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“This is a trap,” Barton says. He looks annoyed, but he’s fiddling with his bow in a way that suggests he’s uneasy. It makes Thor’s fingers itch for a weapon.
“Even if it is, it’s not like we have another choice,” Romanov says. Barton scowls at her. Stark sighs, Rogers looks a level of nauseous that isn’t human, and Banner is all but actively bolting. Thor does his best to pretend that he’s not in the elevator with the five of them, and stares up at the ceiling, wishing he was anywhere else in the universe.
Gods, I don’t want to do this again.
I can’t.
After five hours of searching and trying to tear the world to shreds, in the end, Loki found them. It’s been hours since he grabbed the Tesseract and ran, and Thor is exhausted and ready to hit something several times over. The fight was supposed to have ended when they severed the Chitauri’s connection with this world and dragged Loki to his feet.
Loki wasn’t supposed to leave. This wasn’t supposed to get dragged out any longer than it had to be.
Stark and Banner managed to track the Tesseract’s portal residue to some out-of-the-way stretch of Mongolia--a country, apparently--but they found no evidence of Thor’s brother. A nearby settlement had been wiped from the map entirely and the Mongolian police were looking for them, but no one could find any evidence that was connected to Loki, even though it was thrown around.
Thor had pointed out that Loki would have no reason to do anything to a bunch of random Midgardians in the middle of nowhere. Barton had said Loki didn’t really care about collateral, and Thor had bit his tongue to stop himself from arguing about that.
Look at your streets, he’d wanted to say, actually look at them. Loki destroyed your property, not your people. If he wanted casualties, he would have made them. He didn’t.
With resignation, dread, and an ache in his stomach, Thor realized that Loki taking the Tesseract was likely the last he would ever see of his brother for a long, long time. Loki wouldn’t make a claim for Midgard so soon after his failure, and their parents gave Loki little reason to return home.
On the plus side, without the Tesseract, Thor was effectively grounded, which means that he can’t return home either. He’d sooner bite off his own tongue than have to face his father’s wrath after losing Loki.
So when Loki shows up at Avengers Tower several hours after vanishing, looking like he’s been through hel and pummeled all the way to the gate, Thor is more surprised than he cares to admit. Loki wasn’t supposed to come back.
That’s not how this was supposed to go.
When the elevator opens, everyone draws their weapons and approaches slowly. Thor can feel the tension in the air, thick enough to bite on. Thor feels like he’s choking on it.
Loki is--
He looks different. He’s wearing a Midgardian polo, and cheap, dark pants. His shirt, stained and gray when it was once clearly white, is cut in several places. His tie is a mess and he’s wearing a tie. Loki hates ties. A dark brown jacket is drawn across his shoulders, a logo that Thor doesn’t recognize stamped in orange on the left side.
It’s about all that Thor has the time to process. Loki is on his feet from his previous position on the floor, the Tesseract clutched between desperate fingers, and all but throws himself in their direction. Thor draws Mjolnir, the taste of electricity already splitting through the air. Stark’s suit powers up, whining almost familiar now.
Loki doesn’t draw a weapon, though he has one strapped to his back. A sword. (Loki doesn’t use swords)
He doesn’t use the Tesseract.
He doesn’t use magic.
Loki grabs at Thor in a desperate, strangling embrace, his fingers clutching into Thor’s armor and his entire body shuddering. The Tesseract falls from limp fingers and clatters to the ground at Thor’s feet. The sound feels far away.
Thor doesn’t move. He can’t breathe. His side still aches from the knife Loki gutted him with hours before.
Loki is crying. Thor finds his hands going up automatically to return the embrace, his fingers against Loki’s back. The fabric of the jacket is unfamiliar and coarse, rubbing at his fingers in a way that itches. He can feel printed letters on the back.
“Um,” Stark intones, clearly as confused as Thor feels.
Not this morning Loki considered him a mortal enemy.
“You were dead,” Loki breathes, still clutching, still desperate. “You were dead and it was my fault. Oh, gods.”
“Loki?” Thor says because it’s all he can say. He tries to pull away, but Loki just holds on tighter.
“I’m sorry,” Loki whispers. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I--” Loki pulls back suddenly, and wild, red rimmed eyes find Thor’s. Loki looks different. Older. His hair is a ragged mess, grown out and curled. His face is bruised, his nose bearing evidence of having been broken very recently. He looks as though years have passed, not hours.
This isn’t my brother.
The thought strikes him hard. With it, takes all the hope. There is no way that this Loki can be reconciled with the one who left hours ago. They’re entirely different people. That Loki was angry and mouthing off to everything. He was picking fights. This one is--
Broken.
Terrified.
Not Thor’s.
“I need to--I have to speak with Father. Now. Please. There’s--there’s something--we--” Loki stumbles over himself. He seems confused, but there’s very real fear in his eyes. “We need to--”
“‘Variant’?” Stark asks, popping the helmet of his armor up. He’s looking at Loki’s back.
Loki looks up at Stark by instinct. Like he’s responding to a name. He swallows thickly. He’s still clutching at Thor’s shoulder like the contact is the only thing keeping him from sliding to the floor. Part of Thor, vicious, and horrible, wants to move away just to see if he would fall this time.
Stark’s expression is somewhere between annoyed and amused. “I’m sure there’s a story behind that change of clothing. Interesting choice.”
Loki looks back at Thor, ignoring Stark. His eyes are big and wide. Thor is reminded in that moment of how young Loki still is. Barely grasping at the beginning of manhood. But this is not my brother and I don’t have it in me to sympathize anymore.
“Please, brother,” Loki’s voice is desperate. His fingers clutched into Thor’s arm.
Thor looks away from him. His heart feels heavy, but his head is clear. “You’re not my brother.” He says. He doesn’t see it, but he can feel Loki’s face break. His fingers grow weak and fall away, and the contact feels like he’s letting go of a ghost.
Thor doesn’t look at him.
Loki doesn’t look away.
I don’t know what sort of trickery this is, but I would give anything for it to stop.
000o000
Loki surrenders willingly. He doesn’t blink when the Tesseract is taken by Stark. He lifts his hands up for restraints, baring his neck momentarily before retreating. The sword at his back is intricately made and not something that Thor recognizes, and he looks like he’s biting his tongue when Thor takes it from him. The style looks like it’s from dying Asgardian culture. No other weapons are found on him.
Loki is stuffed into a cell in S.H.I.E.L.D. custody, sits heavily on the bench, and doesn’t move.
Thor watches him from S.H.I.E.L.D.’s screens an hour later, feeling faintly sick. That same wrong wrong wrong feeling that has been pattering behind his ribs since Loki came back is only growing worse by the second. He doesn’t know what it is. He doesn’t know if he wants to know.
“He came back,” Fury says, on Thor’s left. He looks exhausted. “Why?”
Romanov is scrutinizing Loki’s every move. Sleep deprivation is beginning to show in her straining shoulders and tight eyes. All of them are ready to pass out, but they don’t get to have that yet. Not until Loki has been dealt with.
“He said he needed to speak with our father,” Thor says, and despite himself, doubt creeps into his voice.
Fury raises an eyebrow. “You buy that?”
Thor sighs. He doesn’t know how to explain what he feels in a way that will make sense to them. Midgardian magic is hoarded and kept captive by a select few now, an endangered practice rather than commonplace. Thor has no idea how to articulate to S.H.I.E.L.D. in a way that they will understand that the Loki in front of them isn’t the Loki that left.
To them, Loki has gone through an outfit change and a beating. To Thor…his aura is off. More than before, anyway. Now it feels tainted. Thor doesn’t recognize it anymore. Like it got scanned, stripped away, and pieced back together badly.
Thor looks up at Fury. “Let me talk to him.”
“Last time you talked to him, he dropped you ten thousand feet,” Romanov says blankly.
“There’s something wrong with him,” Thor argues, and adds quickly before anyone can make another insanity joke, “something different than before. Let me speak with him for a few minutes. I’m better prepared this time.”
Fury and Romanov share a look, but after more arguing, Thor is allowed a few minutes. Thor doesn’t waste any time with pleasantries. He’s exhausted and he’s tired, and he’s dreading the upcoming argument with their parents. When Thor gets close enough, Loki looks up, then stands, coming close to the edge of the glass. This cell is tiny and square, but still white. Loki practically bleeds into the scenery with his pallor.
“What do you want now?” Thor asks.
“I have to speak with Father,” Loki insists. His eyes are still following Thor’s expression, drinking it in, like it’s the last time they’re going to see each other. “It’s urgent.”
“We can’t get there quickly. The Tesseract is in S.H.I.E.L.D.’s custody and they’re not inclined to let it near you after your last little stunt.” Thor says. Loki’s eyes flicker, an expression getting swallowed into the twist of his lips. Thor studies him. “...What’s wrong with you?”
“What?”
“You’re…different.” Thor waves a hand, unable to articulate. That feeling is still there, rubbing. Wrong wrong wrong.
“That’s what I have to speak to Father about,” Loki says. There’s a long, weighted pause, before Loki admits, “I need his help.”
“ With?”
“There’s something out there. Something dangerous. He might have ideas.”
