Three Lokis and A Baby

by Lawliet Veneziano

One Loki is trouble... Two is a conspiracy... Three might be able to raise a toddler, if nothing goes wrong. Loki and the Variant didn't end up on Lamentis when he used the Tempad to teleport them. They ended up somewhere else and they're far from the only Loki there. But there's more mystery here than just why Sylvie wants to kill the Time Keepers, and nothing is as it seems...

6. The Obsession of the Loki

Loki was laying in a hammock of his own creation in the common area of the Tower, only vaguely listening as Astrid shrieked and ran around away from Thor; his brother thankfully seemed to be easily distracted by the mere existence of the cute little one and thus left Loki alone to his thoughts. And being the brilliant god that he was, those thoughts swirled around the many mysteries of his life. Mystery One, Sylvie, was at that moment in Tony's lab, this much he was sure; her frustrations about how long the Tempad had been taking to get fixed had resulted in her more often than not going straight there to make sure that the so-called genius was working on it. Tony of course made it clear on multiple occasions that the situation was not as simple as him just fixing it; the device was shattered, something Loki did his best not to be in arms reach when brought up, and the technology turned out to be a lot more complicated and advanced than he expected. Bruce took up the call to assist but even between the two brilliant minds, the process was slow. Parts were hard to find, others had to be completely recreated but were proving difficult with how intricate they were, and while Tony seemed to get the gist of what was needed, there was nothing to be done than wait and see. Sylvie did not like this, her antsiness and discomfort growing by the day and even Astrid did not seem to be enough to calm her completely. It seemed to Loki to be more than just about leaving to complete whatever "glorious purpose" she had and as he often found himself doing when it came to her, he contemplated her connection to the TVA. This was not normal hatred, this was something more, something harsher; he disliked them greatly, they had after all kidnapped him, destroyed his clothes, confined his powers and then tried using him as a bloodhound to find her. But she didn't just dislike them and while he wanted to know, he couldn't ever bring himself to ask. Because there were moments, when it was Loki and/or Luka just talking to Thor or each other, when he glanced at her from the corner of his eye, and he saw...something. An emotion he couldn't quite place, not so much angry as it was pained, and he couldn't didn't know if he wanted to know why a Loki would show such a strange expression.

Mystery Two was the TVA. He'd seen the timeline they called the Sacred Timeline, and he knew that this was very much not it. The Avengers living relatively peacefully together with a Loki in their midst, knowingly in their midst, and Astrid...Astrid shouldn't exist. But she laughed and yelled at her uncle Thor to put her down feet from Loki and it was impossible to say that she didn't. This place, this time was so off the rails as far as he could tell that it was an outrage that it hadn't been pruned yet, allowed to continue to exist and move on as if nothing was wrong. Meanwhile he manages to escape with the Tesseract for a few minutes and he's hunted like a dog; it seemed unfair to him, very much so. But at the same time the more he let himself think about it, the more he questioned the TVA's methods and reasonings. They were supposed to prune branches in the timeline that shouldn't be, variations that brought too much change. But Sylvie was a female Loki so how was that not enough of a disruption to get rid of her long before she would have been able to fight back, when she had been a newborn, when there shouldn't have been a chance to lose track of her? And some of the Lokis that they had shown him had been admittedly odd. The idea was apparently around points in which a serious change happened but who decided that? The Time Keepers? Was this timeline safe because somehow it wasn't as completely off the necessary trail as it might look? But Astrid stuck in his mind and the fact that now three Lokis were all standing together in one place and that felt like it should be more than enough. Yet no TVA and despite everything Loki told him, Luka seemed unconcerned.

