The lift doors opened after what should have been a short time, but seemed like an eternity. Probably because the situation after the argument between Mobius and Loki was not exactly pleasant and I felt nonsensically like I was standing between two chairs. In fact, I had nothing to do with it at all and yet I felt I had to mediate between the two, but I sensed that neither of them were up for it at the moment.
As we got out of the lift one by one, I saw where Mobius had taken us and I was glad it wasn't another one of those time theatres or even one of the courtrooms. It looked more like an archive and it was huge. Looking carefully over the balustrade we were passing, I could see that there were countless floors above and below us and that the lift shaft we had just exited from was bordered by huge statues of the timekeepers.
The longer I learned what was going on in the TVA, the more I realized that this was not just about a task, it almost seemed to be a religion. A religion in which the gods had given their flock a very special task and they were ever grateful to carry it out. Which made the TVA so dangerous. Nothing was more dangerous than simple people who thought they were fighting for the just cause of their gods.
"I want you both to read through every single case file on the variant and then I need your ... unique Loki perspective," Mobius informed us of what was required of us to take our last chance to prove ourselves useful.
"Perhaps something was overlooked," I mused. It was always better if someone neutral looked again. It was hard to find his own mistakes.
"Well, they're idiots. I suspect they probably missed a lot." I took a deep breath. Loki just couldn't help it. I nudged him in the side with my elbow in return, not exactly squeamishly. Mobius had already indicated that this was our last chance, so why did he still have to provoke the man?
"That's why I'm lucky I got you for a little bit longer," Mobius retorted sarcastically, and I didn't miss his choice of words either. He 'got us' a little longer, almost as if we were nothing more than annoying pets.
"And don't be afraid to really lean into this work," Mobius motivated us mockingly as he showed us our new temporary workspace. It was a long table in the middle of two bookshelves and it was filled with file folders, certainly every single one about the fugitive variant. "Pretend your life depends on it," he added, and it was clear to both Loki and me that this wasn't just an empty threat. Our lives actually depended on our success here.
Mobius left us alone to eat something, and I was once again alone with Loki. That I was furious, was the understatement of the century. If it went on like this, I would cease to exist before dinner, thanks to a certain 'god' who was incapable of lowering his ego, even if his life depended on it. I knew, however, that it wouldn't help me if I argued with him and discussed his behavior, he wouldn't see it anyway, especially not if it was me who told him.
I decided it was better if I dove into the papers and wordlessly grabbed the first mission report. It was one of the last ones. It was about a castle in the Highlands of the 1740s where a group of Minutemen had investigated a slight deviation in the timeline and then failed to report back. When another team was sent out, they found that all the members of the squad had been killed, it hadn't looked like much of a fight, so this Loki variant had to be quiet and effective at the same time. And just like during the attacks we had already known of, the variant had stolen the reset charge.
And indeed, the acts that followed were no different. Again and again the Minutemen were ambushed, killed and stripped of their reset charges. But unfortunately I found no clues as to what the variant wanted with them. I only realized that it were countless charges he must have accumulated by now.
"Hey, Avenger." Loki seemed to have noticed that I was ignoring him. "Just wait a minute." he whispered, putting a hand on my arm to make sure I was paying attention, and I was taken aback by the gesture. I looked at him slightly confused, but still furious.
To my surprise and contrary to my suspicions, he had in fact already looked at one or two files and even made some notes. "I am sorry, okay?" It was phrased like a question, but I could tell it wasn't. He didn't expect me to answer, and he hadn't said everything he wanted to say yet. "I didn't mean to get you involved." I could tell he was sincere. "And, I am sorry about what I said about your brother."
I appreciated the fact that he was trying to apologize. So I nodded briefly and was about to turn back to my files, assuming he was now finished. He briefly touched my arm again with his hand to signal that he wasn't finished yet, even though I could tell he seemed to be stepping a bit out of his self-created comfort zone with the whole conversation.
"I will find a way to give you your life back." He meant it, I could tell, and yet it was hard for me to believe this Loki. He had betrayed the very people he had grown up with. I was certainly just an annoyance to him, so why shouldn't he betray me at the first opportunity if it was to his advantage?
"I'd like to believe you, Loki," I told him. "Unfortunately, you don't exactly have a trustworthy reputation." I was sure it was better to be frank with him. However, I tried to make it clear that I was open to being convinced otherwise. I knew that all Loki really needed was someone to believe in him to become a better version of himself. Then we both turned our attention back to the files in front of us and it seemed to me that Loki was starting to cooperate.
At some point, he got up and went to one of the counters of the archive. I decided not to follow him. I didn't want to know what he was up to now, but I was surprised when he came back to the table with yet another box of papers. It was filled with files on himself. I didn't know what good it would do, but I didn't feel like arguing with him either, so I just let him look through them. I had to make sure that I could manage on my own and still have a raison d'être in the TVA without Loki, even if it was only as an archivist.
I noticed Loki going through the papers, lost in thought, and then suddenly becoming very quiet and almost thoughtful. I glanced at what was in front of him. At the top, in big red letters, it said "Destruction of Asgard". I noticed how I inevitably took a deep breath. It was something he should not have seen and I would have liked to snatch it out of his hand, but it was too late. So I left him alone until he had read it all and maybe then I would be able to tell him what I knew.