The dread comes back, worse this time. “Dangerous like what?” Gods, what could Loki have run into in the span of a few hours ?
“There’s--there’s this…man. He is…” Loki looks like he’s struggling to find the right words. Then, he discards it altogether. “It doesn’t matter. I need to speak with Father. Please, someone…something is after me.”
Thor’s eyebrows raise. “Now something is after you?”
Loki’s jaw tics. “I need to speak with Father.”
“That’s not possible,” Thor says. “You make do with me, or you don’t talk to anyone. We’ve all had enough of your games, Loki.”
Loki looks like he’s biting his tongue. His expression rolls with visible frustration, more than Thor is used to seeing openly. It’s almost physically jarring-- seeing it. Thor has spent the better part of the last few decades dragging Loki’s expressions out of the minute movements of his face. Loki isn’t an open person. He’s not someone you can read.
“This isn’t some sort of game.” Loki snaps. His hand comes up to the side of his neck, rubbing at it compulsively with two fingers. It’s a gesture Thor doesn’t recognize. “I’m not trying to pull something over you, Thor. I need to speak to him.”
Thor shakes his head, closing his eyes. “Three days ago, he was your father and Odin, what changed?”
Loki doesn’t answer. Thor didn’t expect anything different, even if he hoped for it. He opens his eyes again and sees Loki watching him, hand still pressed into the side of his neck. His posture is bent strangely like he’s accounting for an old injury. Thor remembers this posture shift being worse. When Thor was talking to him on the cliffs, every step Loki took made his face nearly spasm. He was clutching at his back.
That same awkward shift of weight is still there. Less severe, but definitely there.
Thor’s head tilts a little, thinking.
“Thor,” Loki’s voice is low. “Please.”
Thor shakes his head again. He brushes hair from his face, dragging in a deep breath. Somewhere, there has to be more patience buried inside him. “What is the thing that’s after you? Maybe I can help.”
Loki smiles bitterly. “I highly doubt that.” A hesitation, and then Loki admits with reluctance, “His name is Kang. I’ve been working with the Time Variance Authority for the past several months against him, but he…overwhelmed our forces. Father has knowledge of the universe that surpasses even my own. I need his help.”
Thor stares at him.
Exhausted. Worn. Done.
Fine, don’t tell me, lingers at the edge of his tongue, but Thor stops. Loki looks exhausted, his entire body braced for a retort. That, more than anything, makes Thor aware that Loki is aware of just how stupid this entire thing sounds. Loki’s lies are less lies and more assurances of what you want to hear. Thor can’t imagine why Loki would think he’d want to hear this.
He’s telling the truth.
Who controls the would-be-king? Thor asked him several days ago. Loki had said nothing. Maybe this is his answer, belated as it is. So where does the Attack on New York fit into that? Fighting this Kang surely wouldn’t have required taking over a planet. Why didn’t Loki say anything?
“What is the Time Variance Authority?” Thor asks at last, with some reluctance.
Loki blinks, taking a half step back. “You believe me?”
“Why wouldn’t I?” Thor asks, folding his arms across his chest. “In what realm do you think I’d want to hear that?”
Loki blinks again. His mouth parts. “I--everything that comes out of my mouth is a lie. That I’ve had assured to me. You have no means to verify anything…and you…believe me.” Loki trails a little at the end, confused. Thor’s brow furrows.
Why wouldn’t I?
Loki has, for the most part, been trustworthy. Thor used to joke that he was incapable of sincerity, but they both knew that wasn’t true. If every word that came out of Loki’s mouth was a lie for the entirety of their lives, Thor would never have trusted him as much as he did.
As much as he does. Because as much as he wants to doubt every word that comes out of his brother’s mouth, he can’t. He knows his brother. Anyone who actually knows his brother would know that. Yes, Loki lies and cheats and swindles his way through things, but if you hold his trust, it’s rarely without your gain in mind.
Whoever Loki has been speaking with clearly doesn’t know that.
Gods, Loki shouldn’t be this surprised that someone believes him.
Before Thor can ask, Loki says quickly, “The TVA is…it’s an organization dedicated to protecting timelines.”
“Like the Norns and fate?” Thor asks. “Spacetime equalizers?”
“Yes,” Loki nods. “Exactly. They maintain balance. As I said, I’ve been working with them.”
“...As a spacetime equalizer?” Thor questions, somewhat dubious. Loki gives another nod, more reluctant this time. Thor rubs at his temple and chews on the inside of his cheek. How? And why? Are questions that pop into the forefront of his mind, along with a lingering sense of this is ridiculous. Loki fell into the Void. The place between worlds.
There is nothing there.
And now he’s working for an organization dedicated to timeline equilibrium? Separate timelines have been an accepted part of science in Asgard for centuries. The part Thor is struggling to grasp is that there’s something out there besides gods dedicated to trying to help it. How has Thor never heard of this TVA before if they’re so powerful?
Loki looks desperate. Exhausted and worn. But he’s looking at Thor like Thor can bend the universe to fix this. That same, age-old expression from when they were children, and Thor’s presence alone was enough to fix something. Thor hasn’t been able to fix anything for a long, long time with Loki.
We’re both just boys, Thor realizes, desperately trying to pretend we’re men, but we’re not. And I can’t fix this anymore.
Thor releases the inside of his cheek. “I’ll see what I can do to help.”
Loki’s shoulders slump. He closes his eyes in relief. “Thank you.”
What is wrong with you? What happened?
Thor doesn’t move. He should. Should just walk away, cut Loki out of his heart now while the anger is still fresh and severing this will be easier. But he doesn’t. They are bound, Thor thinks, in a way that cannot be described by fate alone, and he feels that. The pull.
“You look tired,” Thor says, not sure why. He expects Loki to snap at him, like he has in the past. He doesn’t. Instead, he takes a seat on the bench, and nods. He fidgets with his fingers, which makes Thor pause again. Why are you moving so much? You never used to move this much.
“So do you,” Loki says, looking up at him. “Have you slept?”
Thor scoffs, unfairly annoyed. “Do you think I have?”
Loki drops his gaze.
Thor closes his eyes. “That’s not what I--do you want water or something? I’ll see if I can find someone.” Thor offers. When he looks at his brother again, Loki is clearly considering him. There’s no barb in return, no verbal knife stuffed into Thor’s shoulders in retaliation. There’s nothing. The lack of fight scares him.
“Yes, thank you,” Loki says quietly.
Thor lingers for a moment more, torn between wanting to say something and having nothing to say. He leaves. When he returns later with the water, and some food that Fury let him take, Loki takes it from him wordlessly.
His younger brother doesn’t even hesitate. He twists off the cap from the bottle of water and starts drinking like this is the first time he’s been allowed to replenish himself in years. Thor says nothing.
That desperation, however, eats at him.
Loki has clearly been deprived of substance for some time, and Thor doesn’t want to ask. He doesn’t want to know. He’s too tired. When Loki is finished, he takes the empty bottles and the granola bar wrappers and leaves.
000o000
“I think we would have heard of the TVA by now if it was actually something important,” Barton says when Thor comes back to the bridge. A screen is sitting in front of them, but no one is really looking at it except Thor. Loki is sitting back down on the bench, every muscle in his body bowed with rigid tension. If he’s attempting to put up an act, he’s doing a very good job.
“The universe is vast,” Thor points out. “They could just be good at hiding.”
“ Timeline keeping?” Stark asks, incredulous. Rogers is still quiet, sitting at the table and rubbing his thumb across his bottom lip. He hasn’t said anything the entire meeting. Thor isn’t even sure he’s listening. “The actual words that came out of your brother’s mouth is that somehow, in the space of five hours, he solved time travel and his immediate thought was to go help an organization maintain timelines?”
“Parallel timelines are a confirmed part of science on Asgard,” Thor says. He’s not sure if it's in defense of Loki. He thinks it might be and he hates himself a little for it. But it's instinctive.
“This isn’t Asgard. Do you--do you have any idea how many problems there are with time travel? It’s not even a possibility. The grandfather paradox, the mess it makes with CTC--it’s just…not a thing.” Stark insists. He sounds annoyed.
It very much is a thing.
The Time Stone exists for a reason. Thor is struck, once again, with how behind Midgard is in their science.
Thor bites on his lower lip. “Think of it less as going back in time and more so traveling to a separate universe to visit the time you want inside a parallel timeline. True time travel in your own universe has yet to end well.”
“You believe him.” It’s not a question. Barton laughs a little and gestures toward Loki with his chin. “You actually believe his bat-crap story about time travel?”
“I don’t know!” Thor snaps, and Romanov looks up at him from the table. She and Fury are sitting at it, watching the argument calmly. Thor wishes they would shout. He wants someone to scream at. “There is so much of this that I don’t understand and this at least offers an explanation for something! Loki was missing for a year and a half. This is something, even if it sounds insane.”
“No, it’s not,” Barton says, getting closer. His face is angry, hands clenched into rigid fists. “It’s not something. It’s not anything. It’s just your brother pulling one over you because you’re gullible.”
Gullible.
