*Hello, everybody. It's time we give villains a little more credit for what they are, don't you think? So this, a parody of Holding Out for a Hero by Bonnie Tyler, commemorates all our favorite characters of questionable morality.

Warning: this is a oneshot that very much breaks the fourth wall, and has no regard for the actual Marvelverse timeline (past characters, dead characters, etc. are all in here at random). If you read Scarred for Life, you'll be used to this kind of tone with the fourth-wall-breakage. ;)

Holding Out for a Villain

"Where are you taking us?" Ultron asked insistently for the third time.

"You'll find out soon enough," Loki answered insistently for the third time.

"I'd really prefer that you just answer me rather than avoiding the question," Ultron snapped. "I'm not going to ask you again."

"Oh, you're going to shut up about it and just follow me?" Loki asked with mock brightness. "Finally." He rounded the street corner, skirting the streetlamp so that he and the group of five behind him remained in the shadows.

"Are you sure that nobody will see us?" the Winter Soldier asked warily, hunching his shoulders as he swept his narrowed eyes around the dark and empty city street.

"Sure, I'm sure," Loki waved his hand unconcernedly.

"I think it's understandable if we don't trust you to not lead us into a trap or something, Loki," Obadiah Stane noted, the only person in the group who looked like a perfectly normal human being (the others either had bright red skin, metal arms, were made of metal, or were dressed like they had just stepped out of a superhero sci-fi movie—oh, wait…).

"What?" Loki feigned offense as he led them through a back alley. "You don't all trust me? The god of trickery and lies? I'm shocked, I must say… I thought we were friends."

"Oh, yes," Malekith hissed. "Great friends. Especially after the little trick you pulled on Svartalfheim."

"Let bygones be bygones," Loki shrugged. "Don't the rest of you trust me?"

"No," Red Skull quipped in his accented voice.

"Hey! If anyone should trust me, it's you," Loki protested. "You and I are kindred spirits, filled with desire to steal the Tesseract…"

"If you're kindred spirits with anyone, it's Ultron," Red Skull shot back. "He's the one who thinks humans are unworthy. You and he should be absolute best of friends, I'm sure."

Ultron let out a sound of disgust. "Please. I was a much better Avengers villain than Loki was. No contest."

"No strings attached?" Malekith sneered tauntingly.

Ultron let out a bark of laughter. "Nobody even remembers you. Meanwhile, I have a movie with my name in the title; I don't think any of the rest of you can even compete—"

"Ahem," the Winter Soldier looked pointedly at the robot, and Ultron let his sentence die, conceding the point.

"While your banter over who's best was entertaining, gentlemen, we still haven't gotten Loki to tell us where we're going," Obadiah pointed out.

Loki's eyes and his golden helmet glinted in the light of a neon sign. "It's not a trap of any kind, I give you my word."

"Your word is worth nothing," Malekith said stiffly. "Tell us outright. No more games."

Loki sighed. "I'm following the orders of our author, you know."

All of the men stopped for a moment, staring at the Asgardian villain.

Loki turned slightly, looking smug.

"Why'd she put you in charge?" the Winter Soldier asked suspiciously.

"Because I'm her favorite," Loki smirked. "Now, if you must know, she wanted me to take you boys to a little concert."

"A concert?" the others all asked flatly.

"Indeed." Loki turned and began leading them down the street again. "I don't know the details, only that it's a concert, and she wants me to bring you there so we can all watch."

The others exchanged confused and uncertain glances, but trepidly followed Loki.

Soon they were approaching a building with soft light pouring out of the windows—the color of the light kept shifting from shade to shade, pink one second, then purple, then blue, then green, then yellow, then red, and it repeated the psychedelic cycle.

"I think this is the place," Loki informed the others in a hushed voice as he looked at the building calculatingly.

"This is going to end badly," Red Skull said quietly, staring at the building. "I can feel it."

"I agree," Malekith muttered, glaring at the building as though it had just called him a foul name.

"Don't be silly," Ultron scoffed. "What are you all afraid of?" He gazed at them with a superior expression. "Fear… such a primitive human emotion. Maybe it will hold you back, but as for me…" he started towards the front door of the building confidently.

"Should we follow him or stop him?" Malekith asked nobody in particular.

"Let him be the guinea pig," the Winter Soldier suggested indifferently. "See what happens when he goes inside."

