Chapter Text
It’s barely been a couple weeks.
Since my life was taken away from me.
The cold air hits my face and pierces my eyes. I start tearing up. Maybe they already were teared up though. I thought I would be strong enough. To walk through those doors with the little note I had written up, trying to explain a life she never knew she lived, but in the end I couldn’t. And now I’m leaving the mom and pop shop she worked at. Cold, tired, hungry and most of all;
Ashamed.
This is all my fault I think, my walk turning into a run. I deserve this. I should’ve just left it all alone. Now they don’t remember me… but then again, they’ll probably be better off without me. They nearly got killed last summer just because they happened to know me. I definitely deserve this.
Can’t tell if I’m hyperventilating or just out of breath, but I’m finally back at my apartment. If you can even call it that. It’s a grey cell block, with just enough to get me by. It came with appliances, broken, but appliances nonetheless. It has a bathroom… a public one in the bodega beside me and it has the bare minimum amount of space to fit a twin bed without getting whatever the apartment version of osha on your back, if that’s even a thing. My landlord’s somewhat sketchy in his business ventures so somehow he let me stay here without showing him my nonexistent social security card…. But if I gotta be honest, I just think Mr. Ditkovich feels bad for me.
I guess I still look 17.
That’s one thing I haven’t quite figured out yet. Do I still technically have government files ? A birth certificate? I’m guessing I do since Mj had the necklace I gave her, but they’re long gone, I haven’t been able get back into my- Aunt May’s old apartment. I still haven’t figured out the job situation either so if I don’t soon, I just might be living on the streets again. Not exactly something I want to do in December.
I throw my coat onto the mattress and pull out the small needle and thread I somehow scraped up enough for, same goes for the red and blue “fabric” I tore apart from old clothes at a Salvation Army. I really have no money. I’m trying to sew myself a new Spider-Man suit, but it’s taking a while since I don’t own a sewing machine, nor am I that great at sewing. My first suit was practically just an old hoodie. Funny how something I basically wanted to throw away, I now wish I could have.
I started going in on a stitch when suddenly…
My sense… it was going off..
I started looking around for the sense of danger but… it was no where to be found.
I would’ve called it a false alarm, but I know better than that.
“Hello?” I asked, trying to sound brave but failing miserably when I knew it could either be I was about to prick my finger on the needle, or a bomb was about to go off in my direction.
“Is somebody there? Seriously, is someone about to shoot me?? What the hell is this?”
At this point, it was obvious a person wasn’t in my room.
But someone was about to be.
A yellow door, transparent and nothing like Stephen’s portals, opened itself up and inside was a large dark room. But the first thing I noticed was the man standing right in front of it.
“Hello Peter.”
“What the- how do you know my name?!?”
The man cut me off, literally. He took his hand, and covered my mouth.
“Listen, I don’t have much time till they get here, but I have a proposition for you. Once in a lifetime sort of deal.” He was a tall man. Gave off the feeling he’s been around for a while. He was dark skinned and wore a purple outer coat, or cloak I should say, with green pants and he had an uneaten apple in his other hand.
He grabbed me and tried to yank me into his portal. Nuh-uh. Not gonna happen.
I ripped out of him with my super strength and flipped onto the mattress.
“Sorry dude, but I got better things to do, like taking a break. I’m really not in the mood to fight a supervillain today.”
I grabbed my web shooters I still had since the battle on the Statue of Liberty, thwipped the window open and escaped through it… except I didn’t.
“What the hell?” Jumping out of the window, somehow led me back into the place I was at before.
I felt my neck, somehow, he had attached a collar to it. I pulled, but it wouldn’t come off. What the hell?
“Listen kid, you’re not exactly in a position to be making demands. Walk into the time door.” The man said, matter of factly.
First I was annoyed.
Now I’m mad. I just got out of a fight, and now without a suit, I’m back in one?
“How do you remember me??” I asked, no, yelled.
“Because you fucked up, Peter Parker.”
“Yeah, I can see that.” How did the spell not work on this guy? Was he some kind of god? Wait, that’s stupid, then Thor would remember me… does Thor remember me? God, this is confusing.
“No… not in that way. Listen, I’m not out to get you. Not in the way you think at least. That’s why I gave you a week to settle down. That’s enough time.” He ‘explained’.
“What are you talking about?”
“Just walk into the timedoor and I’ll explain.”
“Fuck no!”
