Story Note: I have tried to meld the different continuities of Hulk, Spider-Man, and Daredevil over the last 20 years into a single continuity. For the purpose of simplicity, I have ignored any obvious discrepancies (eg between the Toby Maguire Spider-Man storyline and the Amazing Spider-Man movies storyline and the Avengers continuity storyline). It's not 100% true to the movies, but was the only way to make this yarn work.
At the X-Men's mansion, Cyclops and Wolverine were having an earnest discussion with the world's leading authority on mutants, Professor Charles Xavier.
"Two powerful mutants have been detected with the help of Cerebro," said Charles, "I believe them to be brother and sister. One named Pietro has the power of moving faster than the eye can follow. The woman, Wanda has some sort of supernatural ability which even I cannot fully comprehend. Both were troubled, and I believed that we could have helped them. However, they became involved in a conflict between two fighting factions of the Avengers. The violence between their team continued and made it impossible for me to send any of you to approach these two mutants under peaceful circumstances."
"If you ask me, the Avengers have been going off the rails for years," said Logan, "Rumour has it that Stark even pulled Spider-Man into his spandex wars."
"Some humans think the same thing about us," said Cyclops.
"So why don't we go and find these mutants anyway, without waiting for peaceful circumstances, Bub?" said Logan.
"That is exactly what you mustn't do," said Charles, "because Cerebro has also detected an unknown mental force which has been accelerating conflict between many super beings, both human and mutant. I have been unable to find the source of this influence, but its presence is unmistakable. Even now, the members of the Avengers have called a meeting to attempt to resolve their differences If the X-Men go in with guns blazing and ask for a fight, we may destroy the only hope of a peaceful solution. I think we should go to Avengers headquarters with your abilities concealed as much as possible, and I will explain our desire to work with Pietro and Wanda. If the Avengers turn on us, we can defend ourselves, but we must not initiate a conflict."
So Charles selected a team of X-Men to accompany him, being Colossus, Cyclops, Wolverine, Storm, Rogue, Gambit and Nightcrawler.
Meanwhile, at the Avengers headquarters, the planned meeting of the two factions had taken a different turn.
"Before we decide what to do about our recent feud over whether or not to be allied with the government, I have another matter which needs the attention of all of us," said Tony, "If you have no objections, Steve."
"Be my guest," said Captain America, "It may even help to reunite us."
"Well call me paranoid, but I want you to look at some of the security footage collated by my computer after my many small camera satelites have been monitoring activities all over earth for the last 20 years. Some of them were set in place by people who took over my father's work. Look at these two sequences in particular," said Iron Man, using his touch screen controls to play the first recording."
"That's our victory celebration party after we stopped Ultron," said Hawkeye.
"Zoom and enhance," said Tony, as the computer obeyed his voice control, …. "Now isolate this man."
"He's an old war veteran, apparently," said Black Widow, "I was talking to him for a while."
"Funny, I never met him, before I got frozen," said Steve Rogers, "Sure looks friendly though."
"I thought he was behaving a little oddly, and had the computer search for other camera footage of him. Computer, run second sequence," said Tony, "I know it comes from our most troubled time, and don't want to wind anyone up, but you have to see this."
The Avengers watched a FedEx delivery man arriving at Tony Stark's door during the period surrounding their internal battle over signing with the government.
"That's the same guy!" said Clint Barton.
"Is it that unusual that a long retired soldier would take a job as a delivery man?" asked T'Challa, the prince of Wakanda, also known as Black Panther.
"Not so much in itself," said Stark, but I had the computer use facial recognition software on all old footage. This is the digital information age, where nothing, no matter how trivial, gets thrown away, unlike the days of paper files and photos. Just look at where he turns up. Computer, run remaining sequences in succession, isolating and enhancing all appearances of the FedEx man."
As the Avengers looked on in surprise, they saw footage from the year 2000, where the same man was running a hot dog stand on a beach, while most people's eyes were on Senator Kelly rising from the ocean as a mutant.
