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“All right let’s have a little pie while we wait.”
“Pie?” Sylvie questioned, turning around to face Mobius.
“Yeah.”
“What is the matter with you?”
“Sylvie, wait-”
“No, why wait he’s right let’s go get pie! We have all the time in the world because the clocks don’t tick at the TVA do they?”
She strode forward.
“You found out you’re a variant and you haven’t even looked have you?”
“You ever think that maybe I don’t want to?” Mobius asked back in his defence. “You know maybe I like being useful here rather flipping burgers at McDonald’s.”
“It was normal!” she shouted. “Something I’ve never had that thanks to the TVA! It wasn’t the palace of Asgard, but it was my life! Even he has one there!” She gestured to Loki who had fallen back behind them, old habits of knowing his place when Thor and Odin argued.
“What?”
“I met a variant of you after you begged me for help last time.”
“You did?”
“Well it’s a branched timeline it’s possible.”
Sylvie huffed in frustration at Mobius’ clinical talk and started walking to…anywhere.
“And he wasn’t on some great quest to save all of reality it was just him having lunch out with his kids.”
“I-I beg your pardon?”
“Yeah, I was shocked too there was like half a dozen of them and…”
Sylvie stopped as she realized Loki wasn’t walking with them anymore.
“Loki?”
They both turned around to find him standing still in the hallway clutching his stomach.
“What’s wrong?” Mobius asked, gripping his hand on Loki’s arm tightly, afraid he was going to start time slipping again.
“Those children, you-you’re certain they were mine?”
“Pretty sure I mean they had your hair and one of the older boys could do that fireworks trick.”
Loki let out a sharp bark of a sound, something between a laugh and a sob, backed up against the wall and slid to the floor.
“The pregnancy was successful,” he whispered, as they sat down on either side next to him. Though Loki barely noticed, his mind traveling back to the warm softly lit rooms of her chambers on Asgard the night she’d discovered her precious secret. Hugging her middle, her face streaked with tears of surprise, sadness and…joy. Scared that everything she knew was going to change, but also happy that she could love and nurture a young life as she’d seen others do.
“I was young, it wasn’t planned I knew it would change so much...and then one morning it changed nothing at all, I awoke to pain and there was so much blood!”
He pressed his head to his knees and wept.
“I’m sorry, Loki, I didn’t know.”
“I know I didn’t tell anyone. I-I didn’t know what mother and father would think I couldn’t simply be married off, but…but I did want it.”
Wiping his eyes he looked over at Sylvie.
“Can I see them?”
***
The sun shone brightly over the playground and the lush green park that surrounded it. Central Park Loki knew its name because he knew this city, but this time he was only focused on a single person sitting on a nearby bench. This variant kept his hair slightly longer than he did and it was tied in a braid. There were several families enjoying the day so Loki wasn’t certain which of the children might be his. He would have to ask. But as he stood there uncertain and wondered what to do what to say the other Loki turned and locked eyes on him.
“You don’t have to hide from me…Loki.”
“You knew I was here?”
He smirked. “There are not many who can sneak up on me.”
Loki came over and sat down next to him on the bench.
“I’m surprised you’re not surprised to see me.”
The other Loki shrugged.
“The Ancient One had noted the shift in what they christened the multiverse last time I was at Kamar-Taj. I thought with our ability to world walk something might come up.”
“You’ve been to Kamar-Taj?”
“Yes, I try to maintain my training as much as I can and it’s necessary now as my eldest are coming into their own power. It’s why I moved to New York to be close to the sanctum.”
That was interesting it meant his access to information in the other realms was limited.
“You live here then, on Midgard?”
“Oh, yes I’ve been here since shortly before they were born.”
His counterpart crossed his arms over his chest, his eyes suddenly dark.
“The All Father said he did not want a stain upon his house. So I chose them and left his house.”
So that was the cost then. To have this family he had lost that one. Yet as Loki thought about the events in the years that had followed, trying to please Odin, to have believed at that time for it to have all been in vain. He couldn’t help but think this version of himself was far better off.
“A wise decision,” he declared.
“Hmm perhaps…do you have need of me, is that why you’ve come here?”
“No, no the timey wimey mess is mine to deal with. I came here for personal reasons, selfish reasons really.”
He leaned over and stroked the handle of the stroller.
“I lost that same pregnancy.”
“I am so sorry.”
Loki nodded and looked out at the playground.
“And I guess I just wanted to see what might have been.”
The other Loki smiled.
“Well now you’ve just given me an excuse to gush about my children.”
He pointed out a rather lanky boy reading in the shade of a tree just on the edge of what Loki knew to be a sandbox.
“That is Sleipnir my eldest, by two minutes, as he insists it be known.”
Loki smiled at the familiar sight. “He reminds me of someone else I know.”
