I
Inveni thesaurum non deficientem in iudicium.
"...Will you still say, "I am a god'
in the presence of those who kill you,
though you are but a man and no god,
in the hands of those who slay you?"
Ezekiel 28
It was madness.
Defiantly organized madness.
An architected reality inside reality, trying to convince him that it was reality.
"Is this the greatest power in the universe?"
This.
This bureaucratic, interdimensional pocket untouched by any reality except their own, powers governing space and time, mere trinkets to them, unworthy and unused behind mundane tasks, paperweights and pencil pushers. Centuries and millennia of lives and stories and vibrance vanishing behind trite mounds of mundanity.
No meaning. No triumph. No glory.
Just wisps of smoke, used up, forgotten and filed away as data.
But then.
Stones.
Glorious, once. Shimmering in beauty and splendor.
Time and lack of use had dulled them, to eyes that did not use them, see them, or care for them.
The floor rippled. Tilted.
He was rolled up, drained of life, lines of identity blurring together.
He may as well be in a drawer with the rest of those infinity stones, set about, gathering dust while reality turned on the wheels of a well oiled machine.
Some months ago, whilst he had been careening around the grimier spots in the galaxy for Thanos seeking for the infinity stones, he had barely missed swinging into an Eyðandi gryfja.
Hadn't been the first time he'd made such an error in calculation while Sky-Walking, but he'd been flippant, careless.
Reckless. Not knowing the space well, and while Sky-walking a new place was always full of risks, his angry, muddled mind had made him defiantly careless.
Until that sensation of sliding down a sleek, dark, slick tunnel, without handholds. A pull downwards, and apart, and sideways. Having thoughts torn right out him. Memories cracking apart, splintering away into dust.
Knowing that there was light on the edge of his senses, and being unable to reach it.
He didn't know, to this day, how he'd managed to evade that one. One second he was fraying at all the seams and the next he was waking on a frozen rock.
Now, here, that feeling returned.
Eaten up.
Devoured.
Alone.
Forgotten.
Oh, it wasn't the existence of this ludicrous place that needled him. He'd been to enough realms, conjured enough illusions not to be thrown sideways by the existence of such things as the timekeepers, pocket universes, inaccessible realms.
The windings of moving throughout the intricacies of time were nothing new.
No.
The shivering crack that had split part of his mind from his soul that had begun when they'd taken his armor.
More than an effrontery.
He'd felt an uncomfortable self-awareness, a nakedness that extended into his being. It was distinctly disconcerting. It seemed to be bleeding off into his senses. He could not afford to have his brain muddled in this place.
This glaring light... He pressed two fingers to the bridge of his nose, despising the cardinal shade of red blocked into the walls.
Even Stark had had more decorating sense than that.
But here, now, the broken reality that he's quickly wrapped his mind around began to shiver. He could feel it, here, rising up from underneath him, a giant sleeping under a mountain.
The tesseract wobbled in his hand, it's energy completely limp. He'd felt sure that even though his magic was paralyzed here, he'd find a way to grasp it in his hands if he had the tesseract. A focus point.
Yet, loose echoes were all that answered him.
He could feel it, hovering at the edge of his mind, a dot of light. But reaching it only called across a canyon in the dark, leaving him breathless. An empty, sick pressure settled in his gut like it's own stone, sinking him. He was so tired.
Tired of having what he'd chased constantly out of his reach. Tired of feeling dreams slip out of his hands like a glass horse.
Tired of the constant endings of his hopes.
Was it...
Was it true?
He had never let himself articulate the words.
Not until Agent Mobius had said them out loud.
And it irritated him. Irritated that this mild-mannered agent could casually, off-handedly almost, could drive such a spike into his being so deftly. It was offensive.
A means to an end.
That... others' ends were better than his?
Were they?
Were the motives and lives of those he'd met truly... truly worth more than his own?
Was he doomed to be nothing more than a case agent for their agency? A challenging force?
Was his only value woven into revealing the better motives of others?
He lingered absently in the cold blue space of that thought. Empty and deep and vast, so vast he could see his breath fog and hear his steps echo.
Loki shifted, loss of thought compelling his hands.
Something... something must... make sense...
What could he... what did he do?
Tell me, Mother. Tell me what I missed.
But her form couldn't answer him. Future or present. She was neither, here. But there she lay still.
And then, inexplicably... words.
Kind words.
Here in the midst of this sterile, obtrusive labryinthe of metal and machine.
"And am I not your mother?"
"Loki, I thought the world of you. I thought we would fight side by side forever...
You'll always be the god of mischief. But you could be more.
If you were here, I might even give you a hug.
"I love you, my sons."
"I'm here."
I thought the world of you.
