Chapter Text
Carl has been through some shit, okay? Serious, ridiculous, funny, traumatic- a real buffet of shit. He thinks of himself as pretty damn tough, not much can make him uncomfortable or even nervous anymore.
He feels like he’s lived 300 years instead of just 21.
But this? Getting pulled out of his universe and into this office-building-like environment that apparently exists outside of time for some dude’s little mission idea for him?
He wonders if he’s actually dead and this is the afterlife. If so, he feels awful for what Peter’s had to endure for the last two years.
Thank god he still has his nanite suit on. That’s his first thought when he wakes up in the dim room, groggy and disoriented.
They’d zapped him with something that Karen didn’t recognize and couldn’t come up with a counter-attack for before they shoved him through some portal and he’d woken up here.
“What the fuck did you do to me?” Carl asks the empty room, standing up from where he’d been sitting at a table. The room was reminiscent of a questioning room, like from the crime shows he’d seen. “Karen, where am I? Who took me?”
“I am unable to access many of my databases, including location services. I am unsure where you are.”
“Fuck,” Carl says, breathing hard. “All I heard those guys say was that they worked for the TVA. What the hell is that?”
Maybe the TVA is a secret government agency and he’s finally, finally been caught.
A man enters the room, the lights flicking fully on and Carl stands at attention. He holds up his arm, the arc reactor firing up in preparation to shoot. “Who the fuck are you and what do you want?”
“Woah, woah,” the man chuckles, holding his hands up. Two armed guards walk in behind him, standing ominously on either side of the doors. “No need for any of that. You’re safe here.”
Carl doubts that. He doesn’t move. “Tell me who the fuck you are and what this place is or I’ll start shooting. And trust me when I say you won’t be able to stop me.”
“I go by the name of Paradox,” the man says, taking a seat across from him. “And oh yes, I know just how dangerous you are. It’s part of the reason I brought you here.”
Carl doesn’t let down his arm. “If you knew some of the things I’ve done, you wouldn’t have tried this.”
“Please, Mr. Grimes, have a seat. I just want to have a conversation.”
Carl looks around again, realizing he doesn’t have a choice unless he wants to fight his way out of this. And he doesn’t even know where he is and he’s disconnected from everything that could help him. So killing everyone in sight might not be the smartest move.
Something in him is saying this may not be dangerous, just disorienting. Could even be… interesting.
“You’re here at the TVA, the Time Variance Authority,” Paradox explains. “We act as a surveillance team, really. Except we’re more lighthearted than that with more of an… ironic twist of sorts.”
Carl lets his helmet retract, cocking his head to the side.
“Ah, there you are,” Paradox says with a pleasant smile. “Didn’t expect you to have your hair tied up so nicely on your head. You seem quite unthreatening without your mask, I must say.”
Carl narrows his eyes, tilting his head. “What?” He always has his hair tied up in a messy bun when in the suit, it’s the only way his long hair will sit comfortably in his helmet.
He can’t help that his hair looks soft and two wisps always fall down to frame his face. Not his choice.
Paradox waves him off. “No matter, moving on. We’re in charge of defending what’s known as The Sacred Timeline. Which in turn means we have to make sure all timelines are in order for the most part to ensure everything is going as fate would have it.”
“What’s any of this have to do with me?” Carl asks. This all sounds absurd, but something in him is saying that it’s true.
“The million dollar question,” Paradox says, looking far too pleased for Carl’s liking.
“What’s your deal?” Carl asks.
Paradox stands up, motioning for Carl to follow as he walks towards the door. “Come, walk with me and I’ll show you.”
Carl lets his helmet back up before following him out to an elevator. It opens up into a room busy with the sounds of an office. Before them lays a catwalk that leads to a workstation covered in buttons and screens playing various videos of… the Avengers? From years ago?
“The Time Variance Authority exists outside of the constraints of time and space,” Paradox explains as they get to the workstation. “We have the power to undo anything, erase timelines, expel individuals from history, manage time travelers and things of the sort and even put them on trial.”
Carl can barely believe what he’s hearing. “That’s insane. So you’re like… gods?”
Paradox laughs. “Oh no, not at all. Just protectors or… preservers, I guess you could call us.”
Carl watches the screens for a moment “Why did you bring me here?” He puts his mask down again to look at Paradox face to face.