The other Loki quirked his lips, knowing too how much Sleipnir took after him. “Jormungandr on the other hand certainly takes after his uncle,” he said, pointing out a boy trying to climb the tree next to his brother and knocking bits of dirt on his brother’s book.
Then he sat back, his face taking on a wistful expression.
“Are they well back on Asgard?” he asked.
Loki was quiet for a moment his mind going back to his file at the TVA of Asgard’s destruction of the reel that showed him the loss of those he’d cherished there. None of that needed to happen now or at least it hadn’t yet. There was no easy way to explain all of that though.
“I…I could not say it has been some time since I have been ho-on Asgard as well.”
“I see.”
They both fell silent as they focused on their own thoughts. Loki focused on the instant he’d almost called Asgard home and stopped, because it didn’t feel right anymore. Home was starting to feel like thick coats, slices of pie, the scent of cheap cologne that clung to Mobius’ brown suit, and the hint of fryer oil that lingered around Sylvie.
“Fenrir, keep the sand in the box please!”
With that focus went back to the children.
“The one building the sand city is my daughter Hela. The bundle of energy helping her is Fenrir.”
Hela finished smoothing off her bucket of sand and turned it over to join the growing row she was making. Then filling it again from the mound of sand Fenrir, who was a grey and white husky, had made while currently digging a hole next to her, his tail wagging fiercely.
“He wanted that form today and I told him he could if he would maintain it. I know he will though they quite often prefer such forms.”
“They are able to shift so early?”
Loki nodded and his eyes glimmered with pride. Only to be distracted by a toy that went flying from the stroller. “Don’t worry I didn’t forget about you two.”
He reached into the stroller and pulled out one of the boys. “These are my youngest Nari and Vali.”
He gestured to the stroller as Vali’s hands reach out from it.
“Go on. They don’t bite…yet.”
“Really?”
“If I can’t trust myself who can I trust?”
Loki gently picked him up.
“Say hello, Vali.”
Chubby fingers worked to sign as Loki sat him down in his lap.
“Very quick learners if I do say so myself.”
“Indeed and hello.”
Loki picked up a small bit of grass from the bench held out his hand in front of the babe. In a flash he conjured the blades of grass into a tiny green frog that hopped around in his palm.
Both Nari and Vali giggled in delight.
“You are very lucky,” he said, trying to keep his eyes from tearing up.
His variant smiled once more and pulled Nari closer.
“They can be an exasperation at times, but I wouldn’t change anything.”
That was comforting, all of it was. Even though he now knew the loss of his children was fated by He Who Remains this answered something he’d wondered since she’d stumbled into her bathing chambers that morning so long ago, and wailed in the red tinted water asking the Norns why she had failed.
He would have been a good mother.
“Thank you for this.”
“I’m glad I could help, but I do wonder, how did you even come to know about me and my family?”
Loki opened his mouth to answer when they were both distracted by bickering voices behind them.
“You know the let’s go get pie was sarcasm not an excuse to get something else deep fried.”
“Hey, I got you one too, did you notice that?”
“And you’ve got mustard on your shirt did you notice that?”
“Well at least we have extra napkins.”
Sylvie stopped short as the double faces on the bench stared at them.
“Hi.”
“Hello again, do I want to know why the lovely lady who was serving me in Oklahoma is with you?”
“No,” all three of them answered.
“Of course not,” he chuckled, as Mobius handed Loki some sort of food on a stick.
“Hmm, I see you’ve managed to get a bit of both, well done.”
Loki’s jaw dropped open. “Oh, oh no we’re not-”
He was cut off as Sylvie tugged on his jacket collar.
“Come on let’s get back before OB and Timely blow the place to bits.”
Loki blew out a breath his life truly was a disaster in the making. Still…
“Thank you again,” he said, as he stood up and handed Vali back.
“My pleasure.”
Mobius opened a time door and Sylvie marched through it still eating the undetermined food. Loki stepped forward to follow and then stopped, looking around the city and taking in the sounds of the children at play one last time.
“Look around you! You think this madness will end with your rule?!”
It likely wouldn’t happen that way here, but Thanos might send someone who would actually try in his place and so he turned back.
“Ah, wait before I go there is one thing. It may never matter now I hope it doesn’t, but some decades from now 2012 to be precise there was, will be, an attack here on this city. Forces from another corner of the universe: the Chitauri.”
His variant frowned. “The Chitauri need a leader.”
“I know, and that person will likely be powerful. If they do come seek out Stark Tower, our brother will need our help.”
“I shall keep that in mind thank you.”
Loki stepped back knowing there was nothing more he could do now. Except protect this timeline from afar. Right now this moment was safe and happy and this was what he was fighting for, for everyone. A place to belong, to live, to choose freely. He had to make sure they all got to keep it.
“Loki, you coming?” Mobius asked.
He nodded and followed them back to the TVA.
The End