Chapter Text
Coming to think of it, the TVA had been a blessing.
Yes, nobody seemed to be able to explain how this place worked, not to mention why it worked at all, but the main concept that everyone seemed to agree on was that it apparently existed on its own.
It was beyond mere concepts of physical space and time. They were in possession of technology no man could ever dream of, but they weren’t exactly from the future, because there’s no way to define such a term when minutes feel like hours, when people sleep without a sun to dictate their rhythm.
Despite the constant, raging migraine all those unanswered questions kept giving him, it could’ve gone worse. Because no sun meant no days, which meant no months, which meant no seasons, which meant no spring. And springs were notoriously the worst.
Small satisfactions.
He was already in an unfamiliar setting, to put it lightly; he didn’t need a dull disease to make him cough up flowers in front of people he was trying to overthrow. The New York business had been dreadful enough on its own, and another spectacular failure like that was definitely not part of the plan.
But also, somehow, he felt that was exactly what this Mobius character was waiting for.
He was the most infuriating one of them, maybe even more than the oblivious one who didn’t even know what a fish was, or that Hunter whose default approach to new, potentially threatening situations was passive aggressive comments. Like she genuinely thought they could touch him.
Please, and they claimed to know everything about him.
He’d gone through a thousand years of this, why should a nameless somebody be any different?
However, he still followed the man in the interrogation room, he still made empty threats while physically swallowing down every small cough he felt rising up his throat. The man—Mobius—kept eyeing him curiously, like he knew it was only a matter of time before something happened and Loki couldn’t shake off the feeling that this, that look, was important. His skin was itching in a way that was trying to persuade him to be wary of the agent, like he shouldʼve been able to grasp something he was missing.
But once you slip the mask back on, there’s no taking it off.
You can’t take a break, you have to keep going.
It was risky, downright suicidal, waving it in front of the stranger like a banner. Because in a way, the more he sneered, rolled his eyes at this pathetic attempt at power, hid behind that façade that’d kept him safe for centuries, the more he made it clear.
It was nothing but a mask.
“Sure, tough guy. Why don’t you take a look at this?” the man said with a tone that was far too calm, far too soft, for his liking, and that hint of a smirk on his lips. He always had a glint in his eyes when he spoke to Loki, a vague amused expression underneath, like he couldn’t care less who he was talking to.
Like he wasn’t at all fazed by the god in front of him, the liar, the murderer.
Like all he saw was a fun way to spend his time, picking him apart.
Mobius fiddled with that infernal thing on the table in front of him, which apparently contained every second of Loki’s life, and rewinded the tape, looking for a specific memory in his past. Could those even be called memories, if some things hadn’t happened to him yet, and likely never would?
Or at least, that was what he said.
Frankly, it was a little disquieting that this man knew his life better than him. How many times had he watched it? Just how much of what he’d gone through was in there, exactly?
And why were they still using film?
Talk about dramatic.
“Ah, there it is,” he said, much more cheery than before, if that was even possible.
And when he stopped, so did Loki’s heart.
He recognised the memory before it started playing again. Ah, so they know. He should’ve expected it, should’ve seen it coming, should’ve at least thought of something to say in the eventuality of it happening.
But he hadn’t, and now he was completely frozen, staring at the screen like a deer caught in the headlights.
Frigga was holding a much smaller version of himself in her arms, cradling him gently even though he was already far too big for that. He remembered that day with the clarity reserved to very few memories, especially considering all the years he’d lived.
But at the same time, that was what made it look more like a dream than anything else.
The colours were a bit too bright, and the voices were a bit too smooth. Everything was slightly better than it was supposed to. Does this mean it was real, then? Was it simply what time did to vaguely unpleasant events, that were still too important to be completely cast out?
Increase the saturation and exposure to make it look like a movie from the 50s?
Whatever the answer, Frigga did look beautiful, even more than he remembered. Her hair was golden, just like Thor’s, and Odin’s probably, before they’d begun turning gray.
Just another reminder of how he could never have fit in, in their perfect family.
They were born to be royals, they were supposed to be basked in the sunlight from the start. But Loki? He was the rightful heir of a throne hidden in the shadows, he killed his own father.
He was just a spoil of war.
A prisoner, who’d been fed the biggest lie anyone could’ve ever come up with since his birth but somehow still expected to come to terms with it.
“Oh, Loki, my beautiful boy,” past-Frigga whispered, running a comforting hand through his hair. He leaned slightly into her, hoping she wouldn’t notice.
“This is unnecessary, Mother. I’m fine.”
A lie. Not his first. Definitely not his last. He hadn’t been fine in a while, and no one seemed to understand why. That disease was dark magic, it was supposed to kill. And not a single soul in Asgard could figure out why he was still there, alive and breathing.
Sure, he was the furthest thing from healthy, but alive nonetheless.
He kept watching his mother holding him close until Mobius paused the thing again, and he blinked back to reality.
“Anything you’d like to share with the class?”
“About what?” Tell me what you know first, then maybe I’ll tell you what I think.
“About your Hanahaki.”
“My what— ”
“Oh, right, my bad. You call it— Blómaspýta,” he breathed out a laugh. “Just rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it?”
Loki didn’t reply.