Ultron paused a few steps from the door and glanced back at them, as if he expected them to be following. His scowl was clear when he saw that they hadn't moved yet. Loki wiggled his fingers in a taunting wave at the artificial intelligence. Ultron shook his head and then faced the building. Slowly, he reached out and opened the door. More of the same light poured out of the door, and Ultron hesitated for a moment. Then something grabbed him and yanked him out of sight. The door closed again.

Loki, Bucky, Red Skull, Malekith, and Obadiah all looked at each other, horrified.

"I thought you said you weren't leading us into a trap!" Bucky snarled, grabbing Loki and dragging him so that he and the god were face-to-face.

"I'm just doing what the author said!" Loki protested, yanking himself out of the soldier's grasp and adopting a fighting stance. "If you have a problem with that…"

Bucky backed up a step, but everybody knew he wasn't backing down. He was just getting a good running start so that he could put all his power into the fist that clenched at his side.

Obadiah, Malekith, and Red Skull looked at each other with nervous interest, not sure if they should be fighting amongst themselves, but also kind of eagerly looking forward to seeing the Hydra weapon and the god of trickery duke it out. Before anything could happen, though, something caught Red Skull's eye.

"Wait, you fools," he snapped at Loki and the Winter Soldier, who had by now started circling each other like two rabid wolves. "Look." He pointed towards the door of the ominous building again. "It's Ultron."

Immediately, Bucky and Loki froze and turned to look. It was true. Ultron was peering out of the door again, grinning and waving at his fellow villains. He was obviously beckoning them forward, urging them to come over.

"Oh. He hasn't been killed," Malekith said mildly.

"Shame. He's so pompous," Bucky sighed.

"What's wrong with pomposity?" Loki challenged.

Nobody answered the rhetorical question, and the five of them advanced towards the half-open door. In a few moments, they were walking through the door that Ultron held open. They found themselves in a carpeted hallway. Around the door, there were flashing lights that kept changing color. Meanwhile, the rest of the hallway was lined with blacklights. Besides the six men (loose term; technically not all of them are men… but I digress…) there was only one person in the hallway.

"Ultron tells me you guys were too afraid to come in," the teenage girl accused as a greeting.

"Nice to see you, too," Loki sniffed.

"We were not afraid," Malekith protested.

"It never hurt anyone to be cautious is all," Obadiah agreed.

"Uh huh. You didn't trust Loki, even though he got the orders directly from me?" the girl paused. "Wait, stupid question; I just put 'trust' and 'Loki' in the same sentence without 'don't' preceding those two words. Never mind."

"You're the author?" Obadiah asked skeptically, looking the girl up and down. She was about a foot shorter than any of them, even with the chunky military-style boots she was wearing. She was also wearing hot pink tights and a jean skirt and a black t-shirt with a single white word that glowed in the blacklights: Marvel. Her hair was teased and poofy. The overall effect was kind of… eighties.

"Of course she's the author," Loki answered. "You think I wouldn't recognize the young woman who's tormented me for nigh on two years now?"

"I've met her once," Bucky input. "Yes, she's the author."

"And she's not appreciating the weird looks her outfit is getting," the girl snapped, glaring at the group. "It's for the show, okay? Besides, it's not like any of you can really judge any fashion choices. Now that you're here and you've finished using Ultron as your guinea pig to make sure this building isn't some sort of trap, I'd like you to head through that door." She pointed at the door to her right, which led further into the building. "You'll find that it is filled with girls—possibly some guys, too—but anyways—you are going to draw as little attention to yourself as possible unless you'd like to be trampled and or suffocated. You are going to go up to the front row, and take your seats. Then you are going to enjoy the concert. Understood?"

"So bossy," Ultron smirked.

The girl stuck her tongue out. "That's cuz I'm the author. Now scoot. The show's gonna start soon."

Slowly, and still throwing suspicious looks at the teenager who kept her hard gaze fixed on them, they opened the door and edged inside. The room they found themselves in was huge, and filled with chairs. Said chairs were occupied by a sea of young women—and, yes, some guys, too—who were chattering excitedly. None of them seemed to have noticed the six who had just entered.

"Keep your heads down, and don't make any sudden movements," the Winter Soldier murmured to his group. "She said don't draw any attention to ourselves."

Following the Hydra weapon's advice, the men slowly and inconspicuously made their way to the front of the large room, where a stage was set up with bright colors and neon lights. Actually, the entire place seemed to have a kind of neon theme... Spotlights of yellow, green, purple, and blue kept sweeping over the room, and a disco ball reflected white spots that flashed around the crowd. Finally, the six managed to find the front row, which was entirely empty.