“Then what on the Nine do you think is going on?” Thor demands, jabbing a finger into Barton’s shoulder. “He’s spewing up some story just to throw us off? For what? He’s locked in a cell.”
“Historically, that benefited him more than deterred him,” Stark says.
“Alright, enough,” Fury commands sharply.
Barton ignores him. “Because whoever was on the end of his leash--they weren’t concerned about timelines!” Barton snaps. Thor stills. He looks up. The archer is braced and he takes a deep breath filled with regret. “I don’t remember much, and this doesn’t change anything, but he was terrified of them. The TVA isn’t that. He’s not scared of them.”
But he is scared, Thor thinks. I can see that, and you can see that. But what any of that means…
“What are we going to do?” Romanov asks.
Gods, I wish I knew.
“Wait a few more days, then I’ll take him home,” Thor says, trying to keep the dread from his voice. “He’s insistent. He’s not going to try anything until he gets what he wants. He doesn’t know where the Tesseract is, and he can’t use magic with the cuffs.”
Stark rubs at his face, pale, and taps at the glowing light in his chest. It makes a soft clink sound. “Okay. Great. He can just sit there. Or at the very least, S.H.I.E.L.D. can babysit for an hour. I am starving, and it’s been a very long day, so who wants to go out for shawarma?”
Thor has never had shawarma, but at this point, he’s too hungry to really care. He and the other Avengers crowd into one table in the mostly-empty restaurant and discuss anything but what’s happened in the last few hours. Rogers looks like he’s trying not to fall asleep, but that persistent anxiety is still lingering behind his eyes. Stark keeps rubbing at his chest absently, like a nervous tic. Still feeling anxiety from his earlier heart troubles. Romanov and Barton have commandeered half of the other’s chair. Banner is the only other person who actually seems interested in eating anything.
Before they part ways for the evening, Rogers pulls Thor aside. “Your brother,” he says, and Thor braces for the worst. “He… knew things about us. About me. He said he learned it from Barton. Do you think there’s any chance that he’d lie his way out of a fight?”
“What do you mean?”
Rogers scrapes a hand through his hair nervously. “When I was fighting him in the Tower, he said that someone…that I used to care about was still alive. He, um, died. It was my fault. I didn’t grab him before he fell. Would Loki…”
I didn’t grab him before he fell. Thor’s stomach tightens at the familiarity of the sentiment. The glazed, dull look in Loki’s eyes before he let go. Thor reached for him. Odin didn’t. Thor sucks in a breath, forcing himself to focus on now. “On Asgard, battles are usually done with honor. Loki fights to stay alive. There is a difference. He would lie to you if he knew it would keep him alive.”
Rogers’ face falls.
“Right. Yeah.”
Not the answer he wanted.
Thor wishes he had words of comfort, but all he has is an empty feeling in his chest. He and Rogers return to the S.H.I.E.L.D. base where Loki is being held to sleep. He doesn’t remember much of falling asleep, but he wakes up to someone shaking him several hours later. Red lights are pulsing. Barton is looking down at him, his face illuminated in deep red like blood.
“Get up.” Barton snaps.
“Wha--?”
“Get up!” Barton grabs Thor’s arm and hauls him off the bed. Thor stumbles a little. “Some guy and lady are trying to break your brother out. Come on !”
That wakes Thor up pretty quickly. Loki only mind-controlled a few people, but everyone that they knew about was released and recovering well. Were there more that they didn’t know about? Can Loki even enforce commands without the scepter anymore?
Thor and Clint arrive at the scene a few minutes later. Inside Loki’s cell, Romanov has an older man pushed against the wall and is attaching restraints to his wrists. He’s tall, pale skin, gray hair, blue eyes, and a little squirrelly, with soft eyes. His suit is Midgardian-styled and there’s a long cut along his cheek.
Another woman with dark skin is picking herself off the floor. Her hair is cut short and her eyes hold the weight of worlds. She looks somewhere between terrified and determined. Her suit reminds Thor vaguely of S.H.I.E.L.D. armor. A weapon that Thor doesn’t recognize has rolled to Loki’s feet. It looks like a long stick with a glowing ember at the end. The woman is attempting to reach for it.
Loki is backed to the far wall, practically plastered against it. His eyes are wide. He isn’t moving. He’s not even breathing. He looks terrified.
Fury is there as well, on Romanov’s other side, holding some sort of device in his hands.
The man pushed against the wall is shouting.
“--can’t believe that you would do this to me again, Loki! How can you make me trust you over and over again and then just go and stab me in the back? Are you capable of anything but betrayal? You promised things would be different this time! After what happened to Sylvie--”
The name cracks Loki’s exterior. He jerks forward, hands appraised, looking like he’s seconds from breaking.
“She’s why I’m doing this, Mobius!” Loki exclaims. “I can’t let what happened to her happen to you--or B-15.”
Mobius snorts. “Now you decide to grow conscious? How stupid do you think I am? This is just another appeal from the cockroach to squirm his way out of death. Do you think this is what Sylvie would have wanted? You running off, leaving us behind again?”
Loki flinches, exhaling a pained sound. The two of them seem to have forgotten that anyone else is in the room entirely. Mobius wrenches in Romanov’s grip, only to have her slam him harder against the wall. His skull makes a twhap sound and he groans. Loki takes a half step forward, hands appraised toward Romanov.
“Don’t hurt him, Agent Romanov,” he says, “please.”
Barton picks up the scepter before the other woman can reach it, and, standing less than two feet from Loki, goes rigid. The woman on the ground manages to pull herself up into a seated position, but she looks vaguely ill.
“Alright, that’s enough,” Fury says sharply. “Will someone explain to me what the heck is going on?”
Mobius and Loki both break out into equally rushed and increasingly loud explanations, Loki looks frantic to get a word in edgewise, Mobius angry. Fury’s jaw clenches. “Alright, alright!” A pause then, “ Shut up! Get them out of here.”
Rogers comes forward and grabs the woman, hauling her up to her feet. She stumbles before falling forward and coughing harshly. A spray of blood spills across the cell and Thor flinches as he’s hit with it. Oh gods.
Fury swears, “Get her to medical!”
“B-15!” Loki shouts, and starts to move forward, “wait--” Barton pushes the butt of the staff against Loki’s chest and forces him back against the wall. Loki stills. Thor can feel some type of ancient magic attached to the staff.
It feels wrong. Like rot.
Loki feels like that.
Rot.
Gods, what the hel happened?
“Please don’t,” Loki says. He’s not looking at Barton, but at Mobius. Thor doesn’t understand what he’s referring to. He’s not even sure if Loki understands what he’s referring to. Romanov starts to haul Mobius out of the room, and several S.H.I.E.L.D. agents grab the other woman, B-15, and start hauling her toward the exit. She seems to be aware of very little.
“Loki!” Mobius shouts as Romanov drags him out, “ Loki! If this is part of some master plan it won’t work!”
“It’s not! Mobius, I swear--!”
“Don’t you freaking say anything you liar! I can’t trust anything that comes out of your mouth! I know that now!”
“ Mobius !”
Loki starts to move forward again, but Barton shoves the staff against his chest. That ancient, rotting magic that Thor sensed from before sparks and Loki goes still. His face is very pale. He drags in a ragged breath. “Barton,” he says the name carefully. “Barton.”
“Sit down,” Barton’s voice is flat.
“I--” Loki starts to say. His hand grapples for his chest, his breathing picking up speed. “Oh gods. Oh, gods .” Barton pulls the staff back, brows drawing together. Loki makes a strangled sound and looks desperately at Thor. The movement is instinct.
So is Thor’s.
He pushes past Barton to grab Loki’s arms, holding him. “Loki,” he whispers. “Loki, breathe.”
Loki gasps, falling against Thor and shuddering. Thor holds him tighter, pulls him closer. Muscle memory. Instinct. No. What it is, what it has always been, is that Thor cares and by gods he misses his brother. “Loki, it’s okay, it’s okay, just breathe.”
“My fault,” Loki inhales, the sound a whispered gasp, “my fault, my fault, my fault…”
000o000
There’s something about the woman that seems unwell.
Natasha watches from the doorway. The woman has her head buried in her unrestrained hand like she’s trying to stave off a headache, and her pallor is pale. The EMTs insisted nothing dire was wrong with her, though Natasha doubts that. Coughing up blood isn’t something a healthy person does.
Fury takes the chair across from her. She trails their movement with her eyes but says nothing.
“What do I call you?” Fury asks, clasping his hands on the tabletop in a clear effort to be non-threatening.
Natasha slides smoothly into the seat beside him, eyeing the woman. Sleep-deprived, obviously. She’s in pain. Exhausted from some sort of physical excursion before this. Walking or maybe some type of fight, judging from the way she’s holding herself. That’s the type of care you have after taking a beating. Her armor is some type of tactical gear, black, and hides any evidence of injury.
That same orange symbol that was on Loki’s jacket is on her sleeve. Some sort of time measurement. Over her left sleeve is a strap that reads “B-15” in bright orange. TVA is imprinted on the chest plate, over where Natasha assumes the woman’s heart is. TVA. Time Variance Authority. The group that Loki said he was working for when Thor spoke with him.
