eatsnutsandkicksbutts

[Fair enough, because this joke goes entirely over his head!]

You have some rich superheroes, don't you? Like that Stark guy with the company?

[His knowledge about Iron Man is just very slightly more than what he knows about the Hulk.]

The field will probably expand if people think there's money in it.
Though if you ask me, that's not the real draw. It's how interesting everyone's problems would sound to a first-year psych student. We'd make some fascinating case studies.

Oh yeah, Tony! Man, it's WEIRD that you guys don't have a Tony.

[ Some people are just so larger than life that you expect them to show up in as many alternate dimensions as possible! ]

and IDK, people are just people when you get down to it, right? Everyone has the same basic wants and needs, sometimes big fights with laser-wielding bad guys or anthropomorphic hippos just get in the way.

The story's more interesting with a hippo in it!

Well, maybe the timelines are a little off. He could be in college somewhere and no one even knows yet.

[He doesn't know about the whole, you know, Stark Family History, but even so! It could still be something like that! Otto does wonder about these things; it seems strange that his world is so comparatively sparse on superheroes compared to all the other ones with Spider-Men and Doc Ocks. Given how recently it all began, he's thought that perhaps they were just the beginning of some great change.]

oh, Hippo's a sweetheart! If he ever shows up here, I'll introduce you guys.

[ at this point it shouldn't be a surprise that she knows an anthropomorphic hippo! ]

oh my god that's even WEIRDER. COLLEGE TONY! Honestly, if that were the case I think he'd still be making headlines, dude's always been a mega-genius and he's never been quiet about it. But hey, maybe you guys just de-ice Captain America a couple decades later than usual, and things will go off from there!

Oh - that's the guy who they put a big round shield on the Statue of Liberty for, for some reason?
I saw that in the other universe.

[This is. Really all he's got on that one.]

What do you mean, de-ice him?

oh yeah, that sounds like him! I forgot you did some dimension-hopping before all this.

Dude was one of the first big superheroes, back in world war 2! He fell into the ocean sometime towards the end of the war and got frozen in a block of ice, and they didn't find him again 'til the 60s. Once he got thawed out, he went right back to doing his thing.

[ SUPERHERO COMICS, EVERYBODY ]

...that sounds like it would kill him, by my world's normal rules of operation.
But who knows? I'm still not sure how I'm not dead.

[Not even trying to be self-deprecating or something, just. Wow that was a lot of stuff that happened and then he just left the hospital and never got medical attention again! And then he got punched in the head a lot!]

[ Sam Raimi works in mysterious ways! ]

IDK, people are pretty sturdy, especially if they're super-folks. Plus, death is kind of a revolving door in my world. People have come back from a lot of stuff.

We really don't have that.
But maybe one day?

[After everything Otto's seen, he's not about to rule it out. Even if, from what he's seen back home, the mortality rate for everyone but Spider-Man is about what you'd expect. Flint wasn't supposed to make it out either, and he actually had real powers.

But it sounds like that only really applies to metas anyway. If Otto ever died, actually really died, and then had to come back...god, what sort of a life is that?]

That's a little disconcerting, if I'm honest.

Yeah, I really don't get how it works. It might be one of those 'my universe is just super weird' things.

[ Doreen has almost died a few times, none of which she likes to think about, but she's never full-out died and then made a return trip... but she's been in the superhero scene long enough to know that ~~comics are absolute nonsense~~ people coming back isn't unheard of. ]

Could be.
From what I know - which isn't much - the medical technology here can pull off some pretty impressive resuscitations. But nothing like really bringing someone back.

[Maybe resuscitating someone whose heart had stopped is sort of like that, depending on where you stand? That's all a little too metaphysical for Otto, though. Even though the literal Realm of the Dead in this world opened up not that long ago, he's really just. Tried to not think about that one, honestly.]

That doesn't surprise me, especially in Excelsior!

Apparently there's a guy here who looks like a golden Calvin Klein model and is super good at healing people, too

... although come to think of it, I think he's from my universe, that's another one chalked up to multiversal weirdness

Oh - yes, we spoke once! About my back issues, but there wasn't much he could do without a psychic and a technopath helping out, apparently. Too much of a mess in there.

[Back then, Otto had balked at the idea of having so many strangers doing something so invasive, especially when he's well aware that the slightest slip in the current equilibrium could kill him or worse. These days...well, he trusts David. The other pieces of that puzzle are more enigmatic.]

Man, I'm sorry they couldn't help out more!

... does he actually look like a golden Calvin Klein model though?? Loki's the one who mentioned him to me, and he has been known to exaggerate for dramatic effect

It was a professional setting.

But I can see it.

You know what, fair, in retrospect that was a weird question to ask!

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