Chapter Text
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Things felt worthless. Everything suddenly seemed unimportant. His whole life, everything he knew, felt small and frail. Because here, infinity stones were mere paperweights.
Loki scoffed as he pushed himself up from the floor, one hand coming up to tug at the collar still wrapped around his neck. This place made him feel as if his brain was melting, it was all too much, too sudden—sacred timeline, variants. A sense of utter helplessness started to weigh heavily in the pit of his stomach.
Yet he couldn’t hold himself back from sitting at the single table in the middle of the dim-lit room. The checkered image of the Avengers right in front of him seemed to be taunting him.
This was still the same day, right?
Or maybe not, Loki wasn’t certain anymore; it sure didn’t feel like the same day.
For a split second, as he looked down at the red, round device resting on top of the table, he thought about how everything here looked so old-fashioned. It was almost ironic, for a place out of time.
Loki couldn’t help himself. His curiosity got the best of him eventually. But if anyone had their whole life just a click away, they’d probably do the same.
So he watched, through glimpses passing on a screen, a life that was supposed to be his. He watched his mother die, and then his father; he watched as Thor called him a brother with a smile on his face again, and as they made earth a new home for Asgard. Loki’s eyes were already a pool of tears as soon as his mother’s lifeless body had appeared in front of him, they cascaded down his cheeks freely, leaving behind a damp path of a lifetime worth of mourning, now seen in less than a minute. The loss somehow felt greater, because now he wouldn’t even have those moments to begin with.
But suddenly, amidst the moments of suffering and mistakes, an unfamiliar face appeared. She had a smile on her face most of the time, and even through the static of the image in front of him, Loki could clearly see the glint in her pupils, the crinkle beside her eyes. She was quite captivating, maybe that’s why it took him a second to realize she was smiling at him.
A frown etched itself in Loki’s eyebrows, he leaned forward on his chair as he pressed play again. Curiosity and… apprehension twirled wildly inside his stomach.
The moments with her were endless. Walks on the beach, shared ice creams, quiet nights watching a movie, dancing together in a dark kitchen, the golden rays of a sunset shining against her hair in a memory tucked away like a treasure; and even a moment of her talking with Tony Stark and the others, while her hand held tightly onto Loki’s, the other Loki, that is. All of them looked futile, a simple existence Loki would never have considered fit for him; so why did these moments feel important?
Inside TVA’s lonely room, Loki held his breath until his lungs ached. His heart was threatening to jump out of his chest and his eyes were stinging for a whole new reason. He could feel the shaking of his own hands. That look in her eyes, it was one of love, anyone who saw would know it. But the cause of the sudden lump in Loki’s throat was the fact that this look was always directed at him. That love in her eyes, that smile on her lips; was for him.
Several minutes went by with him silently looking at the paused image of her on the checkered screen. A few stray tears rolled down his cheeks, and he wasn’t sure why yet. If it was for the shock of learning that someone could love him this much; or because of the envy, the longing for something that wasn’t even his, not really, he never got there after all.
There was a hole in his chest, a missing piece of something he never had. Loki didn’t even know her name, yet a part of him was screaming it anyway.
He eventually moved on, and almost threw up when he watched Thanos take his life from him. Loki watched his brother cry over his lifeless body, yet he wasn’t seeing her.
And despite the boatload of information thrown at him, the questions clouding his mind were only; who is she? Where is she?
Lost. Loki felt more lost than he probably ever did in his entire life. He had just watched what was supposed to be the rest of his life, yet… it wouldn’t be. So what now?
He sat down on the small stairs of the room, burying his head in his hands.
And then there was this girl; smiling and laughing and holding his hand as if he had been the best thing to ever happen to her. This feeling, warm and heavy, squeezing Loki’s heart, was a foreign one—he couldn’t quite place why that look of pure adoration in her eyes was directed at him.
He needed to know who she was. He needed to find her and ask her why. He needed to know what she was, or- would be to him.
The sudden sound of the door opening startled Loki, he watched as Mobius walked into the room, his steps overly cautious. “Loki? Nowhere left to run.”
Gulping back a sob clawing its way through his throat, Loki took a deep breath. He slowly glanced up, voice calm and defeated as he asked a question he already knew the answer to; “I can’t go back, can I?”
Mobius simply looked at him, his eyes holding some kind of sympathy as he spared Loki from hearing the truth out loud.
Loki pursed his lips, his gaze slowly trailed back to the screen on his left that again adorned a paused image of the mysterious girl. Her lips were turned up just slightly, dark sunglasses covered her eyes, and she held a slowly melting ice cream in one of her hands. “Who is she?” he asked quietly.
Placing his weapon on the table, Mobius let out a long sigh, “I was hoping you wouldn’t ask about her.”
The words made Loki snap his head towards him, a frown coming to his eyebrows immediately.
“She…” Mobius hesitated, “she is someone almost as annoying as you.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.” Loki nearly sounded offended. He got up then, taking slow steps towards Mobius. “She seemed… important, yet I don’t know who she is.”
“I’m afraid you haven’t met her yet.”
“Then tell me who she is.”
Mobius grimaced; “I don’t think it’s my place to say it.”
“That’s absurd,” Loki scoffed, “it’s my life we’re talking about here.”
“How about we help each other then, hm?” Mobius offered, and when Loki only frowned at him, he continued; “a fugitive Variant has been killing our Minutemen.”
Loki narrowed his eyes. “And you need the God of Mischief to help you stop him?”
A small smirk came to Mobius’ lips; “That’s right. You help us stop him. I get you an opportunity to meet her and you can ask her whatever questions you want to know.”
A meeting with someone didn’t feel like much for his end of the bargain, but that same voice inside Loki was still screaming a name he didn’t know how to spell. He had to know.
“Deal.”