And there lay Mystery Three: the Loki who went by Luka, and by extension his mysterious job with his mysterious employer. The Nightingale. There were so many questions there that his head hurt just trying to think about them all, causing him to place a hand over his eyes. Luka was something else, even Loki would admit it. His magic was strong and while he would never admit it aloud, Loki could tell it was more mature than his own. But they should have only been separated by one year, the Loki from the Battle, the Loki from a year after; a year couldn't be enough to explain the difference in their skills and yet despite his attempts, Loki found himself unable to break Luka's barriers. And it was obvious the man had more comfort in more advanced magic, doing so with utter ease that Loki had only ever seen in his mother before. But at the same time he didn't get to spend enough time to ask about any of it because of Nevermore and the Nightingale; the vast majority of days, Luka left Loki and Astrid to go to the Tower while he went to the bookstore to meet up with the also mysterious Tsuki and her nonhuman friend Nox, at which point he doubted they just peddled books. They worked for an information broker, someone SHIELD themselves wanted to find but no one could; decades of time and no one knew their identity save the ones who worked for them. And Luka seemed all too happy to smirk and shrug if asked any specifics; secrecy was a Loki trait and it made him understand why others got so frustrated with them because of it. He wanted to know but would be told nothing. There was something going on, he could practically taste the magic there, but he had nothing to go off of and no answers.

He started to think on Mystery Four, which was the strange Tsuki, when he felt something jump on him and instinctively he picked up Astrid off his stomach, holding her up with a raised eyebrow. "Gremlin, may I assist you?"

"Uncle, Uncle Thor wants to eat me!" Astrid giggled and wiggled, looking far too happy for a child accusing her family of cannibalism.

"You're far too small for him to devour, I assure you," Loki said and set her on the ground, "Thor could swallow you whole and still be starving, beast that he is."

Astrid shrieked and ran to hide on the other side of the hammock. Thor, overhearing this, made a hurt expression. "Brother, I would not hurt Astrid. Also I am not a beast."

Loki choose to smirk, deciding it best not to comment on how the man only expressed disapproval of the insult as a side thought to whether or not he'd try to hurt his niece. He felt a yawn building inside him and Loki stretched, allowing himself to try to shake out the tiredness that was in his bones. It was a peaceful day, far too much so; part of him wished for the interest of some chaotic event, a chase, a game, something, but the spies were doing spy things and the geniuses were doing genius things and the soldier was doing...something. It was truly just the three of them in that room, whiling away time in the warm summer sunlight that streamed through the large glass windows of the common room. This was why he had been able to get so lost in his own thoughts, in trying to pull apart the mysteries in his life and figure out what was going on around him.

"Hey Thor." He could practically see the way his brother's ears perked up and the excitement in Thor's face as he addressed him, holding now Astrid in his arms who smiled brightly at being held like a baby by the massive arms. "What can you tell me about Tsuki?"

"Tsuki?" Thor asked tilting his head, "Stark and brother's friend?"

Loki nodded and the hamster in Thor's head seemed to start moving, causing him to look up at the ceiling in thought before starting to speak again. "I do not know much; Stark knows far more than me, she apparently has known him for some time, longer still than Lo-I mean Luka has. From what I have observed though, she is an honorable and good Midgardian; she gave brother a job at her store soon after the Battle and has kept a good eye on him for us, he has not caused any trouble since then."

"What about the Nightingale?"

"I know even less about the mysterious Nightingale, only that they are like Heimdall: they see all things. Luka, Tsuki and Nox act as their intermediaries, through which Stark and the others communicate with them. Outside of that nothing more."

Loki sighed. He didn't really expect much from his brother; Thor wasn't exactly the intel type, more the run-in-blind-with-weapons-out type. It occurred to him that if he did want answers, and he did, he would actually have to get them from the people involved. The problem was that one of them was his other self and another had made it clear when he did ask her that she expected him to figure it out himself.

The Thunderer was called away by the pull of the small child and Loki was left to his thoughts again. Laying back in the hammock he closed his eyes, wondering what could be done. He supposed he could try to spy on them but his twin was clever and with him being stuck in the Tower while Luka was out doing whatever he did...

There was an explosion that rocked the room and threw him from his comfortable position and onto the cold hard floor. He let out a groan of pain, thinking how odd it was he kept ended up face down so often, but pulled himself to his feet quickly enough and rolled his shoulder. "Alright what did Stark do this time?"

It had to be Tony, it was almost always Tony; the man had set off no less than ten explosions in the time Loki and Sylvie had been there, both while working on the Tempad and on other projects. It was now less of a startling event and more an annoyance, causing the god to stretch aching limbs and joints before grumbling under his breath and setting off towards the lab he was sure Tony was in. There were many of them, a lot more than he honestly thought necessary for one Midgardian scientist, but only one currently had the familiar pulse of Loki magic inside it, meaning only one had Sylvie inside. And wherever Sylvie was, surely Tony was as well.

