Breathe in. Breathe out. Center. Control. Focus. He had focus. Didn't he? He was focusing on this. It was important.

Everyone thought he was stupid. Everyone thought he was crazy, spouting off crazy-person nonsense about how everything they said and did being controlled by mystic authors who wanted nothing more than to see how far they could be stretched, bent and made anew.

He opened his eyes, and he grinned as he was met with the sight of himself...over and over. There had to be thousands of different versions, muttering to himself, some smaller, some larger, some cinematic, some poorly drawn. But they were all there; every Deadpool, in every form, every fiction, every canon, every comic book and every movie. He was there, he was real, all of him, every single one of him.

It was these moments, looking at the sea of red and black masks, that kept him sane. He knew that he was real, in a sense, and would be real for a long time to come; even after his particular story ended, there would be another. He wouldn't die; not really, not truly. There would always be another Deadpool, just like there would always be another Romeo, another Juilet, another Harry Potter. The written word was sacred; it would outlive them all, all the authors that wanted to bend them, twist them, change them and break them. They would never understand that what they did was so much more powerful than they realized; they didn't know what their words, their art, their ideas created.

Well, perhaps his particular author had it figured out. She seemed pretty perceptive.

"But once a word is written," he murmured softly, and the next words were echoed by all of him, thousands of whispered voices layered atop one another. "The author cannot undo it."

A shiver went through thousands of spines, and the Original -the big man, the first and only original Deadpool- walked up to him, his eyes narrowed through his mask.

"You're playing a dangerous game, letting your author write this," he said softly. Wade blinked at the Original and he sighed, pulling off his mask. His scars were silver, different than most of the others, and were thin, crisscrossing lines rather than gouged sores.

"I know," he said, equally soft. "But it's part of my story; probably part of hers too. For all I know, she has her own author."

The Original snorted, and Wade suddenly found himself slammed into the ground, a thick hand around his throat, several guns pointed at him. He gulped; healing factor or not, even one bullet or knifewound from the Deadpools around him and he would be gone. Not dead, no; his words wouldn't be written anymore. He simply wouldn't exist anymore.

"You should know better than any of us what kind of risk your taking; especially if your author does have an author. If they find out we know, we're all supremely fucked."

Wade gulped, and opened his mouth, a voice not his own escaping his own as he spoke. "Don't worry, Merc. I know what I'm doing. They'll never know."

The Original tilted his head to the side, looking slightly confused as he considered Wade. After a long moment of Wade thinking he wasn't going to leave this meeting alive -or at all, really- the pressure around his throat vanished as the Original stood up, dusting himself off.

"Be careful. Too many people already know about these meetings. We won't be able to have another for a while," he said, and a murmur went through the crowd, some wanting to argue, but all knowing better. The last Deadpool who challenged the Original was still hanging, skinned and bleeding, on one wall of the meeting room. Deadpools began disappearing, and Wade swallowed as they all vanished, one by one, until only he and the Original remained.

"So...are you going to kill me?" Wade asked. The Original laughed.

"No, kid. I just wanted to warn you to be careful...it won't do any good to get close to your author. It will only end badly, for the both of you."

Wade nodded slowly, popping his knuckles one by one as he thought. "I know. We're already too close. Just from her writing this, this part of me...she knows too much. We know too much. Why do we know we're not real?"

The Original snorted again. "Kid, just because we were written into existence doesn't mean we aren't real."

Wade opened his mouth to ask what the hell the Original meant by that, but he felt the tug in his gut that meant his world was calling hims back, and he sighed as he opened his eyes to the sight of his own apartment. It was surprisingly neat and tidy, and he was glad; he was absolutely exhausted, and all he wanted to do was crawl in bed and rest. Traveling through the Fourth Wall was never pleasant, and it always drained energy Wade knew he really didn't have to spare.

X0x0x0x0X

Odd things continued happening at Stark Tower as the weeks progressed. More video showed up of things being moved about Tony's workshop, the door to their room would open without anyone coming through late at night, the bed would dip and the two of them would part to allow for the space of one lanky scientist.

They were always asleep when it happened; it didn't matter if they stayed up hyped up on coffee or told JARVIS to wake them when the weird phenomena began to happen, they were always knocked out by the time the door opened, with no logical explanation as to why their brains had suddenly decided to shut down.

It was two weeks after the phenomena began that the notes began to appear.

The first one that appeared was short and nearly gave Tony a heart attack because it was written in a familiar, almost illegible scrawl. It was on their pillow, just between Steve and Tony, folded neatly on some weird, thick paper. It was simple, beautiful, and utterly impossible.

I love you.

Bruce, 11/03/31

Steve started hyperventilating when they read it, and Tony promptly fainted again. After that first note, however, more and more began appearing, and not just when they were sleeping. Some would appear in Tony's workshop, some in Steve's art studio, and even one in Peter's backpack. From what they said, Steve and Tony were told that Bruce had been transported to another dimension by that ray they had thought had killed him, and he was slowly trying to make his way back in a land that offered little in the way of technology.

Tony was ecstatic. He began throwing himself into trying to build a working portal machine, and every time one of Bruce's notes would appear, his heart would skip a beat. Steve spent more and more time in the workshop, just wanting to be near his husband as he worked on getting back the missing man that made them a perfect trinity.

Bruce was coming home.

A/N: Sorry for the horrendous wait my dearies. I had almost given up hope on this, but then bam, inspiration struck. Hope you like it.