“B-15 works fine,” the woman says in answer to Fury’s question.
Fury’s gaze sweeps across her, and Natasha can see him cataloging everything that Natasha did. “That’s not a name,” Fury says, after a beat.
B-15’s smile is bitter. “No.”
Fury doesn’t push for one. “Our cameras show you arriving at S.H.I.E.L.D. via some type of magical door. You came here for Loki?”
“Yes,” B-15 agrees. “And we don’t have time to waste with either of you.”
Brisk. To the point. Natasha likes her.
“That’s definitely unfortunate,” Fury says.
B-15 looks annoyed. “I told Mobius that we should have just set the reset charge first.”
“‘Reset charge?’” Fury repeats, eyebrows raising.
“None of your business.” B-15 snarls.
Natasha hums, eyes finally finding the injury. “That’s a pretty nasty head wound,” she says. A long cut is hidden in B-15’s curls, but it’s bleeding sluggishly down the length of her ear. Exposure to any sort of air must be agonizing. B-15’s eyes snap toward Natasha, wary and hunted. There’s thinly veiled fear hidden behind her hard exterior.
Interesting.
“You were in a fight?” Natasha phrases it as a question. It’s not. “Recently. Last couple of hours. With Loki?”
That last part is a guess.
B-15’s eyes narrow. Yes, then. B-15 leans forward, planting one flat hand against the table. “Do you honestly think that you’re going to get anywhere with this? What’s happening is on a scale you can’t comprehend, Natasha Romanov. It’s bigger than all of us. Let me and Mobius go, we’ll take Loki and you won't ever hear from any of us again.”
“I’m curious,” Natasha tilts her head. “Are you hoping to scare us into releasing you?”
B-15’s mouth tightens.
“We just fought an alien invasion,” Natasha says, keeping her voice level. “There’s not much you can say after that will actually make us afraid of you. Good try, though. Director,” she looks over at him, “my recommendation would be to get B-15 actual medical care. There’s not much we’ll be able to get out of her.”
Fury studies Natasha’s face for a moment. He looks hesitant, but ultimately, trusts her judgment. He gets up to his feet. “We’ll get you a hospital room in an hour.”
A jerk against the handcuff. Natasha looks at the woman mildly. B-15’s gaze is fixed on Fury. “You can’t just leave me here. We have to leave. You don’t understand--”
Fury looks back at her. “Make me, then. The most you’ve managed to do is annoy Agent Romanov. You say that there’s some threat but refuse to detail that. And you want to collect Loki and leave? The same Loki that just rained hell on New York yesterday? How stupid do you think I am?”
B-15’s jaw tightens.
Fury waits, then sighs in exasperation and turns away. Natasha gets up to her feet.
“There’s something hunting us,” B-15 admits. It sounds like she’s pulling teeth. “If you don’t let us go, it’s going to kill everyone here.”
“You got any proof of that?” Fury asks.
“You took a device from both me and Mobius. It looks like a phone but folds open. It’s called a Tempad. All the information you could want on the TVA is there. We’re telling the truth, director. You’ll be back here. The thing hunting us is called Kang, and he’s going to rip the universe apart.”
Fury and Natasha share a long look. Then the two of them leave. Natasha can feel the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents guarding the cell’s eyes on them, but she and Fury walk away without a word. They’re well on their way down the hall before Fury says, “she seems confident.”
One way to put that.
“If they are telling the truth, what do you plan to do about Loki, sir?” Natasha asks.
Fury sighs. “Heck if I know. We’ll burn that bridge when we get to it.”
000o000
B-15 is telling the truth. Once Stark and Banner manage to crack the Tempad, the information starts rolling. The Tempad seems to be connected to some sort of mainframe with endless information on everything. Thor, once he arrives, insists that it’s magic. Stark says he doesn’t know how it can’t be.
“This thing needs a small sun to power it,” Stark says, gesturing at the Tempad with a pen. “That’s not power you can get from nowhere. It’s either magic or a mass hallucination.”
Natasha takes the device from him. Everything is written in perfect English, which gives her pause. The TVA is supposed to be some type of organization overlooking time. Why are they speaking in modern English? Language doesn’t work like this. You can’t isolate a society and then expect the language not to evolve over time.
American English vs British English, for example.
“What?” Stark asks, leaning over her shoulder. He’s clearly noticed she noticed something.
Natasha looks up at Thor. “Asgardian has a written alphabet, doesn’t it?”
Thor nods. “Yes. Of course. Why?”
“If you wrote it down, do you think I’d be able to read it?”
“...No.”
Banner makes a humming sound in his throat. “Why is this in English?” he asks, catching on. “They’re supposed to be aliens. Dialects change. Even if they’re originally from Earth, which according to Miss Minutes, they are…why are they still writing in English? They’ve been doing this for hundreds of years. They have a universal translator, but that doesn’t account for this.”
“Scam,” Stark suggests, playing with a tool that looks like a cross between a screwdriver and a solder.
“They have too much information to be a scam,” Banner argues. “They knew things about you that you haven’t told anyone, Tony.”
“You looked yourself up?” Natasha asks, raising an eyebrow. She’s not surprised. Just annoyed.
Stark shrugs and spreads his hands. His eyes are dead as he says, “It’s the narcissism in me.”
Natasha bites the inside of her cheek. She looks back down at the device, suddenly overwhelmed with a compulsion she never thought she’d face “...do they know the future?”
Stark nods. “Yeah. You can follow yourself all the way to the end of your timeline. Lots of fun. You know I’m dead in ten years? Apparently, I take myself out defeating some guy named Thanos. Looks like an angry purple raisin attached to Hulk’s muscles. I die to bring my adopted son back from the dead.”
Natasha stares at him.
Son? Tony Stark? And a kid?
Wait.
Back from the dead?
Tony looks a little wrecked. Unstable. He’s breathing too quickly, the beginning of a descent into a panic attack. Knowledge is power, but that power corrupts. This isn’t a gift, it’s a curse. “You die in that same fight.” Tony says, more compulsion than anything else, “To bring back your sister. I grieved you.”
Natasha’s fingers still over the device.
Yelena?
She’s alive?
Natasha searched after she and Clint took down Dreykov. When Natasha got out in her early twenties, Yelena should have been in her late teens. Natasha never found her. She just assumed that Yelena didn’t make it.
Lena is alive.
“Where?” Natasha’s voice is strangled. “Where is Yelena?”
“I don’t know. I was just poking through my timeline, I didn’t really--”
Natasha opens the device and types in Yelena Vostokova. What comes up isn’t Lena. Not Natasha’s. She backtracks. Yelena Shostakova. Yelena Romanova. Nothing. Come on. Tony leans in closer. “Natasha,” his voice is low, “you won’t like what you find. Don’t do this to yourself.”
“Don’t pretend to be impulse control, Stark, it might give you a rash,” Natasha says. Then, with more vulnerability than she wanted, “She’s my sister,” Natasha says and shoves off his hand. It’s all the explanation that she has room for. Her head feels like it’s spinning. Memories of Yelena feel like a lifetime ago. Ohio feels like it happened to a different person. But Natasha remembers the warmth. Yelena’s teasing, the whistling.
We’re both upside down!
She’s only six!
Yelena Belova. This time, Natasha sees the familiar blonde hair. It’s hard to put the six-year-old into the body of an adult, but Natasha still recognizes her. Her perfect blonde hair grew out into dirty blonde. She looks hard and cold. A chernaya vdova. A proper one. Not what Natasha turned into.
Natasha slides her fingers along the timeline. Tony and Banner are quiet next to her. Thor draws closer. Natasha doesn’t feel anything but numbed panic. She watches. Yelena being taken by Red Room. Dreykov separating them. This, Natasha remembers. Training in Red Room. The destruction of Red Room…
Failure.
Red Room going underground. Yelena being taken to a new location. Some type of red midst being employed. Years. Years. Yelena’s life swept into Red Room. 2016. Running into Natasha. Finding Ivan Shostokov. Melina. Blowing up Red Room from the sky. Whose decision was that? That was crap to put it in the sky. What did they do about planes?
2024.
Yelena at Natasha’s grave--
Natasha drops the device, breathing in sharply. Dead. Lena is free, but Natasha is dead. She squeezes her eyes shut. Yelena is alive. Dreykov is alive. All of that--the hospital fire, Dreykov’s daughter, running and running and running , the sacrifices Natasha made, it was all pointless.
Tony rests a hand on her shoulder. Natasha tense underneath the contact, but the grip is in support, not restraint. “It really feels like a good idea at the time.” He says, quietly. Understanding. Natasha breathes into her hands. Closes her eyes. Lena is alive. So is Red Room.
She takes a deep breath.
Dismiss. Categorize. Compartmentalize.
She can think about this later.
Natasha slowly picks back up the Tempad.
“Are you sure--?” Banner starts to ask, carefully.
“This isn’t about me,” Natasha says. She backs out of Yelena’s file. Loki Odinson goes into the search bar instead. Beside her, Thor visibly tightens.
“I don’t know if we should--” Thor starts to say.