The lab was, as expected, in shambles and it didn't take a genius to guess what happened. Loki was one though and he sighed, shaking his head. Tony had obviously been experimenting with the energies needed for the Tempad and in the process, possibly of opening a time door, had caused a surge of power that wrecked every piece of machinery and shattered every piece of glass in the room. Tony stood there, in the middle of it, his hair singed and his expression blank, while Sylvie was under a table, hands over her head. The energy signature around her told Loki to take a step back as he suspected exactly what happened next: she pulled herself out, shaking, glared at Tony and let out another burst of angry unstable magical energy that proceeded to shatter the broken things and destroy anything still standing. A charred and mangled proto-Tempad lay on the ground at Tony's feet and he just blinked as she started to rant.

Another failure, yet another failure. The man had likely tried to make do with what they did have and could find, which was not exactly a bad thing in Loki's opinion; he didn't even know where in the future the TVA were but it was clear that there was more than a little difference between them and this time. As much as he wanted to pick on Tony Stark, and he did love doing so, he knew the man was trying his best with what he had and could make and there was only so much a Midgardian scientist of the 21st century could do. But Sylvie didn't care; she was angry and frustrated and the days of being stuck there, of having to wait on whatever plan she did have, it had obviously taken it's toll. Honestly part of him was surprised that it took so long with how riled up she was by nature; her patience was impressive and he would applaud if he wasn't certain that it would end with him being attacked and almost killed by her.

"Hey no reason to take it out on my lab," Tony said angry and Sylvie looked incensed, "I know this situation isn't ideal-"

"Ideal?! I'm stuck here with a bunch of fools when I could be destroying the TVA! I was so close to bringing them down, I was so close, and then that fool came along and everything, everything was ruined!" Sylvie screamed, pointing at Loki who stiffened some.

"It's not my fault that the TVA was onto you and sent me after you," he grumbled, not liking being blamed when it was only a little his fault; 25% at the most.

"I wanted the TVA on me you moron!" Sylvie exclaimed turning on him, "I did not want some pathetic excuse for a Loki though to steal my Tempad and trap me in a hellhole like this!"

"Hey I think my Tower is rather nice," Tony said insulted.

"There are far worse places than this I assure you," Loki answered, acting as if Tony never spoke.

"I don't even know what kind of insane magic you managed to pull to make us end up here!" Sylvie continued, throwing up her hands, "The Tempad is set only to apocalypses and yet somehow, somehow, we ended up here instead! And this world certainly hasn't ended yet!"

"I didn't do anything, I promise." But he would add that to the list of mysteries: after all if the Tempad was indeed set to only go to apocalypses then why New York after the Battle? There was no signs of anything bad happening here, save for maybe the minor missions and multiple explosions. "I am just as surprised as you are about being here."

"But you certainly seem happy to just sit around doing nothing!" There was a different frustration there and Loki wasn't sure immediately how to react, because she wasn't wrong. He didn't actually care that much about leaving quickly, because again he was having some of the first moments of peace that he'd had in a while and he was not quick to disrupt it. But Sylvie desperately wanted to leave, she needed to leave, she had to leave, and Loki knew it had to do with the TVA and her plans, but again there was something there that she wasn't talking about.

"Hey Rock and Rockette of Ages, how about you have this fight somewhere else so I can get things cleaned up here?" Tony stated, gaining some confidence while the attention wasn't directly on him.

Sylvie though turned full force onto him and he yelped as he was shocked by angry magical energy. Loki didn't snicker; the situation was volatile and he knew better than to frustrate further an angry Loki. He didn't know if it would be possible to move them, not without Sylvie causing more damage, but he didn't think Tony really needed to be involved more than necessary. This was beyond just the Tempad now and it was perhaps more than time for Loki to actually talk to her about the situation more.

"Come on, Sylvie, let's go," he said and reached out to grab her arm.

He felt the angry energy, it was everywhere and when his hand closed around her arm it bit him, trying to rip around his skin. If he was Tony or Clint, even Thor, it might have succeeded too, but Sylvie's magic was just his from a different viewpoint; it was wilder, it was less controlled, it was focused in a different direction, but it was Loki magic and it was like trying to hit himself. He was able to absorb it for the most part and she glared at him; used to her anger at this point he ignored it and started to pull her out of the lab.

