I do not own Marvel or any of its characters.


Nightmare

Veles glanced at Val, his eyes lingering for a moment before he turned back to the weapon rack, taking a pair of Time Sticks and a reset charge. It was bad. It was about to get worse. This was their worst job so far. Worse than Hela. Worse than his solo mission against Hela and Odin together. Ultron, the artificial intelligence created by Tony Stark with subtle help from Thanos, had created himself an army surpassing anything he was meant to create, and instead of trying to turn a city into a meteor, he had instead orchestrated numerous Vibranium thefts and had upgraded his entire army with it. He and his thousands of bodies were all invulnerable to anything except Pruning, and they'd all worked together to take control of the entire Earth and wiped the Avengers from existence, save for a few who'd managed to go into hiding.

"How long will we have?" Veles asked.

"Fifteen minutes," Miss Minutes said. "But we tried to simply bomb this timeline, and Ultron was able to deactivate and deconstruct the reset charge. You'll have to protect the reset charge until it goes off."

"We can do that," Val said. "We've trained for Ultrons."

"Yes," Veles nodded. "For five minutes, and we never made it through without losing anyone."

"And that was when they weren't all Vibranium," Thena said, holding a Time Stick with another slung across her back.

"We'll manage," Daredevil said. "We have to."

Veles took a steadying breath as the others also all took reset charges. Then, as one, they stepped through the Timedoor and into Hell. As soon as they arrived, the technologically advanced city around them came alive with the screams of sirens and with the swarming, gleaming bodies of indestructible, humanoid bodies. As the Timedoor closed, Veles and the others pulled out their reset charges. And then, they lost them. Before anyone could blink, in a nanosecond, the Ultrons had recognized the threat of the reset charges, analyzed their weaknesses, and then fired a rain of lasers from their fingertips, obliterating the reset charges harmlessly. But that wasn't the only thing obliterated. Val and Veles' bodies survived the instantaneous assault of laser, though their armor was ruined and their bodies were left with burns and gashes. Thena had survived the assault due to having preemptively formed her celestial energy into a suit of armor, which withstood the blasts. Daredevil, however, was human, and was reduced to charred ribbons by the lasers.

Before anyone had the time to grieve, the Ultrons were on them. Veles roared in effort, forming a small army of duplicates, only for the Ultrons to instantly obliterate them with their lasers. Val screamed over the chaos for Miss Minutes to prime a reset charge and drop it through for them to protect, but as soon as it appeared, it was blasted. Thena took off, using a shield to augment her armor and her Time Stick to face the Ultrons, moving in a blur and rapidly Pruning any Ultron she could reach. And then, she was blasted into the ground. An Ultron streaked down at her from above in a blur, its extended arms firing a continuous laser as it turned itself into a bullet, only for Veles to swipe an arm, forming a wall of hovering Time Sticks to Prune him. Then, in a wave of light, he and Valkyrie were suddenly encased in full suits of Uru armor. It wasn't enchanted, so it was inferior to Ultron's Vibranium bodies, but the lasers he fired couldn't immediately rip through it, and Ultron wouldn't be able to punch straight through the armor, either.

With the armor formed, Veles and Val joined the fight, though that was an inaccurate description. For every Ultron they managed to Prune between the three of them, all three of them suffered dozens of punches, laser blasts, and blows from blades the Ultrons had stored in their bodies. Veles formed Thena a suit of armor as well as a failsafe for their most lethal combatant, and repaired his and Val's as needed, but the brutal beat down showed no signs of letting up. Every time one Ultron was Pruned, five more arrived. And then, more types of weapons were incorporated. Flails, cannons firing blasts of pure, blue-tinted energy, spears, saws, Ultron bodies using themselves as man-sized bullets.

When Thena's Time Stick was destroyed, she resorted to using Cosmic Energy weapons. They couldn't get through Ultron's vibranium armor, but they were enough to deflect the bodies. It amounted to little more than a failing stopgap, but it helped. Finally, After nearly ten minutes of failing, Veles formed a sphere of Uru half-buried in the ground. A moment later, understanding the plan, Miss Minutes dropped the next reset charge inside of it. And then, the battle shifted so fast it could have given them all whiplash. The Ultrons began to fire a constant rain of lasers and energy blasts onto the Uru dome. Veles swore, forming a cloud of Time Sticks, only for the Ultrons to blast them instantly. The Uru began to glow cherry red, the top of it, where more and more Ultrons were focusing their lasers, began to bubble and melt.

"We need another five seconds!" Miss Minutes shouted.

"It won't hold!" Veles shouted, but Thena had already made her choice.

