Work Text
Ante Up
DD Barant
There are private rooms available in the Crossover, if you know the right person—or thoughtbot—to ask. Rooms where deals are made, parties are thrown, secret meetings conducted.
In one of these rooms was a plain round table covered in green felt.
Five beings sat around in it, in comfortable chairs designed to support weights of up to a ton.
Ben Grimm, AKA the Thing, was hosting his weekly poker game.
The only player from Ben’s home reality was Logan.
The others included a time-travelling pyromaniac and part-time author, a demon that worked for a covert government organization, and a version of Nick Fury from a universe similar to Ben’s but different in important ways.
Fury peered at him skeptically from his one good eye.
“Are you motherfucking kidding me?” he said.
“The Fantastic Four, that’s what you’re called?
What are you, a super-powered boy band?”
“Shut up and deal,” growled Heatwave.
“What’s your problem?” asked Fury, giving him a sidelong glance.
“I don’t like cops.”
“Never mind Heatrash,” Logan said.
“He’s just pissed because he can’t get his fancy flamethrower to work here like he wants it to. Not that it ain’t still useful—you mind, bub?”
Logan stuck a cigarillo between his lips.
“No problem,” Heatwave said, and shot him in the face.
Or tried to.
The flame that flickered from the end of the gun was just long enough to light the cigarillo.
Logan inhaled, blew out a cloud of smoke and grinned.
“Thanks.”
Heatwave glared at the gun, and fiddled with its settings.
“There’s got to be a way,” he muttered to himself.
“Ante up,” Ben said.
Hellboy dealt.
The cards were oversize, due to Ben’s large rocky mitts and the oversize armored gauntlet the demon wore on one hand—but when they hit the table they immediately shrank to normal dimensions.
"Anyway, I’m not a cop,” Fury said.
“Cops enforce the rules.
Me and rules don’t always get along.”
“I hear that,” Hellboy said.
“Government agencies with initials instead of names.
You think they’d be able to shorten some of the paperwork too, but noooo. . . .”
“I like paper,” Heatwave said.
“Burns real good.”
“I thought you wuz a writer,” Ben said.
"On the side,” Heatwave said.
“Stories are like fire.”
“Well, aren’t you the philosophical sociopath,” said Fury.
“We’ve all got stories,” said Logan, studying his cards.
“Nature o’ the game.
I’ll take two cards.”
“Three for me “ said Grimm.
“You got that right. Some of the stuff I’ve seen—you boys wouldn’t believe it.”
That brought a wave of disbelieving laughter and headshakes from the other players.
“Try me,” said Heatwave.
“I’ve been up and down the timeline, and I’ve seen things so strange they’d make your beard grow backward. One card.”
“I’m out,” said Fury.
“And yeah, I’m gonna have to call you on that one.
Time travel is just the tip of the weirdness iceberg.
Add alien civilizations, Asgardian gods and crazy-ass robots to that.”
“Dealer takes two,” said Hellboy.
“Me, all I’ve got to deal with is the occasional supernatural apocalypse threatening to unleash the hordes of Hell.”
“Nah, I’m talking real oddball stuff,” Grimm said.
“Negative universes, guys that eat planets for breakfast, shapeshifting aliens disguised as cows—“
Logan had remained quiet during this exchange.
When he finally looked up from his cards, he said quietly, “I’ll stick with what I got.
And I got a story that tops ‘em all.”
Everybody shut up.
Logan wasn’t much for telling stories—but when he had one to tell, it was always worth hearing.
“The multiverse is one helluva big place,” Logan said.
“No matter how warped or bizarre you think it can get, it always goes further.
You guys ever heard of Spider-Ham?”
“I hope you’re not talking about a lunch meat,” said Fury.
“Raise.”
“I’ll see your raise,” said Logan.
“Version of Spider-man from an alternate universe.
A cartoon universe.
Think about that for a moment.
All the goofy, impossible stuff you’ve ever seen in a cartoon is just life as usual there.”
“But that’s just the start.
There are realities that imitate other mediums, too.
Movies, books, video games—even toys.
