Gotham Flux
Disclaimer: I don't own Marvel or Dc Comics, nor any other property like Worm.
Chapter 1: A Boil in Reality
It was said that some places are cursed, some are blessed, and others are in between. Some are active, some are lethargic, but others are...restrained. For example this part swampy, but stable land with a scattering of decaying towns that could have been more. Long ago people came to settle it, long ago the ones who left angrily cursed it, and long ago a Sorcerer came to...fight its corruption before it could spread.
For this cursed land was over the root of a leyline, a vein of the world's life blood, and the potent curse infected the leyline itself. Forcing the Sorcerer to metaphorically tie it off, feeding into a kind of tied off pocket dimension, and constantly growing like a boil of pure unrealized potential. The circular nature of its containment made the very dimension feed into itself like a perpetual motion machine, always expanding and touching other unrealized possibilities long since faded, and taking it into itself. Growing ever bigger until one day it would detach, yet without a foundation it would sink and be destroyed in the tides between dimensions.
And where it grows the possibilities leak through to affect those who get too close, some have bouts of delusion of another life, and yet others are consumed by this delusion. Men like the Dr. Arkham who built an asylum that has since been abandoned, who even to this day some members of his family would come in order to be consumed by his obsession, and worse are the men who come in normal and exit as monsters…
But in all realities there are people who exist in some form, even if the form is older, younger, or even changed from what was known by different lines joining their own some time in the past. For example former SHIELD Agent Bryce Wainwright, once he could have carried a mantle whether it be of the Owl or of the Bat would have been up to birth and chance, but for now his story was over. Yet his legacy was about to pierce that which should have never been pierced…
____________________________________________________________________________
Note: And that is as far as I got before my raging writer's block and need to get things right got me in a chokehold.
Literally I have the idea in my head word for word, and when I try and write it down it derails nearly immediately. I had so many ideas for this one.
Basically the Marvel 616 copy gets infected with the DC history that changes so much, but in a cursed and dark manner. Then Tony Starken, a version of Tony Stark that created Mercy as a gift for his friend Lex Luthor, and who goes rogue after she discovers that Lex Luthor, Rhodey, and Gregory Stark betrayed and killed Tony.
Tony in this one managed to resist the desire to destroy, to shift his creations to become monsters of revenge, and chose to program them to become...better and give the world hope. His creations manage to save the dying universe by driving special rods into the place where Metropolis would have been alongside Catwoman who fired the satellite based rail gun, even though she was nearly killed by Thomas Bryce Wayneright. Who was Bruce Wayneright's older brother, who died in childhood, and of course this one helped his brother along to his death.
Basically opens up the other side of the Leyline Node that held the potential for good/blessings that the Sorcerer also sealed off to make sure the other side wasn't released. Said part had just detached and was being slowly destroyed by the area between worlds, causing the energy to escape into this infected universe and balancing out the damage, and then some of that energy from the dimensional sea also flows in and frees the One Above All and the One Below All who fix things from the mess the Goddess from the DC universe that had formed would of done.
So a more equally fused universe that would have the heroes of both DC and Marvel, the cities, and the aliens. With their adventures and such rippling and changing them in subtle or even blatant ways.
Like Luke Cage remembering his life as Power Man in the pre-Change era, but choosing to keep his new life as a empowered cop, and the family he had made. Which leads to him being a somewhat crooked cop who cheated on his wife multiple times, and ended up taking advantage of Jessica Jones and getting her pregnant. He ends up as the Commissioner of New York Police Department, he can help people and sometimes does, but is willing to look the other way if the crime isn't too blatant.
So yeah, many were given choices to steer their life back to pre-change with some differences, and others could choose their Post Change life if they felt it was better. Though again none of them would end up the same cause of changes...