“I’m not going to poke at his life,” Natasha assures, rolling the timeline footage forward. “He said he’s been working with the TVA for months. That will show up here, right? We just have to go back to before the attack--”
Natasha tries the beginning of the file first, assuming life as long as Loki’s will have endless things to go through. Loki’s still a child. Natasha goes forward. It’s not until she’s nearly at the end that Natasha really starts recognizing Loki as an adult. By the time she gets to the attack on New York, Loki’s file is almost over.
He’s going to die soon.
Yelena’s file was long. She lived into old age.
Loki doesn’t.
Natasha hopes that Thor doesn’t realize this. She backtracks from the Battle. She expects, wholeheartedly, to see Mobius and B-15 somewhere. To see the TVA, like she has in pictures. To see Miss Minutes, annoying as she was.
She doesn’t.
Instead, a horror story starts unfolding.
“Oh my gosh,” Banner breathes in, exhales, and doesn’t inhale. Thor releases a strangled sound. Natasha’s fingers feel numb. Loki said he worked for the TVA for months. Bozhe moi, if this is the TVA…
“That--” Tony can’t look away. Natasha can’t either. He swears, his fingers tightening around her shoulder. “That’s um. Oh my gosh. The purple raisin that I died to kill? Yeah. Um. That’s him. Oh man. I’m going to be sick. Stop. Stop, we shouldn’t--”
Natasha scrolls back. Her skin feels like it’s crawling. She’s suddenly deeply grateful that Tony didn’t figure out how to make the speaker work. She knows exactly what types of sounds Loki would be making, and she doesn’t want Thor to hear that.
They’re splitting his ribcage open.
A few days. God, tell me this is over in a few days, please. He’s in so much pain…
It isn’t. Weeks roll back. Months. Last year. She doesn’t see Mobius or B-15, but that’s not surprising. In over a year of footage, they may have just been an orbiting presence. When Loki escaped with the Tesseract, they must have found him again.
Thor grips the back of Natasha’s chair, breathing heavily. None of them say anything. Thor’s eyes are wide. “I--” Thor’s voice is weak. “I--I asked him…I asked him ‘who controls the would-be king’, he didn’t answer.”
“Purple raisin guy sent him here,” Tony realizes, “to attack us. Was any of this Loki’s idea? ”
“His name is Thanos,” Thor whispers. “He’s…well-known on Asgard. He tried to slaughter the Nine. Before I was born, he was cast out of the Nine Realms by my father. It’s what united the realms under him--fighting Thanos.”
Natasha absorbs that. “Do you think that Thanos is part of the TVA?”
“I don’t know.” Thor shakes his head, closes his eyes, breathes in, “I’ve never heard of the TVA before, but that’s hardly surprising. My father believes in need-to-know information. Forbidden history is common, especially during that time period. I wouldn’t be surprised if Thanos was part of this TVA.”
Great.
Natasha resists the urge to roll the footage forward. She gets the distinct impression that Loki’s demise is at the hands of either the TVA or Thanos. Both, maybe. Maybe Loki has always escaped with the Tesseract, and the TVA always catches him. Then they hold him for what must be a couple more years before slaughtering him.
This is Loki’s ultimate fate?
Natasha is no stranger to short, bloody endings. She always suspected--and was right--that her’s would be similar. But this feels…cold. Calculated. Thanos broke him. Natasha doesn’t know how anyone could walk away from what he did with their sanity intact.
Clint said that Loki was terrified.
Natasha would have been too.
This doesn’t excuse what he did. But it makes things a lot more messed up.
“We need to show this to Fury, and figure out what we’re going to do with Loki.” Thor starts to protest immediately and Natasha lifts up a hand to quiet him. “We’re not going to throw him to Mobius and B-15. Not after…this. We need to figure out what’s going on. Loki…” the words come out with some reluctance, “Loki may need our help.”
Tony snorts. “That’s kind of an understatement, Red. You saw what they were doing to him. If Mobius and B-15 had anything to do with that…do you think that Kang is even real? Or is it something they just…made up to keep Loki working for them?”
“I don’t know,” Banner says. “We don’t know enough about what’s going on to make that judgment call.”
“My brother was tortured for over a year,” Thor says flatly. “I can make judgment enough from that.”
000o000
Natasha takes a seat across from Mobius, studying him. His eyes are kind. It’s the first thing about him that she notices. He has laugh lines, his gray hair looking like flecks of silver. But looking beyond that, she sees something colder. Pragmatic. Tense. A man in a position of authority used to wrestling with bureaucracy.
He wants to fight and he’s ready to.
Natasha leans back in her chair, and visibly relaxes her posture. Mobius meets her gaze without restraint or flinching. His hands are cuffed to the table, but he still shifts them like he wants to gesture. “I don’t have time for this. We have bigger problems than you right now, Agent Romanov. Give me back the Tempad and we’ll be out of your hair.”
Natasha blinks slowly.
Waits.
Mobius closes his eyes, inhaling. “Something big is out there and it’s coming here, and Loki, B-15, and I are the only people who have any hope of stopping it.”
“Loki said his name was Kang,” Natasha offers.
Mobius’ teeth grit. “He said something? How many times have I been over--it doesn’t matter. I need the Tempad. I’ll take Loki out of your hair. Trust me, it will do you all wonders. You can only work with someone backstabbing you enough before it starts to get on your nerves.”
Genuine frustration there.
Natasha reviewed as much of the last year of Loki’s file that she could stand in preparation for this interview. Someone needs to speak with Loki, but Natasha has doubts that he’ll talk. Not about this, anyway. If he wanted to parade around the fact that the TVA has been torturing him, he would have during the invasion. Natasha needs information.
Bait.
That’s why she’s here first.
“Loki betrayed you?” Natasha asks. Keeps her voice level. Without emotion. She wonders at the twisted brain logic of that--how someone you’re holding captive can betray you for leaving. Reverse Stockholm. Was Loki running? Is that why he is trying to speak with Odin? Because Odin is the only thing in the universe that Loki thinks can keep him safe?
That thought sends a shiver of apprehension down Natasha’s spine. She saw what the TVA was doing to Loki. She’d be seeking out the biggest source of protection she could find, too. She did. After Red Room, she practically scrambled to S.H.I.E.L.D. so something would punch back for her.
“It doesn’t matter,” Mobius dismisses. He looks at her. “What exactly are you hoping to achieve here, Agent Romanov? You’re trying to get me to--what? Tell you about the TVA? Loki? Because I’m not going to do that.”
“What do you know about Loki?”
Mobius just looks at her. Long. Heavy. Annoyed. “Do you honestly think that I don’t know what you’re doing? I’m an interrogation expert, too, Agent Romanov. You can’t get me to talk.”
Natasha gives a slight smile, “I wouldn’t be so sure of that. Everyone talks. Look at you--you love to talk. You’ve already told me plenty.”
Mobius’ eyes narrow. “Like what ?”
Natasha raises an eyebrow. “Brazen confidence about the fact I can’t get you to talk assures me you’re bad at your job. You and Loki got into an argument before he showed up here with B-15, Loki ran off. He said it was to help you, and mentioned someone named Sylvie being in trouble. That makes me think something happened to them first and he reacted. Then you reacted. And that’s what you’re doing now, reacting. You aren't thinking ahead, because you don’t think ahead, you react. You keep calling me Agent Romanov because you’re trying to create emotional dissonance between us. You know me. You like me. I’m assuming that’s because you’ve seen my life in the TVAs timelines. Did I miss anything?”
Mobius’ lips part a fraction. Natasha’s smile is vicious, and she leans forward. “I am good at my job, Mobius. The sooner you accept that, the easier it will be for both of us.”
Mobius’ jaw clenches, eyes narrowing. There is no waring with himself when the words come out, they just come. A reaction. Because he reacts. “I have been unraveling the minds of living creatures for centuries . I was given the title Analyst in the TVA because that’s what I do-- analyze people. I am very good at my job, Agent Romanov. I know how to take people apart and put them back together--reprogram them. I did it with Loki, I’ll do it with you. So give me the tempad and release us, or you’ll leave this cell to kill Clint Barton in the next twenty minutes.”
Slowly, intimately, in every way he knows you fear...
A vague feeling of nausea settles at the base of her throat. Natasha ignores it, harping onto the one important detail here: “You can do that, but not convince me to give you the Tempad?”
Mobius' expression is tired, but his eyes are cold. “You’re kind of taking away the point I’m trying to make here.”
“Sorry. Habit.” Natasha slowly eases back into her chair, letting her body relax. Waits. “You work in analytics inside of the TVA? Interrogations and…what did you call it--reprogramming?”
Sure enough, Mobius starts to subconsciously mirror her. Relaxes just a fraction, leans slightly more toward the left. Reprogramming must be different from interrogations because if Mobius is meant to be an interrogator, he’s very bad at his job.
“What I was made for,.” Mobius says.
“You were made for the TVA?” Natasha asks.
Mobius nods.
This is not reassuring.
How far up the line does reprogramming go? Miss Minutes said that the TVA agents were created by the Time Keepers, but also assured them that the Time Keepers couldn’t create or destroy matter when Tony asked. Does creation by the Time Keepers equal less giving life to them and more so just reprogramming them until they’re converted to the TVA’s cause?