“And of course, sooner or later, there’s always someone in one of these realities that figures out the existence of all the others.
And is smart enough or crazy enough to try to contact ‘em.
“In my reality, it was a guy called Doom.
“Oh, cripes,” Ben said.
He tossed his cards down.
“I’m out.”
“For those of you who haven’t heard of him, Doom’s a triple threat.
Genius-level scientist, world-class sorceror, and has the resources of a small country at his disposal.
When he’s not building time-machines or robot duplicates of himself, he likes tryin’ to conquer the whole universe.
Done it once or twice, too.
“But one reality must of seemed like small potatoes, because he starts thinking about the multiverse and all those different versions of reality that exist.
He starts thinking about how they must all be connected.
And he comes up with what he calls the Multiverse Marketing Schematic.
“See, it’s all about stories.
An epic story—one with heroes and villians and big stakes—sends out ripples across the multiverse.
All these other versions of the story and its characters pop into existence.
“Doom figured out how to track these ripples.
He figured out how they connected to each other—and how to siphon that energy so’s he could use it himself.”
Ben grunted.
“So what.
Typical Doomsy, so far.
He’s always got some kinda crazy plan to turn himself inta God—“
“This time was different,” said Logan.
“Think about the initial story, the one that kicks everything off, as a comic book.
Successful enough that it gets picked up by Hollywood, turned into a blockbuster: lots of special effects, Hollywood stars, box-office dynamite.
It’s a huge sucess.
It spins off a cartoon series.
The cartoon series generates a line of toys.
The toys split off into different collectible versions of themselves.
Back up the merchandising line, there’s a video game, a clothing line, a breakfast cereal.
“But remember Spider-Ham.
Somewhere in the multiverse, all these versions of things are real.”
Heatwave frowned.
“I have some experience in fiction coming to life, so I think I see where this is headed.
You’re saying somewhere out there, there’s a breakfast cereal version of me?”
“Of all of us, bub. And versions of all the bad guys, too—
including Doom.
And he’s smart enough to know that when he flips the On switch on his machine, a whole buncha other Dooms are gonna do the same thing.
So he’s careful.
He tunes the gizmo so it only taps into the lesser versions of reality—the toy and cartoon and preschooler-kid’s book variants. Figured they’d be easier to handle.”
“I take it Doom don’t have a lot of experience with kids,” said Hellboy. “Dealer folds.”
“Not so much,” said Logan.
“What blasted outta that machine was . . . really, really fucked-up.
“See, a buncha those Dooms had the same idea.
They tapped into realities further down the same scale.
And those realities did the same . .
Hellboy scratched the stump of one of his severed horns with an armored finger.
“So how far down do those dimensions go?”
Logan shrugged.
“Pretty far.
What I know is that Doom wound up battling versions of himself that were so weird it almost drove him nuts.
But the worse part of it was the damage to his ego.
Knowing those things even existed—and that other people might find out—was something he just couldn’t take.
Lucky for him he’s got a time machine—he went back and had a long talk with himself, prevented it from ever happening.
I mean, what self-respecting supervillain is gonna let it be known he had to fight a sentient pair of Underoos with his face on ‘em?”
There was silence around the table for a moment.
The burst of laughter that followed it was deafening—from everyone but Heatwave, who stared at Logan until the noise died down.
“Wait a minute,” he said.
“I’m an old pro at time travel. If he prevented any of that from ever happening, how do you know about it?
I call—on your hand and your story.”
Logan smiled.
“I been around a while, bub.
Got friends in all sortsa places.
Some of those friends keep tabs on guys like Doom, especially when he starts messing around with time and the multiverse.”
Logan laid his cards down on the table; he had a full house, kings over queens.
“Some of ‘em play poker, too.
And it’s amazing the kind of things you hear during a friendly game, don’t you think?”
Heatwave glared at Logan, then tossed his cards into the air.
He grabbed his flamethrower and turned them to ash before they had time to fall.
“At least it’s good for something in this place,” he growled.
“Looks like we need another deck,” Logan said as he collected his winnings.
“And some more beer.
Next round is on me. . .”
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