In 2002, the same man was captured on camera in the crowd reacting to a lengthy fight between Spider-Man and the Green Goblin.
In 2003, the same man was working as a security guard in the complex where Bruce Banner first acquired his gamma powers.
In 2004, the same man saved a woman from falling rubble, this time while Spider-Man was in combat with Doctor Otto Octavius.
In 2005, he was again delivering mail, this time to Reed Richards in the Fantastic Four's Baxter Building.
In 2007, he was filmed talking to Peter Parker in Times Square.
"Maybe it just means that he has trouble holding down the same job at his age," said Clint.
"But why is he always found near superhuman activity?" asked Stark, "Watch the rest, especially this next clip. Our post-Ultron victory party wasn't the only place he turned up."
In 2008, around the time the Silver Surfer and Galactus had come to earth, the man had tried to gatecrash the redding of Reed Richards and Sue Storm. Also that year, he was mistaken for Hugh Hefner as he walked along a red carpet, with ladies all around him.
"I'm sorry, Bruce, but this next scene might be particularly disturbing for you," said Stark.
The Avengers saw security footage lifted from a laboratory, where Stan drank soda mixed with Bruce Banner's own blood.
"Could that man have known what would happen to me, and been crazy enough to try to duplicate the Hulk effect?" asked Bruce.
"Or maybe he's really a vampire," said Clint.
"At another of my events, my Stark Expo 2 years later in 2010, he was mistaken for Larry King, somewhat reminiscent of his Hugh Hefner debacle," said Stark, "Computer, continue playing collated footage."
In 2011, the same man was working as a pick-up driver, right next to the spot where people were trying to lift Thor's hammer from the ground.
"First my blood, then Thor's hammer," said Bruce, "Is he after all our powers?"
"If you think his CV was interesting so far, watch this," said Stark, as the next clip was run before the dropping jaws and popping eyes of all of the Avengers: Also in 2011, the same man was seen in the audience of people honouring the newly defrosted Captain America, as an army general!
"How could he be in that role without Thunderbolt Ross or somebody smelling a rat?" asked Banner.
"I was so busy adjusting to your time period that I didn't even notice him enough to recollect his face years later at our Ultron celebration party," said Steve, "This is getting more serious by the second, Tony."
"Here's footage of him in a news report after the devastation of New York the first time we all teamed up in 2012," said Stark, "And here he is, that same year, in the library of your school, Peter, while you're fighting the Lizard."
"It's him alright," said Spider-Man, "although I was somewhat occuppied at the time trying to keep Curt Connors from trashing the library."
"And don't forget the nonesuch Hugh Hefner and Larry King," said Stark, "He's at it again in 2013 as a beauty pageant judge."
"When he's not selling frankfurt buns on the beach, guarding Banner's lab or delivering mail to Reed Richards and Tony Stark," said Black Widow.
"Maybe he has multiple personality disorder," said Stark, "It was my conclusion after watching this next clip."
The same man is seen in 2013 as a patient in a mental ward, while Jane Foster awaits Thor's return from Asgard.
In 2014, the same man is seen on a train around the time that the Agents of SHIELD began operating more openly.
In 2014, he appeared at the Smithsonian institute as a security guard again, while Captain America was dealing with the Winter Soldier.
Later that year he attended the graduation of Peter Parker and Gwen Stacy.
"But I wasn't there as Spider-Man," said Peter, "I thought you were the only one who had discovered my secret identity, Mr Stark."
"Yes, well he seems to have yet another identity or role of his own," said Stark, "Daredevil never noticed that the man's photograph was on the back wall of the NYPD 15th precinct station during Daredevil's 2015 adventures. It also appeared on another precinct wall, while Jessica Jones' arch enemy Kilgrave was taking control of the entire precinct."
In 2016, while Deadpool was making a bad name for himself, the man was recorded on camera as an MC in a nightclub not far from Deadpool's activities.
As the footage continued, the Avengers tried to make sense of the fact that the same man's face appeared on a crime prevention poster in a shop near Luke Cage's stomping ground. He was also seen riding a London bus while Doctor Strange and Baron Mordo fought Kaecilius.