Mobius was smiling at him in the same cold, calculating way as before, and he thought he never felt more ridiculed. To have the only thing he’d spent his entire life trying to hide, the only aspect of his life that had been like a cross to bare, symbols of his true self behind the mask, so blatantly thrown at him. Like it’s worth nothing more than a laugh.
Joke material.
Who does he think he is?
“What exactly do you want from me? Why am I still here and not reduced to a puddle along that timeline I’ve left behind?”
Mobius offered him another smile and Loki had to look away to avoid giving into the urge of slapping it off his face. “I want you to be honest about why you do what you do.”
A mirthless laugh escaped his lips before he could even bother keeping it down. “Liar.”
“I’m serious, all I seek is a deeper understanding of the fearsome God of Mischief. What makes Loki tick?”
No, you just want to tear me apart, piece by piece. A lab rat, a challenge for a repressed office worker who had finally found a new thrill for the week, instead of the usual stack of paper he resorted to.
They were all the same, here. In this place, that felt more like a prison than anything else. They all paraded about as if they were the divine arbiters of power in the universe.
He stopped talking when a horrifying cough was wrenched out of his lungs, and he realised he’d been yelling, rambling to Mobius, who was now looking at him with something so dangerously close to pity in his eyes, he might’ve as well started screaming again.
How dared he?
“We are,” he said, voice barely a whisper.
No. “You’re not—” another cough “—my choices are my own.”
Are they?, the thought came to mind, feeling foreign. But true enough to make him hesitate.
I never wanted the throne, I only ever wanted to be your equal.
No, he couldn’t stop now.
So he kept going. He kept ignoring the petals prickling at his lungs, not strong enough to bloom out of his mouth, but annoying enough to pester him with coughing fits in the middle of his speech.
He punched the table when his breathing started coming more ragged without any indication it was going to stop.
He screamed at Mobius when the screen showed his mother’s death. The only one who ever loved him. Did she?
The only one he ever loved.
Her death was barely even given a couple of seconds before the image faded.
It’s not true. You’re lying, it’s not true.
He coughed. It didn’t stop.
Now, why don’t you tell me, do you enjoy hurting people?
He grabbed the chair, aiming for Mobius at the opposite end of the room. But it hit the screen, and his mother’s image faltered. He stopped breathing, relief coursing through his veins when it came back together. Because as much as it hurt him seeing her on the ground, life slowly abandoning her features, he deserved it.
It was his fault. He’d killed her. And now he was more alone than ever. Maybe Mobius really did know him; he managed to show him the only two things that broke him in a matter of seconds. And they were both memories of his mother.
Memories. That word again.
Did he wish for it to be true? Did he wish to have lived through her death, to have mourned her?
What about Thor? How did he manage to get by after that, knowing his brother killed their mother? He refused to let the tears fall, even when Mobius left him alone, his life in his hands.
He probably shouldn’t have. It wasn’t his life, after all, not really. It was someone else’s, someone who’d had more time to grow on his own, to make peace with his brother.
Loki, I thought the world of you.
Someone who’d screamed all the air he had in his lungs and more, when the news of his mother’s death got to him. When he’d realised the last thing he told her was a lie, one he’d never even considered up until that moment.
Then am I not your mother?
Would things have been different, if he’d been there? Would he have said something different? Something he meant. Would he have put his pride aside and let her love him, for once, instead of letting his hatred, his resentment, drive him to the worst answer he could’ve possibly mustered?
You’re not.
Was that even a possibility? Things going differently.
Was he ever supposed to be cared for at all?
Or did the only possible outcome see him sitting in a cell on Asgard, covered in blood and petals that had no business being that bright when the world had just lost every reason to be that colorful in the first place?
He stared at that copy of himself, looking absolutely devastated and broken. No illusions, no deceptions. That was just him, blankly glancing at his brother on the other side, who didn’t have an ounce of sympathy in his gaze.
And why should he have.
He was just a murderer. He didn’t deserve anyone’s sympathy, much less Thor’s.
He didn’t even react when Mobius came back, carefully approaching him like you would a wounded animal.
What’s the point? These people were using infinity stones as paper weights. Everything he’d ever done lost its meaning here. How many people died for nothing? How much pain, how much suffering?
What more did he have to lose?
Why not give to the man what he wanted, and hope he’d dispose of him. He would’ve died anyway, he saw it. He heard the sound of his neck snapping like it was nothing.
Decades, centuries of life. Wasted in the hands of a titan. Lost in a heartbeat.
“I don’t enjoy hurting people. I do it because—I have to. Because I’ve had to.”
He remembered asking Odin, once, if there was a possibility the illness wasn’t killing him because he was a god.
We’re not gods, he'd replied. We are born, we live, we die, just as humans do.
He never would’ve thought he’d have to agree with him.
“Because it’s part of the illusion. It’s the cruel, elaborate trick conjured by the weak to inspire fear.”
“A desperate play for control.”
He caught on easily. Or was that him?
Who opened whose eyes, today?
“You do know yourself.”
You were born to cause pain, and suffering and death.
Another small cough escaped him, but it was nothing as violent as before. Like even his disease was too tired to keep going.
“A villain.”
That’s how it is, that’s how it was…
“That’s not how I see it.”