“Parker, when you made everyone forget Peter Parker ever existed, instead of making everyone forget who Spider-Man was, you created a nexus event. You’re a time variant. There’s another Peter Parker out there that’s on the right track to being the Spider-Man he’s supposed to be. You deviated from that path.” He said, like that was an incredibly intellectual thing to say, and like I was the dumb one.
Who does this guy think he is and what in the fresh hell is a variant?
“To answer what you’re about to ask, a variant is a person who has strayed from the sacred timeline. I go by a lot of names and none of them matter.” He answered.
“Now, walk into the yellow time door, or portal, or whatever you want to call it, and I’ll explain more.”
I was trapped if I gotta be honest. Have you ever seen one of those videos of people finding and trapping large spiders or other invertebrates in glass jars? Yeah, that’s how I felt.
It’s not like I could just leave, but at the same time my spidey sense was still going off.
I chose to ignore my spider sense in pursuit of knowledge. A truly horrible decision, but one I made anyways.
I walked into the huge dark purple room and glanced out at the window parallel to me. It was a huge blanket of stars and galaxies, but a line stretched through it.
“You see that?” The man said.
“That’s the one true timeline. The sacred timeline if you will. It’s the thing I created the TVA for. The time variance authority. To make sure any variants that mess it up, wreak havoc, or hurt people, don’t continue to do what I’ve just mentioned.”
The fact that he called me out as someone who’s a “dangerous variant”… I guess I did hurt people.
“What do you do, exterminate them?” I laughed a little, until I realized I was right.
“Peter, here comes the decision. It’s either you die, so the one who didn’t fuck it up, can live his life in relative peace with MJ and Ned… or you stay with us, survive, and serve as one of our TVA agents.”
I didn’t really know what to say. I don’t really want to die… but I don’t exactly want to work for this guy. I promised may I would always be Spider-Man, well, that I would always protect people…
“What even is a TVA agent?” I asked.
“They’re people that help… contain variants. To protect the sacred timeline. For you to help, I would have to erase your memory and send you back to the time I created the tva and took all the agents. You would have a purpose.”
“What do you mean you took them? Like how you’re planning to take me?”
“I took other variants. The people that messed up. Instead of getting rid of them, I helped them reach their true potential. You get to choose. You lived a sad life. You struggled day to day to survive. And you’re locked by fate to continue doing a job unpaid. Don’t you just want to forget it all? Every bad decision you’ve made? Have a glorious purpose?”
Powerless. That’s how I felt. Because unfortunately, everything he said was incredibly appealing. I don’t want to live like this anymore… I- I don’t want to live at all.
But I am free. Even in death.
“I-“
—————————————————————
Chaos.
Complete and utter chaos was my first thought.
I caught mobius, but he didn’t remember me. He just stood in front of me, confused, like he didn’t just turn my whole world around by not recognizing me.
My second thought
Was this was a different branch. A separate timeline. Perhaps an entire nexus event.
My third thought?
Was the grab the nearest person and ask them what the hell was going on.
The nearest person was, I assumed a male, with brown hair that almost had a curl in it. He looked pretty young compared to the other tva members. I didn’t recognize him, but Loki, the masterful god of trickery~ is not exactly the type of person who remembers every single person he passes.
“Hey, hey you!” I grabbed him a little on shoulder, and he immediately grabbed me back and squeezed my arm, Odin be damned, this guy was strong.
“Ow, ow ow-“
The man glanced up at me with a look of confusion and then recognition.
“Hey, you’re that Loki guy, right? How’d you get here?” The tva agent said, almost in wonder.
“I was about to ask you that. I don’t know. One second I was with… It doesn’t matter, the point is, nobody recognizes me and I’m starting to think I’m not in my own timeline.”
The wonder turns to a look of anger, and he says,
“You did this?? Are you the reason the timeline’s branching out?” He Accused.
“What, no, well it’s complicated-“ I was kind of at a loss for words. Yes, Loki technically did… just not Me-Loki.
Better not give him a reason to immediately distrust me, apart from the fact I’m the god trickery.
“No. No I did not mess up the timeline.” I answered. It was a half truth.
“…Okay.” He said with a look of distrust.
“Listen, I just need your help. We need to get out of here-“
“No, what I need to do is try to save the sacred timeline. I can’t just dip when it gets bad! That would just prove everyone was right about me…” He tried to say that last part under his breath, but I heard it.
I had an opening.
Persuasion is a messy thing. But when you know what they want, you can always make it into something you want. And now I knew both.