"Well, may as well get the best seats," Obadiah said indifferently, heading towards the very center of the row so that they would have the best view of the stage. Obadiah sat first, and to his right sat Red Skull, and Loki sat next, Bucky taking his seat next to the god of mischief, and Malekith sitting next, which left Ultron to sit with the dark elf on his left and an empty seat on his right. As they settled themselves in, they couldn't help but feel very out of place.

"Why did she want us to be here, anyway?" Malekith asked broodingly, absentmindedly playing with the end of his braid.

"Who knows why that girl does anything she does?" Loki asked carelessly, too busy watching, transfixed, as Red Skull's skin turned rather brilliantly bizarre colors whenever a spotlight swept past him.

"My only question is, how long are we going to be here?" Ultron asked in a bored voice. "Some of us have better things to be doing than attending some kind of little concert."

"Yes, you and Bucky no doubt have a grand time polishing yourselves," Red Skull said snidely, looking from Ultron's metal body to Bucky's metal arm.

Bucky sat up straight and started to lean across Loki to make some sharp retort at the other Hydra member, but didn't get the chance as suddenly the lights dimmed.

"Shh! It's starting!" Malekith hissed. The others threw him questioning looks at his eagerness, but the dark elf didn't comment, instead staring intently at the stage, which had been bathed in soft blue light.

A man's deep voice boomed out from seemingly everywhere at once. Loki stiffened at the familiar voice of Thanos, the Mad Titan, but nobody else seemed to recognize the voice. "Welcome, ladies and gentlemen…" the crowd fell silent, listening intently. "…and thank you for coming out tonight! We know how much there is to do out there in Fanfictionland, and we're glad you've chosen to be here with us tonight. Now, let's all give a very warm welcome to… LoquaciousQuibbler!"

Cheering erupted from the crowd, and the author bounded out onto the stage. Behind her, a group that looked like a choir filed out onto the stage and moved to the background. The villains did not cheer, instead just looking around anxiously, unsure what to do. Well, they certainly weren't going to cheer the author…

"How are you all doing tonight?" LoquaciousQuibbler asked into her microphone, and the crowd yelled their approval. "Yeah? Well, how about I sing you a little song?"

Immediately, fast-paced music started up in the background, emanating from everywhere at once.

"This one goes out to all our bad guys, our antiheroes, and our villains!"

The men in the front row started at the dedication, looking at each other with wide eyes as the music picked up in intensity, and the choir started singing in the background while the lights in the room started flashing again; yellow bursts of light, and sweeping red and green spotlights energetically zigzagged over the crowd as the lyrics started up.

"Where have all the bad men gone,

And where's the evil gods?

Where's the heroes enemies,

And psychopath robots?"

Loki's mouth dropped open, and Ultron looked stunned. The others merely looked wordless, startled out of their skepticism of the situation. The crowd was even singing along to this song of praising the evil ones.

"Isn't there a villain filled with malicious greed?

Fangirls are the ones that know a hug is all he needs!"

The crowd went wild, and LoquaciousQuibbler was now dancing around the stage as she came to the chorus, pointing to the sky and waving the hand that wasn't holding her microphone.

"Who needs a hero?"

Suddenly Ultron jumped to his feet and cheered.

"We don't care for the heroes, just the ones that they fight!

The ones that are bad and the ones that are sad and the ones that are dark as the night!"

The other villains stared in surprise at Ultron, but he didn't seem to notice. And then Loki grinned and jumped to his feet as well, grabbing Bucky's and Red Skull's hands and dragging them to their feet so they could scream along to the song, too.

"Who needs a hero?

We're holding out for the guys who never see the light!

The ones with the quips and a smirk on their lips and whose heart's always colored with spite!"

By now all six of the not-heroes had gotten to their feet, swaying to the music and smiling proudly as the spotlights swept over them.

"Colored with spite…"

As the music played for a moment and the choir sang dramatically again, the baddies in the front row exchanged huge smiles. Okay, this wasn't so bad, they supposed. The thundering beat, the pulsating lights, the roar of the crowd… no, it wasn't so bad.

LoquaciousQuibbler was still dancing on the stage, but she was smiling knowingly at the group in the front row.

"Sometime at the movies,

Our hearts filled with sympathy

The bad guys don't seem all that bad

Now villains are filling our dreams."