I'm here.
I might even give you a hug.
I'm here.
The ground solidified beneath him again.
In words.
His brother's words, that he would now never hear in person, in this timeline.
His mother.
His father.
Comfort in this place of sterile coldness.
Sparks of light in what had been a hopeless, dying, confusing void for hours.
I'm here.
Even himself.
But then... the words... changed somehow, reaching out from across a universe, from across mere observation on a recording...
And Loki Felt them.
Reaching out.
Holding him.
Gave him a foothold, uttered an entire universe away as they were.
Words with... arms. And hands, and feet.
Here now.
Although the narrative of what had happened in this other life didn't matter to him- of what relevance was it to him now? Frowning slightly, counting on the TVA to continue their search for a few minutes more, his fingers rested on the switches.
No. It did not unnerve him that someone else had sat observing his entire life. Ha. Well.
They couldn't see his inner life. Nor his thoughts. Nor ideas that he kept inside and hadn't carried out.
And he'd thought constantly speaking for Thanos and his minions' benefit these last several weeks had been exhausting. He was almost glad he hadn't known about the TVA until now.
Taking a savage comfort in the lack of true omniscience, he started the recording again.
"I'm here."
And then, this Other Loki and Thor did something that Loki had not remembered doing in an age.
They sat. Together. And they talked.
He barely registered what the words were even, still trying to wrap his mind around the visual evidence that he and Thor were actually having a normal conversation.
Low, quiet words. Reassurance.
Reaching out.
Steadying.
And then...
A shadow.
Wailing. Rattling. Bones snapping like twigs. And whatever was left of that hunk of a ship burst into flame.
The small spark he'd been holding with the words earlier flickered.
What... what was he supposed to do?
There was no purpose here, nothing. Only waiting. He didn't know how long he could outsmart them in this place. Not unless he figured out a doorway out of the whole realm.
Did he even want to?
The door cracked open.
"Loki? Nowhere left to run..." That Agent was back, tentative, cautious. Holding one of those odd-looking spears out in front of him.
Yes.
He did want to survive.
Survival had never been that difficult before. Not with his magic. But here... here it would take more than magic or mind. This agent had a reason for not killing him outright. And he admitted to himself that he was curious about the bargaining the man seemed to be doing. What was he up to? Loki had brought all manner of monsters to their knees, toppled kingdoms, and made men cower. Yet this agent wasn't in the least intimidated. What kind of monsters had he brought in here?
Curiosity won out.
"I don't... enjoy hurting people." He forced the words up, out, pulling thorns out of his gut. "I don't enjoy it."
If Mobius had indeed studied his life... he would already know that was true. Somehow, knowing that he wouldn't have to convince Mobius of anything, made it easier. He could just... speak. "I did it because I have to Because I had to. Because it's part of the illusion, conjured by the weak, to inspire fear."
"A desperate attempt at control. You do know yourself."
Hmp. Well. Yes. Yes he did. It just wasn't often that anyone else particularly cared to. Why drop the illusion if no one cared?
"The Variant we're hunting is... you."
"I beg your pardon?"
"I said, 'particularly dangerous variants,' didn't I? It's why you're still alive, if you're wondering. Can I have that back?" He gestured to the tesseract. Loki barely managed to avoid rolling his eyes, and handed it over. He knew where to find it.
Mobius motioned for him to follow and moved toward the door.
'C'mon- let's find you a decent outfit. Can't have my men pruning you before you actually do some work."
Loki stood, and watched his back for a moment, then moved to follow. Words snagged on the inside of his throat.
"Agent Mobius-"
"Just Mobius is fine."
"Is Thor... still alive? Did Thanos destroy him with-with everything else?"
To his credit, the agent kept his expression schooled. "No. Thor survived. Drifted around in space for awhile until he was picked up by a passing ship. He made it back to earth."
Loki nodded. Of course. Why should he even have asked?
"So, when do we start?"
To be continued...
Author's note: When Loki watches himself and Thor sit and talk in Ragnarok, for this extra "footage", I wrote a separate one-shot for the full scene that you can read called At World's End.
And I will make no secret of it: my favorite headcanon portrayals of the princes of Asgard come from Alydia Rackham, so if you haven't, I'd highly recommend checking out her Lokistone series, which is several novel's length worth of material, and in my opinion, fully fleshes out Hiddleston's version of his character, rather than the MCU portrayal. After you read them... it honestly makes the movies better. And just so we're all on the same page here... I'm not the only watching the LOKI show bemusedly, and from episode 1 feeling that this is going to be pretty much just 6 episodes of Loki low-key metamorphizing into Tom Hiddleston?
* Eyðandi gryfja – Asgardian term for a black hole.