This is some sort of twisted universe cult.
If anything like what happened to Loki was happening to Mobius, or anyone else who is a part of the TVA, then Mobius may not be the arbitrator of this mess. Just a messy victim, dragging other victims into the fold.
“You know, Natasha,” Mobius says, and the use of her name makes her look up. He’s sagged a fraction in his chair. “I think that we got off onto the wrong foot here. I’m not your enemy, and I think you know that. You’re really good at getting people to talk, I get that. I’ve seen it. But you’re welcome to look at the Tempad and see everything the TVA is fighting and you’ll see that I’m telling the truth. We need to get out there. And I need your Loki for that. He belongs to the TVA now.”
Natasha keeps her face blank. “He belongs to it?”
“With it, for it. There’s not really a distinction where I’m from.”
Natasha leans forward. “He’s there by choice?”
Mobius nods. “He is now. The TVA isn’t really big on choice for employment.” To that, there’s an edge of bitterness. “We’ve been working together for months. He tried to run, I’m here to bring him back. Kang isn’t something we can just ignore.”
Natasha nods. “Of course not. He’s an actual threat.”
“ Exactly.”
“I’m curious--why Loki? He’d just destroyed a city, and he was less of a threat to you? How did you get him to work with you?”
Mobius shrugs. “I’m an interrogation tactic expert. Loki just needed a little push. After everything that happened with Thanos, it didn’t take that much effort. He’s desperate for any sort of praise or neutral attention. Even bad attention.”
“Thanos left him malleable.” Natasha guesses, but says it like a statement.
“Torture does that.” Mobius agrees. “At first he was just desperate to stay on my good side, probably thought I’d pull out some sort of knife, but now we’re friends. He belongs with me. He trusts me--not that I can trust him.”
Torture does that.
Loki was having trouble walking a few days ago. He still is. Spinal injury.
Der’mo .
“You said that earlier. You don’t trust him. He hasn’t proved himself to you yet?” Natasha asks carefully. What would Loki have to do ? She wonders, feeling vaguely sick. He attacked a city for you and didn’t say anything. He guarded the secret of your torture like his life depended on it. What else does he have to do to gain your trust?
“He’s a Loki,” Mobius says, like that explains everything. “They’re incapable of sincerity.”
Natasha frowns. Incapable of sincerity? What does that even mean ? Loki seemed plenty sincere when he said he’d make Clint kill her. Incapable of sincerity, or just incapable of the type of sincerity that Mobius wants? Because those are two very separate things.
“Yes,” Natasha says anyway, sympathizing.
Mobius sighs. “After everything that happened, he promised. But then his twisted girlfriend went and…somehow, I’m always low on his list of priorities. It gets frustrating. So no, I can’t trust him. And you shouldn’t either. He’s Loki. He doesn’t know how to stop himself from manipulating everyone around him. He didn’t start with you and he certainly won’t stop there. Trust me, I know him. Every facet of him. Have you spoken with B-15 yet? She’ll tell you the same.”
Twisted girlfriend? …Sylvie?
Every facet of him.
Like what the inside of his body looks like when you ripped open his ribcage? Was that necessary?
Natasha considers this. “Yes, we spoke with B-15. She told us to look at the Tempad to confirm your story.”
Mobius’ lip spasms, that look coming back. Annoyed acceptance. He clearly thinks that this is a waste of time. “And you talked with Loki.” Natasha doesn’t confirm or deny that. Mobius continues, “And he probably had thoughts about what’s going on. He doesn’t get the full scope of everything yet, I do. The TVA does.”
“What happens after?” Natasha asks.
“I’m sorry?”
“After. When you’ve defeated Kang, what happens to Loki?”
Mobius hesitates. “I don’t know. Things have changed. I imagine he’ll get incorporated into the TVA permanently. Or at least--whatever happens with Kang will be the endgame. Why?” Mobius looks at her, into her. It’s uncanny. Natasha feels laid bare before him and forces her defenses up. “Oh, my gosh. You’re protective of him. That’s what this is. You’re weaning information off of me about him. Man, I always forget how good he is at this. He makes you care like that.” Mobius snaps his fingers. “There’s just something about his little boy abandoned in the cold act.”
Natasha’s stomach tightens.
Protective.
She is.
He killed eighty people in three days, and Natasha is trying to defend him. But Natasha didn’t have the information then that she does now. She didn’t know about the TVA or Thanos. Loki was just a massive pile of unknowns attached to the label of murderous and insane.
Natasha gets up to her feet.
Mobius sneers at her. “You done already, Agent Romanov? Running off at the slightest admission that you might care?”
“I guess so,” Natasha says, and leaves.
000o000
Natasha sweeps past Clint and Rogers without a word, storming into Loki’s cell, ignoring the “ Nat, what are you--?” Clint starts to say. The Asgardian is seated on the bed, head buried in his hands, and scrambles up to his feet at her sudden appearance.
“Agent Romanov--”
Natasha gets closer, and backs him into a corner physically. He all but scrambles from her, pressing back. Natasha holds the advantage.
“I wasn’t the balm,” Natasha says lowly. Loki’s expression flickers, but she sees vague recognition. That conversation was yesterday. How could he have forgotten so quickly? “And I’m not now.”
Loki breathes in, his shoulders tightening. His eyes fall toward her hands, waiting. Not resisting, no protests, as if he expected there to be physical pain at some point. It’s inevitable to him. The idea makes Natasha inexplicably angry.
Natasha hears Rogers and Clint come into the cell behind her. Rogers adjusts his shield. They’re braced.
“Is she dead?” Natasha asks.
“What?” Loki breathes.
“Sylvie. Is she dead?”
Loki’s eyes flicker. Pain, grief. Anger. The latter swallows up the former, a desperate play for control. So she is then. Recently. “That’s none of your business.” Loki’s hand curls into a fist and he tries to move away from Natasha, but she doesn’t back up. Loki stays cornered. He looks small. When he realizes he can’t escape, defeat settles in his eyes.
“Isn’t it?” Natasha asks. “You made it our business when you came here. Why not just take the Tesseract directly to Odin? Why the pit stop?”
“Asgard has wards against teleportation.”
“Liar.”
“I--I needed--I wanted to see Thor,” Loki admits.
“Why? You hate him.”
“I’ve had the relationship with my family neatly put into perspective for me recently,” Loki says through gritted teeth. How? What did the TVA do? What can’t they do? They have Loki’s life written out. Loki dies sometime in the next few years…maybe he takes his family with him. Kills someone, watches it. Maybe they showed him the worst parts of his future to force him to work for the TVA.
You won’t try to leave if there’s nowhere you can go. No one you can go to.
The very neatness of it makes Natasha feel vaguely sick. It’s Red Room. Natasha had no one to run to until S.H.I.E.L.D. Who do you go to when you’re isolated from the world?
“In the span of five hours, you were able to let go and forgive?” Natasha asks with a raised eyebrow. “You attacked a planet to spite him.”
Hook.
“It was a little more complicated than that.”
Line.
“Like Thanos?” Natasha asks.
Sinker.
Loki’s face drains of color. His eyes fix on her face. For a long second, he doesn’t talk, doesn’t breathe, doesn’t anything. The terror in his body speaks more words as to what happened than the TVA ever could have. “How do you…?”
“The TVA gave us their Tempad. We looked.” Natasha says. Loki’s expression flickers. She can’t get a read on it. He looks wound up enough to punch her. Before he can, Natasha’s voice drops to something more gentle, “You don’t have to keep defending them. We know. You’re safe now.”
Loki blinks. “What?”
“The TVA. We know.”
“You know--what? I don’t understand.” Loki says, and he actually looks the part. Natasha stares at him. She hears Clint take in a sharp breath behind her. Natasha takes a step back, allowing breathing room between them. Loki takes it, body relaxing a fraction.
“Mobius and B-15 are contained. You don’t have to answer to them anymore.” Natasha assures.
“Wait, I don’t--did you hurt them?” Loki asks. “They didn’t do anything.”
“They hurt you.”
“It wasn’t anything that wasn’t deserved. I betrayed Mobius.” Loki insists.
“...How?” Natasha asks, skeptical. Everything that Mobius said pointed to Loki leaving because he wanted to keep Mobius safe after Sylvie died. How does that count as a betrayal? It’s not like Loki hurt him. At least, not from what Natasha saw.
“I left,” Loki says simply. Like that’s enough of a sin to warrant this. Natasha stares at him, beginning to realize the level of complexity they need to untangle. “And then I did it again, but this time I swear it was for him. He said something, didn’t he? I don’t…I meant to…Kang is still coming.”
“Kang can wait,” Natasha says.
“You don’t understand,” Loki insists. “He’ll kill you.”
“That doesn’t mean much to me,” Natasha says dryly. “A dedicated utka could. Just because something has the capacity to harm doesn’t mean that it needs to be feared.” The words are pointed. Loki is that something. Capacity doesn’t equal desire. If Loki wanted to hurt them again, he would have already done it by now.
Loki closes his eyes slowly, exhales, “I should have just gone to Asgard,” he murmurs. It’s resigned. Annoyed.