Nobody was sure who started it, but later, they would all agree that Loki was to blame. Someone bumped into somebody else, and somebody shoved back. Quickly, the six were pushing and shoving each other back and forth. Seeing that a mosh pit was starting in front of the stage, some of the fans swarmed towards the stage to join in.

"They're misunderstood, and they don't deserve defeat!

Now it takes a supervillain to sweep us off our feet!"

A few dozen girls were now throwing themselves into the shoving, and one gasped in shock as she was about to start moshing with malekith.

"Oh, my god!" she screamed. "It's Malekith!"

"And Loki! And Bucky! Ultron! Red Skull! Obadiah Stane!" the other fans screamed, and as the song exploded into the chorus, the area in front of the stage turned into a moshing fangirl-fest.

"Who needs a hero?

We don't care for the heroes, just the ones they're against!

The villainous type gets all of the hype cuz villains are always the best!"

Ultron found himself being ping-ponged between a group of four girls. Two girls would roughly shove him, grinning and laughing elatedly, and then the other two girls would catch him and shove him back to the other girls before he could fall. The AI was powerless to stop them, too busy being bounced back and forth.

"Who needs a hero?

We just root for the guys who have lost all their hope!

They just need a hug and a little more love and maybe a better wardrobe!

Who needs a hero?

We don't care for the heroes, just the ones that they fight!"

Bucky and Loki found themselves caught in the middle of a mob of girls who were pressing close, trying to touch the two men. They were back to back, fearful and yet exhilarated as the teenagers and college-age girls grabbed at their clothes. Loki's helmet got lost in the crowd, and Bucky was sure that was Red Skull's trench coat that a few of the girls were waving in the air triumphantly. This suspicion was confirmed by the sight of Red Skull, coatless, struggling to get through a line of fans who wove through the crowd with their arms linked. Malekith and Obadiah were in the middle of the line, hands linked as they were helplessly dragged around, jostling into other people.

The fans shouts and yells of joy and excitement grew even louder as the beat of the music grew louder and faster, and the flashing strobe lights and flickering spotlights stabbed down like neon lightning bolts, blinding and only adding to the tension in the room as the music reached a crescendo.

Onstage, the author got a running start before dropping to her knees and sliding across the stage as she sang,

"When there's a new movie that's coming out,

We keep our eyes fixed on the scree-een!

It's only when the villain shows up that we screa-eam!"

Screams of assent came from the audience, so loud that it made the villains feel slightly dizzy… but they knew they could not fall; they knew they would either get trampled by the frenetic moshers or they would end up under a giant pileup of villain-obsessed fans who would give anything for a smooch.

"Though it's the hero that always wins,

And, yeah, he's good,

We don't love him like the villain, though we shou-ould!"

The choir repeated this last line, and then the crowd was suddenly all jumping to the beat, waving their hands in the air.

The villains, seeing their chance, all dashed towards each other and got into a huddle.

"What do we do?!" Obadiah asked breathlessly, his clothes rumpled.

"Let's get on the stage! They won't be able to get us from there!" Bucky shouted.

"And then we can kill LoquaciousQuibbler for getting us into this," Ultron growled.

Quick as they could, before the chorus came around again, they ran towards the stage and manage to clamber up, even helping each other just so that they could get out of the mosh pit.

The author's eyes widened when the six of them crawled onto the stage, looking maybe a little worse for wear. The music was still going, lights were still flashing, and the crowd was still jumping. The author grinned and beckoned the villains over.

"They're going to kill us!" Malekith shrieked, pointing at the crowd.

LoquaciousQuibbler moved her mic away from her mouth to speak to them." NO, they won't! They love you! Get back out there!"

"Getting back out there would be suicide!" Red Skull protested.

"You have three seconds. By the time the chorus starts, you had better be back in that crowd!" she yelled at them.

None of them moved to oblige her.

LoquaciousQuibbler narrowed her eyes and backed away slightly. The group of six watched her expressionlessly, their minds made up. But now their backs were to the crowd. And LoquaciousQuibbler smiled. The chorus was about to start. She stepped forward… and Spartan-kicked Loki so that he toppled backwards, arms pinwheeling, off the stage.

The crowd was only too happy to catch the god of mischief, and before anyone knew anything, Loki was crowd surfing.

"Who needs a hero?

We don't care for the heroes, just the ones that they beat!

We know they're not bad and they're really just sad, and, really, they're caring and sweet!"