She flung herself atop the sphere, then screamed in agony as the combined lasers instantly ripped through her Cosmic Energy armor, then her Uru armor a second later. As she screamed, smoke and ash blew up from her back where they'd drilled into her before anything could be done. And then, all at once, the world was disintegrating. Thena flashed Veles and Val an exhausted smile a second before the energy of a dozen combined reset charges disintegrated her. Val screamed in dismay, but Veles grabbed her as the Ultrons turned on them. Instantly, hundreds of Veles and Val duplicates and illusions filled the street as Timedoors opened everywhere. the Ultrons dove for the doors, only for all but one to find it was nothing but an illusion.

The one that found the real Timedoor lost its legs below its knees as the door closed, shearing them off, and Veles instantly Pruned what was left of it. Then, he shouted in pain and rage, drilling his fist down into the floor over and over. He felt the bones break, but he kept striking the floor for nearly another minute before Val finally managed to get a decent grip on him and pulled him into a hug.

Both sat there on their knees, clinging to each other, for nearly half an hour before Val opened a Timedoor to their field. They passed through, letting the Timedoor close, and Veles understood why they were there. So, he released the magic maintaining their armor, allowing it to vanish, before healing both of their wounds. Then, they were crying again. This time, they remained there for an hour before they returned to the TVA, heading for Veles' room to get drunk.


"It's...It's just us," Val slurred.

"We're not going to last," Veles said hollowly. "We can't. We're going to die."

"No," Val said stubbornly. "No we're not." She drained the bottle they'd been working off, both having lost count. "We're not dying. I'm not going anywhere, and I'm not letting you go either."

Veles swallowed hard. "How can we win? Thena was our best."

Val shook her head, shoving a bottle into his chest roughly, picking up a matching one. "Then that makes me the best. Prove me wrong."

Veles blinked in surprise, fumbling the bottle before rushing to meet her spontaneous challenge, though he failed due to his surprise and confusion. "That wasn't fair! You cheated! And I don't understand what this has to do-"

"Sore loser," Val interrupted, grinning. "You can admit you lost. There's no shame."

Veles blinked, then smirked challengingly. "Alright, race me without the head start."

Val nodded, the two of them picking up a pair of vodka bottles. Then, Celes counted them down and they drank. Veles one. They held a tie breaker, only to tie. They held another, then another. And somewhere during their sixth round of liquor chugging, Veles had to admit that Val's plan had worked. Between his now excessive drunkenness and their mutual competitiveness, he was feeling better. They slowed down again, but now they had run out of alcohol.

"We're out," Veles grumbled, overturning his bottle. "We'll have to go to your room."

Val nodded, but as she began to stand, her head rolled and she made a noise before losing her balance. Veles stood to catch her, only to also lack balance, and they toppled back onto his bed, Val ending up straddling him. Both of them lay there for a moment, staring at each other as the world spun. Then, Val lunged, making a nearly feral noise as she mashed her lips to his. Veles grunted at the impact, but matched her desperate ferocity and hunger with his own. Their bodies tangled together in a sloppy kiss fueled by a passion born of their pain, and they clumsily shifted to lay on the bed in the correct direction before equally clumsily shedding their clothes, neither caring where they landed.

There was no subtlety, no foreplay, no gentleness. Neither cared for them at the moment. Both were too drunk and too desperate for distraction from their pain for it. Within moments of having shed their clothes, Veles was seated inside of Val and both of them were thrusting and bucking against each other. They devoured each other desperately, trading starving, rough kisses, clutching at each other, groaning and moaning loudly as their bodies moved together clumsily. Veles'' hands squeezed and kneaded Val's chest roughly, and Val sat up, shaking and bouncing her hips along his erection as her head fell back and she moaned and wailed in pleasure.

Veles was the first to break, neither so much as considering insignificant things like him pulling out, and as soon as his climax had ended and she flashed him a victorious grin, he flipped them, pinning her to the bed and plowing her dripping snatch with his still-erect member. The pure surprise at him being able to continue without needing a moment to collect himself pushed her over the edge within seconds, but again, neither of them stopped, if anything, simply rutting into each other even more desperately, devolving into little more than beasts in heat. Both gasped and panted for breath, a film of sweat clinging to their bodies. Veles sucked harshly at her throat, and her nails bit into his back, pulling a carnal groan from his throat. She began to repay his attention to her throat to his own, and as they both crested once again, together this time, her teeth clamped down on his shoulder as her legs locked around him. This time, as their climaxes began to fade, both of them stilled, panting and gasping for breath as his member began to soften and slipped out of her. Then, after a moment, he rolled, pulling her on top of him. Fatigue began to descend on both of them, and neither were able to resist, falling into an exhausted slumber within moments.


Leave a review.