(Park Slope, Brooklyn)
In the all-out brawl between the forces of Order and Chaos, Captain America lunges at Chaos and goes to punch him. Chaos sarcastically feigns fear only for Captain America’s arm to start fraying, as if it were made of fabric. He is shocked to see numerous tendrils coming off it and Chaos simply laughs at his fortune.
(Dr. Chip Dipson’s home, Park Slope)
Chip and his daughter Diane are talking to Spider-Man, Sonja and Jennifer. Chip looks intrigued and asks them if they think the fact the threads of reality are coming undone has something to do with a teddy bear. Sonja tells him it sounds ridiculous but SHIELD has attacked them twice now to get hold of the bear. Chip picks up the small purple bear and holds it up high. Staring at it curiously, he says that a spider doesn’t spin webs from its wrists but here they are. He suddenly catches sight of the demonic reflection of Mr. Dapples in the mirror and yells in shock, dropping the teddy.
On the street, Order senses Mr. Dapples is near and telepathically contacts Deadpool, whilst an alternate Iron Man stomps nearby. Deadpool is currently attacking a Carnage-covered Silver Surfer, who in turn is firing energy rays at Longshot. Order tells Deadpool to stop what he is doing, as he is implanting another location in his mind. He is told to go to the address and retrieve the teddy bear and to do whatever is necessary to complete the job. The brainwashed Deadpool repeats back to order that he is to kill everyone there and take the teddy bear. Longshot overhears Deadpool speaking and chases after him, determined not to let him hurt the girls.
In Chip’s lab, he is examining Mr. Dapples with a scanning device as everybody else watches. Chip tells the group he is picking up some interesting stuff, as he looks to the various monitors around to see images of a demonic dog-like creature instead of a teddy bear. Staring at his results, he declares that Mr. Dapples is actually Miss Dapples and she is a corrupted and altered cosmic cube. Chip theorizes that the splitting of the cosmic cube into a half mirror world demon and half real teddy bear is something to do with the splitting of the In-Betweener. The In-Betweener exists in a realm between fact and fantasy, power and weakness, and good and evil. When he ruptured, he must have split the cube too, turning it into a teddy bear and a mirror demon. Chip continues and says if he could rig up something to join the two halves of Miss Dapples and de-corrupt her back into a cube then that might stop the universe coming apart. It might not though, but since he isn’t doing anything else right now it is worth a try.
Outside, Deadpool sprints down the street with Longshot not far behind. Johnny, the barber Longshot met before he warped reality, suddenly appears and hurls a pair of scissors at Deadpool. Deadpool tells them both that he doesn’t have time to physically or verbally spar with them right now. Longshot begins to warn Johnny about throwing scissors but he inadvertently gets struck by them, causing him to have a vision.
Longshot sees himself standing on a street holding a cosmic cube. Nearby Johnny and Arthur, the barbers, watch as a man walks out of their shop. The man doesn’t know how he was teleported from his film set in Dubai but he just got the best haircut he ever had. Arthur tells Johnny that it is going to change everything for them.
Longshot snaps out of it and continues his chase of Deadpool. In Chip’s lab, a news report plays on the TV about a plane that crashed because it started to unravel like a ball of string. As Chip and Spider-Man work hard on a piece of machinery, Chip tells the superhero that he was kidnapped by Doctor Octopus once. He wanted him to help him build a trans-dimensional octo-space ship thing. But he sabotaged it and it blew up on the launch pad and Doc Ock thought it was his fault. Spider-Man turns and looks at Chip hard for a few seconds and then turns back to working on the device. He thanks Chip, who tells him he was just doing his duty and he is glad the guy is dead now. Chip says the cosmic cube fixer thing should boot up now but it isn’t. He asks if Spider-Man has all the circuits correct.
Outside, Deadpool punches Longshot, who returns the favor. He then kicks Longshot and crashes into a boarded-up shop and gets another vision. He sees a man and a woman standing in their own barber shop, staring out across the street at a newly-opened shop. The woman says that they have had their salon for ten years and now some hipster barber shop has swooped in across the street. The man says they are going to have to sell the place, that’s if anyone will even buy it.
