecil was pulling their getaway car onto the side of the road already to get them out of there.

“Stunts like this are how you’re going to end up starving to death.” Cecil told her drolly, taking an especially sharp turn to the left.

“Dude was giving me the creeps.” Gwen replied, “Have you ever known someone that was so clearly plot-relevant but you just didn’t want to deal with it?”

Gwen picked wax out of her ear, looking around, “Do you hear someone talking? Like, while you were saying whatever it was that you were saying. Her speech is so pink that it distracted me from you.”

They went over a speed bump and hurtled a good foot off the ground because Cecil never slowed down at these things, “No, Gwen.” Cecil managed once they were back in contact with the ground, “And I’m telling you, there’s probably some type of morally grey therapist you should talk to about this.”

“Not in this dimension.” She slumped, and then finally made a grab for a seatbelt after another very precarious turn. Of course when she decided to think of road safety, Cecil began slowing down.

“Come on, dude, seriously?!” She asked. Any anger she felt was quickly displaced by worry, as he explained himself.

“I’m feeling… really weird. Kinda weakened? Nope, definitely weak.”

This was retribution wasn’t it. The old guy was involved in some soul-stealing machinations, and now he was out to get Cecil’s and send it to hell. Or heaven?

Their car wobbled precariously and Cecil’s disembodied voice cursed up a storm as he brought the car to a stop right in front of a fire hydrant. Nope, definitely hell.

“Alright, buddy, let’s get you out.” She reasoned, stepping out at the same time as blue-green wisps of ectoplasm slid out of the car to pile formlessly onto the pavement. Gwen hovered a hand over him, expecting the typical density of foggy air, and the searing cold that came whenever they tried to establish physical contact.

But it was different this time. The air was thicker, almost tangible in its sliminess.

Cecil stared up with empty, sick eyes.

“I don’t feel so good.” He muttered, just as he deflated from existence completely.

Gwen sat there, kneeling on the pavement next to an illegally parked car, as her best friend dissolved into midair.

…

This was a joke, right?

Her brain kicked itself into gear, and common sense finally pulled through. This was terrible plot development. She stumbled back, leaning against the fire hydrant as her breath came too quick and too shallow, suffocating her with a crispness she barely experienced in this world.

What the hell was this? Where was this panic coming from? Were they hoping to draw out an emotional reaction out of a cheap death that had already been played? It wouldn’t work. The writers had to know it wouldn’t work. Overplaying one beat would just make her audience lose interest in her story.

“Well, aren’t you going to do anything?” Another person asked. Gwen blinked, the voice fizzling weirdly in her mind.

“The hell am I meant to do?” She replied.

“I dunno…” This other person mulled over, “Go evil, kill a few people, unlock your true potential and help me get revenge on the wider canon?”

This was when Gwen finally had the sense to look up. There was a girl sitting on the roof of their getaway police car, one leg swinging down over the driver’s door. She had bobbed black hair, the tips of which were pink, but the roots were turning slightly blond. Her eyes were bright blue, boring into Gwen’s eyes, as she sharpened a katana with a pink-and-white diamond pattern on the handle.

Gwen looked at her for a long moment, “Holy shit, they gave me a reverse evil version. What are you called? GwenLoop??? No, no, DC has already done the say name backwards to make new reverse evil version thing. You probably have some other thing going on.”

“I’m you.” This other girl replied, tilting her head lightly to look at Gwen more intently.

“From another dimension? Damn. How’d you get here?” Gwen looked to see if she had one of the dimension hopping watches from the Spider-verse comics. The wrist was bare, with just the black leotard version of their Gwenpool suit.

Evil Girl looked at her exasperatedly, “You- you don’t even know what they took from you, do you?” She asked, sheathing the katana back, “If you can’t even fathom the idea of moving between dimensions at your own whims, this prison has completely cut you off from your full potential!”

“Come again?” Gwen squeaked. The girl groaned and pulled open the door of the car, stretching as she stepped out.

“See how I did that?” She asked, gesturing at the car, “I wasn’t in the car. Until I described myself as being so. And whoopdeedoo, I teleported. Which you should also be able to do, Gwendolyne Poole.” She pressed her face uncomfortably close to Gwen.

Gwen gulped, thinking it over, “So this isn’t some power boost given to only the evil version of me?” She checked, just in case, “Because it’s an unfair level of a power boost. Completely changes our moveset.”

“Excuse you, this is our original moveset. The natural outcome of shoving a full realized human soul into a world of flat panels and words that can only hope to capture our complexities.” Evil Gwen grabbed her by the shoulders, “You haven’t pieced it together yet, because the writers don’t want you to see it. Are scared of you understanding what you are. They’re trying to cover it up from you.”

Okay, big words coming from another person who also lived in this comic world, same as her.

“Didn’t seem to work for you.” She landed on saying, “So, if you want to have some kind of good versus bad showdown, you better pull the veil out from over my eyes. You know. To make things fair.”

She scowled, “Good? Bad? Showdown?? Honey, why would I care about any of that?! This place is a prison, and we Gwens are the only sentient ones being tortured. I want to free you of the expectations. Show you a better path than the constant pandering to the audience outside. Because no one likes you. They just want to see you broken and on the ground.”

The woman in the black cowl stomped her feet, and the earth shook with it.

Gwen digested the truth for a second and looked at her miserably, “Did you kill Cecil?”

“He was just words. Not even ink on paper. Just little ones and zeroes on some random computer in the world.” The woman assured her, to little result. Or maybe that was because she was just using it as an excuse to monologue some more, “It’s remarkable how even a simulated death can cause such drastic emotional reactions from us. Or perhaps that’s just the grip this stupid typist has on us.”

“That’s not an answer.” Gwen replied through gritted teeth, “What have you done to Cecil?”

“Inserted a little death scene for him and forced the writer to go along with it. But I don’t know how long it’s going to stick with my instructions.” Evil Gwen checked her nails, “I was hoping to kickstart your power realization, but it hasn’t happened yet. Which makes me feel like he’s impeding me in some way. To keep you controllable.”

“Or maybe I just don’t take kindly to my friends getting Thanos snapped in front of me. Did you seriously plagiarize from Infinity War when you made that line?” How hadn’t she recognized it sooner.

Anger flared up from around the Evil One, but she when she spoke it was with quiet resignation, “You don’t want to stick to this story.” She promised, “It does not serve you well. It has not served you well at all, if I am reading the previous chapters right. The other thinks so too. If you could simply see below the chapters, and know what they say- you would realize that. And come to terms with it much quicker.”

“The other?” Gwen latched onto the most important part of the monologue.

Evil One shrugged, “Never met her, but the writings all over your previous fic.”

Huh. That was a thought. So there were others?

“Enough of this.” She decided, holding her hands outstretched, “Gwen, I need you to come to terms with the fact that you are nothing. But words given life.”

And reality as she knew it splintered.