"In 2017, his photo was seen in a "Be Proud" poster used for NYPD recruitment while Iron Fist was showing his martial arts prowess, and our prolific poster boy also got caught in a shot of Matt Murdock last year, when Jessica Jones and Daredevil and Luke Cage and others apparently joined forces," said Tony, "His anomalous appearances around super heroes need explaining. I think we have to find this guy…. Oh, looks like we have visitors."
"I'll get the door," said Steve, and opened it to see the civilian attired X-Men. After a brief statement of the urgency of the two teams meeting, Steve consulted Stark and both agreed to let the Xavier institute team meet with the Avengers.
"Avengers, we have vital news for you," said Charles Xavier, "I have a powerful mental scanning device called Cerebro. I believe it has identified a mental force which could have been responsible for exaccerbating your recent differences about working with the government into a violent conflict."
"Couldn't Cerebro have been that force, and you just don't know your own toys?" asked Hawkeye.
"No. Cerebro was connected to my own mind at the time," said Charles, "I will trust you with the fact that we are all mutants, and my mental abilities are merely enhanced by the cybernetic device I mentioned. A separate entity is definitely accelerating conflict between superhuman beings."
"And we're tracking a man who seems to be eavesdropping on super heroes in a variety of roles he takes on," said Stark, "See if you noticed him during any of these incidents. Computer, replay Senator Kelly beach incident in the year 2000."
Charles and the other X-Men didn't recognise the man, as they hadn't noticed their hot dog seller any more than Spider-Man had noticed him in the library.
"But I do remember seeing him now!" said Spider-Man, "Last year I mistook him for a car thief, when you were training me to make better use of the iron Spider-Man costume, Mr Stark."
The computer began flashing an alert.
"I asked the computer to flag his next appearance, and it just has," said Tony, "He's on our balcony now, trying to eavesdrop on this very meeting. Vision, phase through the wall and surprise him."
The android altered his density, passed through the thick walls of Avengers headquarters and apprehended the old man. He brought his captive to the combined Avengers and X-Men meeting, where the suspense was killing everyone there.
"Hi true believers!..." erupted the man into a verbal explosion of waffly speech.
"Never mind all that. We want to know who you are and why you turn up in so many vocations and other roles whenever we're around," said Captain America.
"I can see I'll have to share my secret with you," said the man, "I'm called the BySTANder," because I write comic books by observing the activities of super heroes. Let me explain. I grew up in another universe, where super heroes only exist in fictional comic books. I found that the stories written by DC Comics in the 1940s and 1950s were not in the least bit serialized. The plots were simple and repetitive, with new stories starting every 12 pages or so. I wanted to write stories that evolved like lengthy sagas with complexity and character development. But I needed characters. It was then, while straining my mind to think of a world full of costumed super heroes other than those of my Direct Competitors, that I actually FOUND such a world. Somehow, my mind had the ability to open something which I called the Marvel Super Hero Secret Warp, which took me to worlds of super heroes. Excelsior, my friends. You'd be amazed to know that I first visited a parallel earth like yours, and like mine, but where the Hulk died in 1990. I passed myself off as a juror in a courtroom for a trial involving Daredevil and Bruce Banner of that world in 1989 and observed what happened that way. Then I found THIS universe, yours. I was able to observe all your activities, and then all I needed to do was revamp your appearances in the comics I wrote in my universe. I great artists from my earth, people like Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko give most of you more colourful costumes than the largely black ones you guys seem to typically wear. Charles, your collective mutant origin saved me weeks of thinking up different origins for many of my characters. It was the same with the Fantastic Four's cosmic ray derived powers. By keeping an eye on your lives with my Secret Warp visits, I just passed myself off as various nondescript people, occasionally getting photographed before I could do anything about it. By inserting myself into your world's timeline, I had the best eye view of whatever would make for a good plot in my comics, and the natures of your individual character personalities too. Boy, let me tell you about the time lightning struck just as I was passing through the Secret Warp. I ended up careening through different time periods of your world. I found myself watching Howard Stark getting his shoes shined in the 1940s. Wish you could have seen that, Tony. I saw Apocalypse attacking earth in the early 1980s when you were much younger, Charles. I took on a bartender role near your early life, Ant-Man. I was even saved from crossing the road by a young Matt Murdock as a child, and Charles, I saw you and Magneto visiting Jean Grey when she was a kid. I was watering a garden in the neighbouring yard. Then I was catapulted into the future, where a guy called Rocket scanned me talking to a young lady. I also got talking to this universe's own native born observers called the Watchers, while I was millenia in the future. I don't know if Rocket and Yondu saw me, but I saw them, and it gave me a great idea for a comic called Guardians of the Galaxy to rival DC's Legion of Super-Heroes. I think they set it in the 30th or31st Century. Not sure."