Longshot recovers from his vision to see Deadpool walking off. He jumps towards him but Deadpool swings round and slashes him across the chest with his sword. Longshot falls to the floor, clutching his chest as blood pools around him. He suddenly gets numerous visions of himself using the cube to help people out but also cause other people misery.
At the fight, Magneto rides on the shoulders of a giant Doombot whilst singing a song. Chaos points out that Charles Xavier is dead in this timeline, causing Magneto to blow up the Doombot in anger. At Chip’s place, Jennifer looks at her finger to see it is starting to fall apart like string. Kneeling on the floor outside, Longshot says he just wanted to help, as Deadpool walks up the stairs to Chip’s front door. Inside, the gang hear the front doorbell ring and Diane answers it and finds Longshot stood on the doorstep. He tells her Deadpool was brain controlled by Order and he was going to kill her, but the spell was broken by tacos. Behind him, Deadpool is stood next to a taco van, with his arms full of tacos.
Chip asks who was at the door and Diane shows him Longshot. She tells them he seems handsome and then corrects herself to nice. Spider-Man tells him the devices are going crazy and it seems he has quite an effect on the cosmic cube. Chip says it won’t be corrupted for much longer and they need to stick it in the machine, because it has suddenly started working again. Longshot kneels down in front of Jennifer and tells her he needs to take Miss Dapples because they have something important to do. He says that he doesn’t think she will see either of them again. Behind them, the demonic form in the mirror has now changed to look like a woman.
Outside, the sky has torn open and giant purple tentacles whip out and reach towards the city below. Order yells at Chaos and asks if he is trying to rip the universe apart. Chaos replies that it isn’t his doing and he is as scared of those things as he is. An injured Longshot appears behind them, holding a fully formed cosmic cube. He activates it and its power engulfs him, taking him apart piece by piece. As he is being deconstructed, he sees an image of a woman floating towards him, kissing him on the cheek.
Longshot looks around to find himself on Park Slope, but now the sky is blue and everything is back to the way it should be. He is also wearing a new costume but before he can take it all in he is called upon by the reformed In-Betweener. Longshot goes over to him and tells him he is ready. His luck has been ruining loves and he is ready for the In-Betweener to stop it and kill him. The In-Betweener stares at him for a few seconds and then takes off his hunting mask. Purple tendrils reach out from the mask and grab hold of Longshot. Before he can react, Longshot is transported to another plane of existence.
Amongst a cosmic landscape full of doors and planets, a giant In-Betweener holds Longshot on the palm of his hand. He tells the lucky one that he remembers everything that just went on. He has made mistakes of his own and he has been punished for them. But he is the In-Betweener and he is past and future. Already and never he has worked to correct his own crimes, hence the masks and the tasks that accompany it. Longshot is no longer a task, although he may or might have been. Longshot stares up at the colossal being and says he has no idea what he is saying.
The In-Betweener explains that Longshot and his fortune are part of the balance, just like every living and dead thing is. But interacting with the cube was very upsetting. Just as the mask hides him from entities that might envy his power, the cube hid from him. He did not realize it was involved and that is why he deemed Longshot had to die. Now he knows he was wrong. Somewhere, the cube exists and it evades his detection as it has probably realized its errors. The problem is solved but, if Longshot’s path should cross with it in the future, he advises against using it. Do so and they will meet again. He picks up one of the many doors floating around and brings it down to Longshot. Longshot opens the door and steps through into the real world again.
As he steps out, the door vanishes as if it were never there. He turns to see Santiago step out of a convenience store, holding up a scratch card. He is on the phone to his kid and he says that he just won three hundred dollars and is going to buy a plane ticket to see them. A radio news report says that Maria Hill, director of SHIELD, issued a statement saying that current programs are adequately dealing with magical threats and no improvement is needed.
Suddenly, two robbers on hoverboards whiz past Longshot, almost hitting him. They are being chased by police cars, but one of them crashes into a lamppost. The two cops get out and open the trunk. One of them tells his partner it is exactly the situation they should use this thing for. The other is unsure, as it is new and she has never used one before. Longshot goes up to them and asks if he can help, as he used to use one on his reality TV show. One of the cops looks around in surprise that he would use one of these on a reality show. As Longshot takes off into the air with the cop’s jetpack, he can barely believe it too.