“Well, you’re in luck, because that’s exactly what we are going to do! Don’t you understand? The only way to fix it, is to find who did it! Once you find her- er him, you can bring him back to the TVA! And everyone would respect you even more than I’m sure they already do.”
He was considering it. He was actually considering it.
You can always tell, once they’ve realized what you’ve said, their eyes widen with the look of satisfaction that their goal or dream could really come true.
Of course, I was just using him.
I really thought I was done with that…
Oh well.
He rubbed the back of his neck and said, “Fine. But you better be telling the truth. I’m still on to you. I’ve got this feeling, a sense you could call it.”
We headed down the corridor as chaos continued around us. He led me to his office space where an assortment of files lay, a “pruner” baton and a computer.
“I just need to get a few things, including a tempad.” He opened up a drawer and inside was, I’m guessing his “thing”. Every TVA agent I’ve met so far has had a “thing”. Now that I know that they’re… variants, I’m guessing their things have something to do with their pasts. Like how Mobius liked jet skis… in a way, I hope he gets to ride one.
The weird thing was that his drawer was full of anything and everything related to… Black… dahlias?
“Oh that? I guess I just like how they look… and also because of the murder haha., Mobius told me about that.” He explained. He rubbed his hand around a particular keychain of one, with gleam in his eyes. He took it with him.
The murder he mentioned worried me. What murder!!?? Who is this guy?!?
After that horrifying discovery, we went on our way.
“I may be in the Hunter armor, but since I don’t get put on too many missions, they gave me an office space.” He sounded annoyed.
“Where to first? I don’t even know where to start.” He explained, grabbing the tempad and, unfortunately the pruner too. That damn baton had too much potential to absolutely harm me.
Hmm. I never got this far in my thinking. Better improvise.
“…Well, you’re the TVA agent. You should know.” Real smooth, Loki.
He believed it and started looking concerned, like he would’ve just followed me. This isn’t going to work, I need to give him a location where I can just kick him to the curb… but I don’t really know where to look for her. I’m most likely in a completely different time. So close and yet so far away, and I can’t find Mobius either.
“What about we look for them in places right before an apocalypse?” I said.
He looked at me like I was stupid.
“Why the hell would they go somewhere they might die?”
I was about to say because they wouldn’t mess up the timeline… but I guess it wouldn’t really matter now that it’s all messed up.
Instead, I said “They were most likely used to it. It couldn’t have been a recently made variant, so they would hide in places that wouldn’t mess up the timeline. They probably are so used to hiding in danger, that’s most likely where they’d be. In my timeline I tested this theory out in Pompeii and it worked. Nothing branched.”
He looked at me skeptically. I guess me knowing that, is slightly suspicious.
“I was supervised, don’t worry.” I explained.
He rolled his eyes but then said.
“Okay, but that barely narrows it out. Not to mention you could still be wrong.”
He tapped his baton on his other hand, thinking.
He suddenly sighed,
“If we’re going to find this guy, we’re going to have to go through each place separately, I’ll get the file for every apocalypse. But I’m telling my boss before we leave.”
His boss being, I’m guessing Ravonna Renslayer. No way am I messing with her again. I really just want to steal this guy’s tempad and get the hell out of here.
“No, no no no, we do not tell your boss! Who do you think is going to tell you that you can’t? You could lose your position or worse! No, you can surprise her with your accomplishment after you find him!”
He was starting to get angry. I could tell. He didn’t like to be pushed around.
“You know, I’m sort of sick of you telling me what to do. I’m still not even sure you’re not the one who fucked up the timeline.”
He turned the baton towards me. It lit up. I so do not want to be pruned again.
I put my hands up.
“Hey! If you wanna see your boss, sure. But I’m just saying she might not let you go without backup and she might not let you go at all. Do you want to stay in the shadows, or do you want to climb the corporate ladder?” I tried to persuade. TVA agents are hard to please.
He still didn’t look convinced. I need to give him something. Some form of truth.
“Listen. I have an idea about who messed it up. This is the inner workings of a Loki variant. But if you get Ravonna involved, you’ll never find them. They might be someone who tried and failed to in my timeline. In my tva, we looked for them and pruned them in the end. But they hid in apocalypses so that would be the first place to look.”
He was puzzled. He didn’t expect me to tell the truth. Well, I kind of did.
“If this is true, why didn’t you tell me this before?”
“To be frank, I was just going to grab your tempad and do it myself. But I can see you’re clever enough to help me on my conquest.” Again. Another half truth.
He rubbed his Temples and agreed to go without telling her.
We went to the first apocalypse I pointed out.
Ragnorak.