“What exactly do you think Odin is going to be able to tell you about the TVA?” Clint asks. “We didn’t know anything about them, and S.H.I.E.L.D. has its fingers pretty much everywhere.”
“Asgard has a gatekeeper. He sees all. The TVA doesn’t use magic, which means they have no defense against him. My father must know about the TVA and he might have ideas on what to do with Kang.” Loki explains, sinking back down onto the bench. He seems exhausted beyond what rest could help.
“And you think he’s just going to help you?” Clint asks. The tone is slightly skeptical. “Look, I’ve heard Thor talk about the guy, he doesn’t sound exactly forthcoming.”
“Even Odin knows when to put aside pride for the betterment of the universe.” Loki insists, raising up his hands a little in frustration. The chains glint in the light, which answers Natasha’s next question before she even asks it: Why haven’t you just left yet? The cuffs restrict magic, imprinted with runes. He can’t teleport. He can’t leave the base, he can’t go after Mobius without having to through Clint and Rogers first.
The thought that Odin sent Thor down with the means to contain Loki makes her feel uneasy. Odin assumed that Loki would be a threat that needs to be neutralized, not that he could be talked down. He even sent Thor with a muzzle.
Asgard may not be nearly as helpful as Loki is hoping they will be.
Natasha doesn’t think they’re on Loki’s side.
She’s not sure anyone is. Loki hasn’t realized that yet. But maybe he won’t have to. Natasha is serious. Loki doesn’t have to run anymore. If S.H.I.E.L.D. wont punch back, Natasha will.
She takes a careful seat next to him. Rogers and Clint are both watching from the other side of the cell, but their guards are down. The expression on Clint’s face is a mixture of pity and understanding. Rogers just looks upset.
“What happened?” Natasha asks, then, more careful, “To Sylvie?”
Loki takes in a ragged breath. “We had run out of options with Kang. Tried everything. She decided she would try to enchant him--a type of mind control, but it didn’t work and he killed her in front of me and B-15. Mobius wasn’t there, but he heard it. Kang promised they would be next, so I took the Tesseract and left. It was my fault.”
“Kang killed her, Loki, not you,” Rogers says firmly. “ None of this was your fault.”
Loki’s brow furrows and he looks up at Rogers in confusion. “I wasn’t fast enough. I didn’t do enough. If I had just been working harder--”
“Sylvie would have died anyway,” Rogers says. His voice is somber. “You did enough.”
“I…” Loki looks like he doubts that.
000o000
“Here,” Thor says, handing over a fresh pair of clothing. Loki stares at it for a moment, then raises his eyes up to Thor. His expression is strained. Tentatively, he reaches out and takes the items from Thor, carefully feeling the cloth between his fingers.
The movement strikes Thor as a little odd. Romanov said that she spoke with Loki yesterday, and Thor wonders if this is related to that.
“Thank you,” Loki says after a moment.
“Where did you get any of this?” Thor gestures vaguely to his brother’s current get-up. Loki has never been opposed to Midgardian suits that Thor has seen, but he always prefers something more expensive. There’s a hastily patched together cut on his right sleeve sewn with red thread.
Loki has never really been vain that Thor has seen, but if he’s given the choice, Loki would prefer to look more well-kept. Thor’s brother just ceases to care after a certain point and would and has walked around covered in blood or guts without a word of complaint. It’s strange that he would choose to keep wearing something torn.
“The TVA gave it to me,” Loki says, already beginning to shrug out of the jacket. He looks up at Thor as he starts undoing the buttons on his shirt. “Do you mind?”
“I’m not supposed to leave you alone,” Thor says regrettably.
Loki makes an exasperated expression. “Of course, because my homicidal tendencies will have me forging a knife out of cloth. Surely privacy while dressing is dangerous.” But Loki is already pulling off the shirt, the complaint more lip service than anything else. Something to focus on. He doesn’t have on an undershirt, and Thor starts to look away before noticing a long red scar stretching up underneath Loki’s rib.
What on the nine?
Thor’s gaze falls, and then he’s looking and he feels like he’s going to be sick. Loki’s scars are few and far in between. Thor has been trying to take the worst hits for his sibling since he could walk and put himself in between danger. Thor has seen Loki’s scars before. He knows them almost as well as his own, because every hit was a place that Thor should have defended him and couldn’t. It was his own failure, written into Loki’s body for the entire world to see.
He hates Loki’s scars.
This…
Gods, this--
There’s something almost artistic about it, which is worse. The skin is stretched and pulled, angry somehow. Thor can see ribs in Loki’s knobby spine. He’s lost what lean muscle he did have. Scars stretch up and down his back, some going further than that. Thor can only imagine what’s below Loki’s clothing and it makes him feel sick. Loki’s skin looks more like a patchwork piece.
“Oh my gods,” Thor breathes. “Loki, what…?”
Did the TVA do this?
I’ll rip them apart.
I’ll burn them.
Thor breathes in sharply, but he doesn’t feel like there’s enough air in the universe to give him his breath back. He moves in closer. Loki has stopped moving, hunching a little, and looks up at Thor. Obvious, clear dread is on his face, along with a hint of embarrassment. Like what happened was his own fault. The type of injury that you get when you fall from doing something stupid.
This was clearly inflicted to him.
Someone put these marks there intentionally. To cause hurt. To cause pain. And Thor wasn’t there to stop it even though he should have been. He’s the big brother. He’s supposed to keep Loki out of harm's way.
Thor reaches out compulsively and touches the skin. It’s rough beneath his fingers. Burns.
“Who did this?” Thor whispers, then--louder, firmer, angry, “who did this to you?”
Loki shrugs off Thor’s hand, looking away from him. “It’s not important.”
“Not important--” Thor starts to repeat, stops, and sucks in a sharp breath. “Whoever did this to you clearly intended you harm. Loki these are torture marks. Brother--” Thor stops, and looks, and feels like the world has just been ripped out from under his feet.
No.
Oh, gods, no.
Not my brother. Not my baby brother, please.
“Loki,” the word feels like acid on his tongue, “this is a Chitauri slave brand.”
Loki turns away from him, his chest facing him, and shrugs on S.H.I.E.L.D.’s shirt. The black shirt covers the worst of the marks, but it doesn't hide the emaciation. Loki won’t look at him, fidgeting with the end of the shirt.
“Loki,” Thor says. Presses. Begs. He puts the full weight of himself into the word.
Loki bites his lower lip. He looks braced. Subconsciously, his hand comes back up to his throat, rubbing up the skin with his thumb. “It’s not--It doesn’t matter.” Loki says at length. He sounds dead.
“Loki,” Thor says through gritted teeth. “ How could you think this wasn’t relevant to what was going on? You should have said something.”
“Oh. I should have?” Loki asks.
“Was I supposed to just-- know?” Thor demands. “I can’t read minds. I’m not a witch.”
“You already know what happened, don’t you? Romanov showed you the TVA’s file on me. You know, so there's not a point in talking about it.” Loki argues, backing up a fraction. His hand drops from his throat.
“Not a point-- Loki, I could have helped you!” Thor says.
“ Helped me?” Loki repeats. “There is no helping me, Thor! Don’t you get that!? The TVA is the only option I have. If I don’t stay with them, then Thanos will come back for me. He’ll kill me. The TVA may be exhausting, but at least they keep me alive.”
Thanos.
Oh, gods .
“Mobius says that it’s a dubious arrangement. What happens after Kang?” Loki says nothing, and Thor pushes harder, “What happens after Kang!?”
“I don’t know!” Loki explodes. “Mobius could kill me. Properly. And it would be a relief!”
Thor physically recoils at that. “Loki,” the word is strangled. “Loki you can’t really--”
“I kill mother!” Loki exclaims. Thor stops, the blood draining from his face. He stares at his brother, but the words are so foreign together that it might as well be another language. Kill Frigga? Loki? How? Why? Why would Loki hurt her? Loki may not care for him, but he loves their mother. There’s no way…
“You didn’t get to that part in the file, did you?” Loki sneers and closes his eyes. He takes a deep breath. “The palace gets attacked in about a year. I send someone to her on accident. He kills her. I saw her body. It was my fault.”
“You saw…” Thor breathes. “Who would show you that?”
Loki stops, genuine confusion flickering through his gaze. “What?”
“Why--why would someone--” Thor struggles to unwrap that. He can’t imagine…gods, seeing their mother after her murder? The disgust makes his stomach roll. Someone showing that to Loki intentionally-- someone, who, like Natasha claims Mobius did, knows Loki. Doing that on purpose, just to get a reaction out of him? What on the nine is wrong with him?
“Mobius--he showed me to prove a point. I’m not a good person, Thor.”
“He showed you our mother’s corpse!?” Thor exclaims. Then, breathes in. Exhales. Realizes. “I’ll kill him.” The words aren’t growled, they’re breathed in. A realization more than a threat.
“Thor--” Loki grabs his arm. His fingers are cold. Thor shrugs out of his grip.
“Why on Helheim would he--what on the gods is wrong with him!?” Thor shouts. “He showed that to you to prove a point? There is no way you would be behind our mother’s murder--”
Frigga dies.