"Let me go," she growled but this too he ignored.

Instead of returning to the common room, Astrid was always a good way to try to distract Sylvie or at the very least calm her down but Loki didn't think involving the toddler was for the best this time. Instead he pulled her into a room that as far as he could tell was empty and closed the door behind them.

She glared at him, as if to try to set him ablaze with the sheer power of her anger; it tingled but it certainly didn't burn. Loki simply sighed and looked at her. "Sylvie..."

"What do you think you're doing?"

"Look I know you're frustrated-"

"Don't say that, don't act like you understand anything!"

"Well if you explained yourself rather than screaming at me all the time-"

"There's no point in explaining to an idiot like you!"

"I am not an idiot, you-!"

"Both of you, shush." Loki and Sylvie both opened their mouth but they were covered by green film and no sound came out. The latter looked annoyed and further frustrated, the former instinctively looked about.

Luka stood only a few feet away, his hair up in a loose ponytail and a black bracelet Loki had not seen before wrapped around one wrist. He looked tired and looked at both of his twins with a look that Loki knew well; it was the same one Frigga used during his childhood whenever he and Thor got into trouble, a gentle but clear expression of disapproval and doneness. It was a clear case for nurture over nature if there ever was one but Loki was too busy trying to figure out how to speak again to focus too long on it.

The eldest of the trio sighed, running a hand through his hair and tilted his head slightly. "I will remove the silencing spells on you two and I need one of you to explain calmly why you are screaming at each other. Can you do that for me?"

Sylvie glared and bristled, while Loki, realizing that in the face of superior ability compliance was the best option, simply nodded. Luka seemed to take that as a good sign and with a tiny movement of his fingers, the spell was dispelled on Loki and Loki alone. Sylvie tried to growl but still nothing came out; the middle child gave a tentative hum but seeming as Luka was looking at him, decided that it was best not to put this off for long.

"Emotions got high; Sylvie seems frustrated over the way things have been going and over my lack of motivation to leave. And after putting up with her impatience and anger for a while now, and getting frustrated as well with the fact she does not seem to want to tell me anything, just yell about me not being able to understand somehow, I allowed myself to get heated as well."

Luka nodded then turned to Sylvie who continued to bristle; Loki expected her magic to be out of control but it wasn't, it was contained and crackled in the air but did not attack. He merely side-eyed Luka who said nothing on it and stepped closer to her.

"Sylvie, I'm gonna remove the spell now," he said and did so carefully.

She growled at him. "You..."

"I warn you that I am faster than you and while you might be able to beat me in a fight, that would be offset by the fact that magically speaking I am immeasurably more skilled than you are." It was not a threat, it was a courtesy; Luka held up a dimly glowing hand and she narrowed her eyes, tightening her hands into fists. He continued. "So if you wish to explain as calmly as possible what is bothering you so much..."

"None of you would understand."

"I think you will find that among all the beings in the multiverse, there is no soul\ that will understand a Loki's strife, whether they wish to be one or not, better than another Loki. So try us."

She continued to glare but Luka did not stand down. He kept her gaze and waited with all the patience of a man used to Thors, Odins and a chaos gremlin of a toddler.

"...You have that oaf Thor." Her comment took both off guard, Loki could tell, but neither spoke, just continued to watch her; her tone was soft, small, almost sad but still tinged with annoyance and frustration. "You have a brother who adores you and your parents probably care about you. You have a home you grew up in, instead of running from one end of the world to another just to survive. And you were taught how to use magic, you were taken care of, you were given the chance to actually grow up where you were wanted."

"Wanted is a tricky word," Loki interrupted and got a look for his troubles; he frowned, "What, it's true."

"You still got to have a proper childhood, not be chased and have to hide all the time. I did not; I was ripped from my timeline as a child for reasons I still don't understand and I've had the TVA hunting me for longer than you've even known of their existence. I had to learn enchantment on the run, I had to learn to fight in environments ready to rip apart at the seams within days, hours, minutes, seconds; I don't know anything but to fight, to run, to be alert. And every day of my life since the moment I escaped those assholes' clutches, the only thing to keep me going was the thought of getting back at them, to hunting them like they hunted me and one day make them pay and maybe, just maybe, find out what exactly was the reason for dragging me away from my home and my family and my life and destroying what I once knew. I can't even remember my Frigga or Odin, I don't remember my Thor or anything else; I only remember my room, full of light and the toys I was playing with right before they took me away. The clearness of the sky, the coolness of my room, the feeling of wood under my fingers, those are burned into my memory along with the terror of being grabbed and dragged through a portal by a Minuteman. I was a child, just a child, and they..."