For a moment I even thought I saw tears welling up in his eyes, probably when he realized that his home and, to his knowledge, all those he had known and perhaps loved, were gone. He swallowed and I could tell he was trying to pull himself together.
"Thor survived." I didn't know if it was good to bother him, but I thought it was important that he got this information. I assumed he already knew that Frigga had died well before Ragnarok and that he also knew that Ragnarok had been triggered by Odin's death and Hela's return. "On Earth there is 'New Asgard', a small town in Norway where 4575 survivors of Asgard have started a new life among humans. It's not Asgard itself, but they survived."
"It says here that there were 9719 victims along with the survivors that's only a fraction of the population, what about the others?" I was pleased that he actually cared. It showed me that he had indeed always cared about his people.
"Hela, and Thanos." I explained to him that Hela had invaded Asgard after Odin's death and had used her resurrected army to kill all those who were not on her side or had managed to escape. Then I told him about the fight on the Rainbow Bridge, the evacuation of the survivors and how he had actually triggered Ragnarok by throwing Surtur's helmet into the eternal flame.
He was clearly surprised that in the end he eventually had acted like a hero. Then I told him about Thanos attacking the refugee ship to get the Tesseract. "He let half the crew escape, then he destroyed the ship." I don't think I needed to mention that Thanos had broken Loki's neck, he surely already knew that from Mobius' little videos. "And even though he'd already killed half of them they weren't spared during his snap."
As I told Loki about our fight against Thanos I noticed how a sympathy grew towards me. And then he knew why I had been so angry at his comment about my brother. I told him how Bruce had turned to dust right before my eyes and how Thor and I had mourned our brothers together.
"I can't forget what he did to me in New York, but I am grateful to him for saving my people from utter destruction," Loki said, squeezing my hand. I squeezed back, we had both lost a lot.
"I wouldn't have minded if the TVA had shown up in Wakanda and taken Thanos," I remarked sullenly, but I knew it wouldn't change anything. For the TVA, this event was preordained.
"That's it!" Loki then suddenly exclaimed, his lips forming into a wide grin. I looked at him in confusion. I had no idea why what we had just talked about had to do anything with the volatile variant, and how that was supposed to get us anywhere.
He held out the report on the destruction of Asgard and pointed to a specific line: No variance energy detected. At first I didn't understand what he wanted to tell me with that, a variance energy only arose when something went differently than it should.
"This is from my file. The future I would have had if I hadn't taken the tesseract." I still didn't understand exactly, but then I realized what he meant. "You were there, but you shouldn't exist according to the 'sacred timeline'. Why is there no variance energy?" he confirmed my train of thought. I tried to follow his thought further and pondered for a moment, but Loki apparently had no patience and took my thinking away. "If everything is destroyed in one of these apocalypses, how can something you do just before still have consequences?" He was right. My presence would not have changed Asgard's destruction. It probably wouldn't have even changed anything if my brother or Valkyrie had died there. The variance energy would remain at zero and the TVA would not become aware that anything had changed.
Maybe that was why the TVA hadn't managed to get me. I had been part of a team that regularly found itself in apocalyptic situations ever since New York.
"Our variant could jump from apocalypse to apocalypse and no one would notice. It could even hide there for a long time and just travel to another one when things get rough." This clearly made sense and I suggested we tell Mobius about the theory. Besides, I noticed the hole in my stomach and I really needed to do something about it.
So we made our way to Mobius with Loki's files and I was glad I had the opportunity to grab a sandwich and a coffee from the display on the way to Mobius' table.
When I saw Loki stealing Mobius' salad I looked at him warningly as he tried to put a hand on my coffee and the plate with my sandwich. Apparently we had reached a level where he didn't want to provoke me anymore and he didn't include my food in his mistreatment. He used Mobius' food as part of a strange metaphor to make Mobius realize what we had discovered. I just watched the spectacle and bit into my sandwich with relish while Mobius looked desperately at his salad as Loki poured salt, pepper and water into the bowl regardless.
And even though Loki had just robbed him of his lunch with this action, Mobius was willing to test the theory, even if he noted that he was going incredibly far out on a limb. It was only a theory and if it was wrong, we risked causing the true timeline itself to branch off and that would certainly have consequences, but both Loki and I were confident.
Then we considered which apocalypse was the best for our theory and Loki actually suggested Asgard. It was immediately clear to me that Mobius would never allow this. For him, the danger that Loki would simply use his magic in an environment he knew and escape was too great.
"What about Pompeii? There's no stopping the volcanic eruption and none of us know our way around there," I suggested and Mobius reluctantly agreed. In Pompeii, apart from the time portal, there was no way for us to escape fast enough, so we had to rely on him if we didn't want to be buried by an extremely hot cloud of ashes.
So they finally have a theory and a chance to prove to Mobius that 'keeping' them was worth it. And Anni and Loki got to bond a little over the destruction of Asgard, so we'll see were this will lead in the future.