“I have personally been surveilling you for quite some time. I brought you here, Mr. Grimes, to tell you that you’ve been chosen for a higher purpose. You are special, for reasons unknown even to me. You are a multiversal anomaly.”
Carl cocks his head to the side. “What the hell does that mean?”
Paradox smiles, turning around and pressing a button that changes all the screens to different scenes involving Carl and… Peter. It feels like a knife to the heart.
Carl walks closer, eyes trailing from screen to screen in an almost trance. One screen shows the two of them sitting in Peter’s bedroom back in high school. The next shows them older, working in a lab together. Another shows them… holding each other and crying?
He quickly turns away before seeing any more. “Why are you showing me this? If you’ve been watching me like you say, then you know what happened to Peter. In my… timeline, at least. And what I’ve been doing ever since. So I don’t fucking understand what any of this means.”
Paradox holds up his hands defensively. “Woah, no need to get upset. My apologies. In hindsight, this was a little insensitive. I’m showing you this because one of the two reasons that you’re an anomaly is your existence being so closely tied to Peter Parker in every single universe the two of you exist in together. There’s no other known cosmic soul ties quite like the one between the two of you. ”
Carl waits for him to continue, crossing his arms over his chest with a metal clang of his suit.
“Peter Parker is very important to the TVA and to The Sacred Timeline. To many timelines, in fact,” he continues. “I’ll elaborate more on all of these things later. But now- allow me to cut to the chase. I brought you here to offer you an opportunity.”
Carl is reeling from seeing those videos that are apparently from… another universe? And now from learning that Peter is important. On a fucking cosmic level.
And that he and Peter are… soul tied? Across the multiverse?
The multiverse was one of Peter’s favorite topics to chatter about. If he was here right now… Carl pushes the thought out of his mind before it can hurt too much.
“I’ve been watching you, and many other versions of you, for a very long time now, searching for the one Carl Grimes who might be fit for the job I need him for,” Paradox says. “And you- you’ve had quite an interesting run these past two years.”
Carl glares. “And what about it?”
“After what happened to Peter Parker, you ran wild,” Paradox says, that giddiness returning to his face. “Using your skills to build your own, very impressive might I add, nanobot suit and unleash your wrath upon the rest of the world in unforeseen grotesque ways. Even Tony Stark himself hasn’t been able to stop you.”
Carl huffs an angry breath. “I only kill the people who fucking deserve it.”
Paradox grins. “And that’s why I have chosen you.”
“Chosen me for what?” Carl growls. “You better fucking tell me or just send me back.”
A graphic appears on the screen showing a line shrinking back in on itself surrounded by several swirling tendrils.
“This is your universe. Earth-2335,” Paradox explains. “This is what happens when a universe dies. It just slowly withers out of existence until poof- gone.”
“What?” Carl yells. “My universe is fucking dying? Why? How do we stop it?”
“Stop it?” Paradox says with a chuckle. “There’s no way to stop it, Mr. Grimes.”
“But why? Why is it happening?”
“Like I said, Peter Parker is an extremely important being across all the universes he’s a part of. In several, including yours, he is the Anchor Being.” He points at the screen again. “This is what happens when a universe loses their Anchor Being. See how it decays from the inside? This is how a reality dies.”
“What’s an Anchor Being?” Carl asks, even though he’s pretty sure he can guess.
“An Anchor Being is a being of such vital importance that their death sets off the beginning of the end, so to speak,” Paradox explains. “When your Peter Parker died, your universe started to die.”
Carl is in shock. He hasn’t felt any emotion besides pain and anger in a very long time, but there’s a small nudge at his heart right now that he stamps down.
“I have been tasked with overseeing the end of your universe and regardless of what the higher-ups prefer, I will not waste my time watching it die slowly of natural causes over the course of a couple thousand years like these sort of things normally go,” he explains. “In the past, dying universes were pruned. Quick, efficient, elegant. But the TVA doesn’t like to do that anymore because of morals and interfering with fate or some other odd reasons. And no matter what my superiors say, I do have the power to make these kinds of decisions. I will no longer be a mere babysitter, I will be a mercy killer.”
“So you’re going to kill my universe?”
Paradox wrinkles his nose. “It sounds icky when you put it that way, but sure. It will be better this way, trust me.”
