2068, and 2073, but mostly outside of time
Venom floated over the city, over New London at night, gliding, flying down between buildings, stunting, showing off, like a small fighter jet. Oh, she thought, I'm flying again! I love these dreams.
She looped around the tallest tower, twice, buzzing windows, light glancing off every shiny surface of every new building. Out of the corner of her left eye, she saw Elizabeth Tower, and automatically veered towards it, towards home, laughing.
Drifting lower, following streets, she buzzed passers-by seemingly oblivious to her presence, and giggled. "C'mon, slowpokes, let's get moving already!"
A steady stream of Londoners seemed to be migrating to one particular square, and she flew ahead, with them, but above, a silent, invisible airplane, touching nothing, being touched by nothing except what she saw and smelled.
A rally. Mondatta! He's brilliant! Oh, I wish this were real. She'd first heard of him from the Zero Sector uprising, a few... years ago? weeks ago? months from now? Suddenly, she wasn't sure, and she pulled up atop a building, next to a particularly unobservant security post. The man pipped his radio, and turned away, just in time to be brought down - hard - by Widowmaker.
Her surprised "Oh! Hey, love, what're you..." went unheard, as the assassin ran on by, as if she did not exist.
I've seen this before, she thought. I've... seen this...
One of the flashes, when her Slipstream exploded. It came back to her, now, within her dream. A set of images, blurred together, unfolding now. But those are rubbish, really, she thought. Shock, panic, oxygen deprivation, that's all. Just noise.
She reached down, and touched the rooftop. But this feels so real. It smells so real. They're never so...
Another guard went down, another building over - quickly, all but silently. She smiled, thinking of her lover's perfect violence, and tried to zoom in with her vizor to watch - but it didn't respond. I... don't have it? She looked down, noticing for the first time the large harness over her torso, in that way you never notice things in dreams, until they're important. What is this? What am I wearing? She looked at her bright mandarin-coloured leggings. It's got my callsign on it... this must be part of the airplane?
That's when she heard the sound of her own pistols, and, almost immediately thereafter, the sound of Widowmaker's rifle. Am I here too? I can't be in my own dream, can I?
Glass breaking, the sound of her own voice, and more gunfire. She teleported a few buildings over, to where security guards were scrambling, and saw her Amélie taking them down one, two, three, four, and she cheered. Oh, nice one - go, love!
She saw her other dream self - her dreamelgänger? - leaping up over the next rooftop, catching up and firing towards her partner. She, too, teleported to keep up. Careful, dream me, she thought, she's fine, the guards are down, if you aren't careful you're going to hit...
And then Tracer triggered Widowmaker's mine, and then Amélie was standing over her prone body, not to help, but with a rifle to her doppelgänger's head. And then a flash, and an explosion, and Tracer is falling, Amélie is aiming, Mondatta is dead at Widowmaker's hand, and there is so much screaming.
"No, no, no, no, no, no - NO!" Venom screamed, in her dream.
"Oh, no, no, no no no no - WHY?!" screamed her other self, in her waking world.
"Why would you do this?!" screamed her other self, in grief and rage at the woman she loved.
"This can't happen! C'mon c'mon c'mon wake UP!" Venom screamed to herself, in her dream.
And then there is fire. Fire, and a flight suit, and she is still in the Slipstream just as it flies apart around her, and there are stars and sunlight and flame and her suit is melting and so much pain and flashes and flashes and too many flashes and no air, and she is falling into darkness...
...and then impossibly she is on the ground, and there is shouting, not screaming, and air, not starlight, and she sees her, her beloved blue spider, again, for the first time, holding her so tightly, and she tries to talk, but can't, quite, there is too much, and there is a doctor and questions and pain, but less, and she is Lena Oxton, but more, and there is a sedative, and the nightmare fades into a deep, drugged sleep, and as consciousness slips away, she fights to hold on to the one thing, the one most important thing
this
can't
happen
And then there is darkness.
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