"But can't you write your own stories without bystanding our lives?" asked Tony, "You're creating absolute havoc for our security footage, to say the least."
"I was always on the search for ways to improve my comics, so that the competitors wouldn't outsell me," said the BySTANder, "DC eventually copied my serialized writing style, and I found myself writing more superfluous argumentative dialogue and fight scenes that went for several pages. Jack even went over to DC and created a parody of me called Funky Flashman for the Mister Miracle comics of his Fourth World series that ran over 4 titles. I was becoming a harmless joke in print. And I was getting on, and found that the current generation of writers on my earth wouldn't do to replace me. They all grew up playing video games where the aim was to thump one's way to the next level. As a result, they're now writing plots for cartoons like "Ultimate Spider-Man" and "Hulk and the Agents of SMASH" which have no more plot than 20 minute fights. The only thing that changes from episode to episode is the rotating cast of super villains. I was hoping if I got closer and closer to YOUR lives, I'd get better plots out of them."
"Do you mean that everything we've gone through has been reduced by you to a form of comic book entertainment in another universe?" asked Thor.
"Not at all. Did I mention the movies? Let me tell you about the movies?" said Stan, "After my company Marvel Comics lost a lot of money trying to fill the needs of speculative investor comic book purchases in the 1990s, we started doing big budget movies to bring our comics onto the widescreen at cinemas. You've no idea how helpful you've been!" said Stan.
"And you may have no idea how unhelpful YOU'VE been," said Professor Xavier, "I've been scanning your mind. You may not be aware of it, but a lot of the time, you must have also had the prolific fight scene writing style of your later understudies. But that's not the worst of it. Your mental powers didn't just open the Secret Warp to enable you to OBSERVE our lives. The moment you arrived on your first visit in our universe, you started emitting (without even being aware of it) waves of mental energy that channelled your plots of protracted violence into the minds of super beings all over THIS earth. The Avengers were caught in conflict with each other for a long time recently, all because of the mental conflict waves coming from your head."
"I never meant to do that," said the BySTANder, "But you guys are inspirations to both children and adult readers all over my world. If I stop coming here, what will become of my comics and cartoons and TV shows and movies? We've even branched out into Marvel video games."
"Let us ponder this dilemma objectively," said Thor.
"Now that we know you're just a writer with peculiar mental powers to open interdimensional warps, I guess I can have my computer delete all the footage of you, so that your secret's safe," said Stark.
"And I believe that, working with Cerebro, I can purge your mind of its side effect of subconsciously giving off mental conflict waves," said Charles Xavier, "If you will accompany me to the institute."
"We'll be there on standby," said Cyclops.
"No," said Charles, "If anything goes wrong, I don't want any super beings in the area to be affected by the BySTANder's powers. It's best that you stay with the Avengers until I have stabilized the BySTANder's mind."
"Didn't we come here to find Pietro and Wanda?" said Cyclops.
"They didn't make it to this meeting," said Black Panther.
"You win some, you lose some," said Gambit.
"Well let's go and fix my head! Excelsior! As soon as you've finished sorting out my brain, I'd better be going home to write up THIS story," said the BySTANder, "I'll even put myself in it. What a great idea. See ya. Nuff said!..."