Carl uncrosses his arms. “And you need me for…?”
“To work for me,” Paradox says. “I’m giving you a choice. You can either go back home to your sad depressing life where you choose to have no one and nothing. Or you can repurpose yourself here, working for me. For the TVA.”
“So I’d be like your assistant? In killing these dying… universes?” Carl asks, trying to wrap his head around it.
“Among other things,” Paradox says. “We will use what’s called a Time-Ripper, an accelerant. My team is working on getting one working as we speak. Once completed, it will allow me to destroy the matrix of your universe. You see, I don’t want to work for the TVA. I want to be the TVA. And the first step involves showing this organization how much more efficient it can become. I will be giving your universe a swift and compassionate end. No one will feel a thing.”
May. Ned. MJ. Tony. Negan. Happy. Even Shane. Even if Carl isn’t capable of feeling things like love anymore, Peter loved them all in some capacity.
“Look, Mr. Grimes,” Paradox says, folding his hands together. “You can either rejoin your universe and collectively cease to exist in 72 hours or so. Or you can join me here, and end your days of insignificance and do something that really matters. Someone like you can make a huge difference here, to me, to the TVA, and to the entire multiverse.”
Carl looks at the device that’s been in Paradox’s hands this whole time, he used it to display things from different universes and timelines on the screens. From what he can see, that device can also be used to travel. It’s what the soldier had in his hand when he made the portal appear before dragging him through. He’d clicked something on it.
“I’ll do it,” Carl says, eyes snapping back up to his face. “I’ll work for the TVA.”
“Wise choice,” Paradox says with a satisfied grin. “Now- let’s get you set up with a workspace and a new suit-”
Carl shakes his head. “This is my only suit, I make my own stuff.”
Paradox wrinkles his nose, looking him up and down. “It’s just so…. dark.”
Carl looks down at himself. His sleek, completely midnight black nanite suit. “It’s stealthy, it works. It does a hell of a lot more than any suit you can make me possibly can. That’s good enough, isn’t it? I thought you wanted me for my skills. This suit is a showcase of them.”
“True, but maybe one day I can convince you to modify it’s aesthetics,” Paradox says. “No matter now.” He starts clicking away at his device.
Carl needs to act now if he’s going to take this chance. If that device isn’t what they used to travel to his universe and he’s wrong… this is really going to fuck things up for him. He knows there’s armed guards back by the elevator and they have several more at their disposal. And he really has no idea what they’re capable of.
And would what he’s thinking even fucking work? Would a different Peter stolen from another universe fix his?
Can he even deal with facing a different Peter Parker? Letting the wrong Peter Parker walk into his universe and practically take his Peter’s place?
Whatever. He doesn’t have a heart anymore, he can do this. He’s had his emotions shut off for two years and that’s not changing now. Even if he has to look the wrong Peter in the face and hear his voice.
It’ll be perfectly fine.
He has to try. The little voice in his head that keeps him from going completely off the rails that sounds annoyingly like Peter won’t let him not try this.
He can’t let May die, most of all.
Well, now’s not the time to start doubting his intelligence or his gut feelings. They’ve never let him down before. He lunges forward to hit the device out of Paradox’s hand, looking down at it.
“What the-?”
Carl punches him square in the face. “I have a better idea.”
“Wh- you broke my fucking nose!” Paradox says, motioning for the guards.
Carl knows they’re coming up behind him, letting his suit’s back expand into several blasters, still looking down at the device and trying to learn its controls. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you. You’re fucking with someone you apparently don’t understand at all. I’m starting to wonder if you really have been watching me all this time.”
“I- I have!” Paradox shrieks. “I just thought you’d want this! You don’t care about anybody- what are you even doing?”
“It’s kind of- what was that word you used earlier? Icky? To think I’d be down just to be your pawn to use. Do I strike you as the type?” Carl asks with a laugh. “Fuck that. I’m off to find you a Peter Parker to throw into my universe to keep it from dying. And once I bring him to you, you’ll fucking put him there or I’ll make you.”
“That’s not how- what are you thinking?” Paradox yells as Carl selects a random Earth variant and Peter’s name.
It opens a large rectangular portal in the air just to the right of the catwalk and he jumps into it before anyone can come after him.