The other five villains were staring at where Loki was still on the hands of the crowd. They turned to look at the author, who gestured to the edge of the stage. Bucky jumped in front of the author, grinning, as if to say, "me next!"

She laughed and jumped forward, forcefully shoving the Winter Soldier off the stage and into the crowd.

"Who needs a hero?

We're holding out for the guys taking over the world!

Cuz when they get their thrones, they just can't rule alone, and we want to be one of their girls!"

Red Skull was next, choosing to dive off the stage and be caught by the crowd rather than being forcibly pushed off. Ultron and Stane worked together to push the struggling Malekith off as well, and then LoquaciousQuibbler shoved them off while they still watched Malekith crowd surfing.

"Who needs a hero?

We're holding out for the guys who are super-enhanced!

With magical charms or mechanized arms, we wish they would give us a glance!

Who needs a hero?

We don't care for the heroes, just the ones that they fight

Yeah, we're fans of the man with a dastardly plan, who never does anything right!

Who needs a heroooooooo?"

On this last line, LoquaciousQuibbler sank to her knees dramatically, and the crowd roared, clapping and whistling and cheering.

Later, the group of six was once again walking down the street. Red Skull had managed to get back his trench coat, but only after he signed an autograph for several different girls (one of them insisted he sign her shirt across her chest, which had been rather awkward…). Loki had not managed to get his helmet back, much to his dissatisfaction (well, the girls had offered to give it back... for a price… which Loki was not willing to pay, especially seeing as how the price was not monetary). Bucky was still trying to wipe a lipstick smudge off his cheek, and Ultron was staring glumly down at his arm, where someone had written their phone number and name in permanent marker ("Call me!" was underneath both). Malekith and Obadiah had been slightly luckier, with no articles of clothing missing or kiss marks or permanent-markered arms, but they still felt vaguely violated. And all of them were sporting a couple of bruises from the mosh pit, and their heads still rang with the pounding music, and flashing lights were imprinted on the inside of their eyelids.

"…It feels like there's cotton stuffed in my ears," Stane sighed, rubbing his head.

"It was a little fun, though," Malekith said fairly.

"You didn't have your helmet stolen," Loki sniffed, though he silently agreed with the dark elf.

"Do you think we'll get invited to any more little concerts?" Ultron asked slowly.

"Hopefully," the rest of them answered with vague smiles.

Note from LoquaciousQuibbler: Okay, to be perfectly honest, this is my favorite parody since, like, Chapter 25's parody of Let It Go. I seriously had a lot of fun both with this parody and the oneshot, and I hope you all enjoyed it as well ;)

Storytime! So I have never actually been in a moshpit, so all the experience I have is through stories from a friend of mine who has been to lots of concerts that I am very jealous of. For example, this friend once told me a story about a concert he went to, and he was in the moshpit, and he was moshing with a group and one of the girls got her ankle hurt. My friend and another guy helped her over to the stage, and the singer helped them up so they could get the girl out of the moshing. She got helped off the stage and away from the crowd, which left the two boys. The singer then proceeded to Spartan-kick the second guy back into the moshpit, and he crowd surfed before being swallowed up in the thickest part of the mosh. My friend very quickly proceeded to just climb off the stage rather than getting kicked off. Later, the guy who had gotten kicked off reappeared, very bruised and battered from the mosh pit, and he had the singer's footprint on his chest, claiming he would never wash his shirt again. So that is where I got the inspiration for that bit. This same friend has also told me stories of getting ping-ponged like Ultron did in the oneshot, and of shoving battles, etc. Lol I'd personally be kinda scared to go into a moshpit, but I digress.

I also had a lot of fun just with the general villain bantering. Something about writing egotistical maniacs interacting is just very fun to write…

I hope you guys didn't mind the blatant fourth-wall breaking, or the fact that I am in the oneshot ;P And while I am well-aware that Bucky isn't a true villain like the rest of the guys in here, I felt that he is enough of an antihero in The Winter Soldier (plus the movie is named after him) that I could include him. And I only included one of the three Iron Man villains because we all know that the Iron Man villains are all kinda forgettable, so I just went with the one that I best liked, which is Obadiah Stane from the first Iron Man.

Alright, so, as I said, this has been a parody of Bonnie Tyler's Holding Out for a Hero, which I believe is originally from Footloose, hence the eighties neon theme.

Thank you all for reading, and please favorite, follow, and review!