A year from now.
Frigga dies.
Oh gods.
Thor sucks in a sharp breath. The world feels like it’s spinning. The edge of his vision is gray. Frigga dies. Murder. The palace gets attacked. Where was Thor? Why didn’t he do anything? Why was Loki there? Was he in prison? Why would--
Oh gods.
“I was!” Loki is still arguing, completely oblivious to the way that the world is falling apart around Thor. “I could have said nothing! Perhaps then mother would still be alive and I wouldn’t have been the perpetrator--”
Thor blinks.
He breathes.
“You--you didn’t…Loki, mother is alive.” Thor insists. She must be. A burst of panic makes his chest feel tight. He doesn’t know. But Loki hasn’t gone to prison. Asgard wasn’t under any sort of threat when Thor left. Most of the realms have been ignoring them because of their lack of travel. They can’t trade, nor can they defend with the Bifrost broken.
There’s no reason that Frigga would be in any danger.
Loki looks at him. Blinks. “Oh,” he whispers, the fight draining out of him. He sits down heavily on the bench, looking worn. His body slumps over itself as he folds his hands across his knees and leans heavily against them.
Frigga is fine, Thor reminds himself. Forces himself to stay present. His mother doesn’t need him to protect her right now-- gods, what did their father think of that? Did he blame Thor for not moving quickly enough? Did he blame Loki?--but Loki does need him.
Thor lurks closer, tentative, but Loki doesn’t react negatively, so Thor takes a seat beside him on the bench. Loki doesn’t even twitch. If anything, he seems a little relieved at the close contact.
“I forgot,” Loki admits at length, when Thor doesn’t say anything. “That you hadn’t…that we hadn’t gone through that yet. In some ways, my time at the TVA feels like it’s all there ever was.”
We played together, we fought together--do you remember none of that?
Thor bites on his instinctive response. “You were there for some time?” he guesses.
“Months. Years. Time doesn’t pass the same inside the TVA. It’s…distorted. Not that--” Loki closes his eyes, frustration flickering across his face. “It doens’t matter. Mother is safe here, for now. And without me in this timeline, she’ll be safe forever.”
Thor’s stomach tightens. “You’re leaving? Permanently?”
Please don’t leave me alone in this.
Loki sighs and looks up at him. “Thor, Kang will likely kill me. If he doesn’t, the TVA will. I will have served out my purpose. They won't have any reason to keep me alive anymore. Not that I know what will become of the TVA once we destroy Kang. Without Kang to build them, they’ll simply cease to be. There is no escape from this.”
“Loki,” Thor says. “I can help you.”
“ How ?” Loki demands. “How can you help? Do you have any genius solutions to getting rid of Kang that doesn’t result in the deaths of millions? Of timelines? People have died trying to stop him from conquering timelines, and it’s only a matter of time before he gets here first.”
Thor bites his lower lip.
Think.
“No, but I--”
“The power of brotherly love is not going to fix this.” Loki sneers, and leans back against the wall. He closes his eyes and rubs at his face in exhaustion. Yes it will, Thor insists mentally, annoyed, but he gets the sentiment. They can’t fix this just because Thor wants it to be fixed.
“When was the last time you slept?” Thor asks, “You look tired.”
“Hm.” Loki hums and doesn’t open his eyes. “I fell asleep over a desk a few months ago. Maybe weeks. Can’t tell anymore.”
“You--what?” Every other word of Loki’s mouth makes Thor feel like he doesn’t understand language anymore. “ Weeks? Months? Why were you--”
“The TVA never offered, I never asked.” Loki interrupts. “Like clothing.”
Clothing.
Clothing.
Never offered, I never asked.
Loki didn’t change his shirt because he didn’t have anything else. They didn’t let him sleep, clearly didn’t let him eat. Showed him Frigga’s murder. Thanos may have broken Loki’s body, but the TVA broke Loki’s spirit.
“Loki--” Thor says through his teeth. Another rush of frustration toward Mobius washes through him. The need to hurt.
Loki winces. “I know, shut up.”
“What? No.” Thor says, aghast. “On the contrary, please keep speaking. You never talk.”
“I rarely talk, there’s a difference.” Loki submits, picking at his palm. “But you apparently don’t know me well enough. Mobius knows my life story inside out and he knows that I like to hear myself talk. It’s all I do, apparently. I didn’t realize that until recently.”
“You never talk.” Thor repeats. The most he remembers about Loki’s time on Asgard is how silent he became in the years leading up to Thor’s coronation. He never spoke unless he had to.
“Hm.” Loki sighs. He opens his eyes and rolls his head to look at Thor. “You’re angry.”
Thor didn’t realize that he was clenching his fists. He lets them go. Breathes. “Yes, I’m angry,” he admits. “You should have, at a bare minimum, been allowed rest and food. We allow even the lowest scum of society that.”
Loki’s smile is brittle. “Exactly. I’m not a good person, Thor. Mobius knows that, I know that too. I’m a villain. He’s the only person in my life to see more than that.”
“ He is?” Thor repeats. “What about me? What do you think I’m doing here?”
“Pity?”
“ Pity? Loki, I’m here because I love you. You’re my brother. I missed you.”
That gives Loki pause. He meets Thor’s eyes again, and Thor holds the stare this time, trying to put emphasis on it. All the sentimentality that Loki accused him of.
“You shouldn’t.” Loki says at length, but his voice is softer. “I’m not a good person.”
“I don’t care.” Thor says honestly. “I’m not a good person either. I’ve slaughtered innocents. I went after Laufey because he provoked me and I killed Jotuns that day by the dozens. You know me. I’m arrogant, I’m reckless.”
“But you’re still worthy,” Loki murmurs. “I’m not. All I do is get people killed. Like Mother.”
“No,” Thor reaches out and squeezes Loki’s shoulder. “No, you don’t. Sylvie was not your fault, brother. Neither was Mother. I’m sorry that this happened to you.” Thor reaches out and kisses Loki’s forehead. “But we’ll make this better, I promise. I love you.”
Loki closes his eyes and rests his head against Thor’s shoulder. “You’re an oaf, brother.” Then, very, very soft, “I love you too.”
Thor pulls him closer.
000o000
Natasha lingers at his side as Thor steps into Mobius’ cell. He’s already spoken with B-15 in the medical wing--alive and healing--and come to his own conclusions about her. She is remorseful. She didn’t want to cause harm. She misses her life and wants to return.
Mobius doesn’t care.
“Thor,” Mobius says, looking up at him through long lashes. He looks exhausted, “To what do I owe the pleasure? Your brother send you?”
“No,” Thor says and steps closer. “He didn’t. Loki kept insisting that you were helping him, and that you knew what was best. Tell me, when you didn’t let him eat, and you didn’t let him sleep, and you blamed him for everything that went wrong and called his relationship with Sylvie something twisted and demented, did you think that it would help?”
Mobius stares at him, shrugs a little. “I said some things I regret. I admit that.”
Thor snorts darkly. “You claim to have all the knowledge in the world you could ever want about Loki. But that’s the thing, you know about him, you don’t know him. Here’s what I’ve put together: Kang is an idiot, and the TVA controls your ability to think for yourself.”
“I’m sorry?” Mobius demands.
“Never once, as you were ripping my brother apart mentally to shreds, did it occur to you that you might be doing the wrong thing?”
“Loki isn’t a good person, Thor. He deserved it. Besides, he changed after that.”
Thor’s nostrils flare. “ My brother has been alive for a thousand years. What you claim to be the showcasing of his person was a year. If I picked the worst week of your life to judge you off of, I imagine you wouldn’t come across as spotlessly virtuous either. You can’t pick and choose which parts of him you’ll remember and claim that it’s his character.”
Mobius rolls his eyes. “The TVA knows what we’re doing, Thor.”
“I would imagine you’d have less of a death count if you did,” Thor says pleasantly.
Mobius narrows his eyes. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“Loki. Sylvie. The Variants. Loki told me everything. You’ve killed hundreds of them. And not just them. Me. The Avengers. Random people. You’ve displaced and murdered more people in your war to stop Kang from ever being born than Kang ever would have with a multi-timeline war. Wars end. Kang will die. Kang will always die. No being is immortal, and as a Midgardian, his lifetime would barely be a blimp in time. A hundred years, it’s nothing. What you did--that was slow, mass annihilation.”
Mobius narrows his eyes. “I’m a victim here, too. I didn’t know what I was doing. I had a life before this.”
“So did they.” Thor says.
“What is it you’re trying to accomplish here?” Mobius asks. “Trying to force me to feel bad for something I wasn’t behind? Or do you just feel guilty, knowing that your baby brother was hurting and there’s nothing you could do to stop it?”
Thor flinches.
Mobius grins. “That’s what it is, isn’t it? Misplaced guilt. Project all that guilt onto me, force me to take accountability for your failings.”
“Actually,” Thor says, “there is something I can do. I may not have been able to stop Loki’s pain, but…the public has taken to calling us the Avengers. I like that. Natasha,” Thor says, his voice even. Almost friendly. The blood drains from Mobius’ face as Natasha hands him a knife.
“Close the door.”