"Sylvie..." Loki didn't know what else to say. He thought of the coldness of the vault though, the pull of the Casket, and the moment he finally heard the truth from Odin's lips. The worst moment of his life, the worst betrayal he'd ever felt, but he could not imagine how much worse Sylvie's pain had to be in comparison. Did he resent Odin for what had been done, did he hate the lies and the omissions, did he even feel anger at Frigga for her part in all of it? Of course he did and he was not sure if he ever would feel that go away, if Luka still felt it as keenly as if it was merely seconds before, but in the end Frigga had loved him. Thor loved him. He had centuries of a family, of a home, even if it was founded on a lie, but Sylvie had not. She was raised by violence even more than he was, she had to learn to protect herself even more than he had, and the lack of magical control, her temperament, it made sense in the context of how much different she was from him and Luka.

Luka himself was silent as well and Sylvie stared off into space away from them, at anything but at the two males, and for a moment no one spoke. The eldest of course broke it, his tone even and calm, "You've never really stayed in one place for more than a short amount of time; you've never known a life where the promise of destruction wasn't looming right before you. That coupled with your obsession involving answers and the TVA has you even more on edge than usual, and the sight of what you could have had, the happiness that we have taken for granted but you have never really known, is what makes you lash out even more."

"I'm not obsessed," Sylvie muttered twitching.

"You keep bullying Tony over not being faster or better at building from pretty much scratch a device capable of traveling between timelines, not simply through time but between various branching timelines, and you are almost always some level of hostile towards our twin who only accidentally caused your current situation," Luka said raising an eyebrow, "You're obsessed, with your plan and with the cruelty forced upon you, and you're impatient to get to the result you want. It's not a reprimand or anything, it's just a statement; whether or not you accept it, you are a Loki and Lokis get obsessed over things, especially slights against us. Just ask your idiot."

It was Loki's turn to glare but this too seemed not to faze Luka. He grumbled some but could not argue truly, because he knew when he lied and he could tell when something was the truth. Whether or not he wanted to acknowledge it entirely. He shifted from one foot to the other, rolling his shoulders but now Sylvie was looking at him too and he sighed. "We are luckier in some regards, we are unlucky in others. Did you know we were adopted?"

"I mean yeah, I always knew," Sylvie said and Loki winced; she paused then furrowed her brow, "Why?"

"We did not, not until about a year before the Battle in New York; there was a...mishap and we became aware of the possibility that we were not naturally Asgardian born. And it was only when we confronted him about it did Odin, our magnanimous and wonderful father, tell us the truth." The bitterness was real and hard to control; he remembered all too well, the truth of what he was, the way he had felt as he came to realize on his own, had to drag it out of his father. Odin could have told him the truth, could have tried harder, but the god could never be wrong and his decisions could never be bad.

Luka sighed some and Loki glanced at his older twin; his expression looked saddened as well, no doubt remembering what had happened that day. It wasn't that long ago for him either after all, only a bit longer than Loki. "We acted out but I think frustration and anger was understandable in the context of the situation. You grew up on the run, fighting, surviving, plotting. We grew up never understanding what made us different: Father loved us but never the same as Thor, never in a way that felt sincere. We were not like our brother, we were not like our father, we weren't even like our mother who we were the closest to of all. Something about us was wrong, something about us didn't quite fit, and we never understood it until that day in Jotunheim when we saw our skin turn blue for the first time and the realization started to creep in. And his attempts to explain himself didn't help much either; he wished to act like he was trying to save an innocent life, or that he believed that by not telling me the truth it would somehow protect me more. Nevermind that because of how much I lived within Thor's shadow I bonded stronger with Mother and learned magic from her, making me more of an outcast in many ways, the sneaky practitioner rather than a powerful warrior. Our obsession was the obsession of a son wishing to prove himself, of someone trapped in darkness wishing to make their way into the sunlight."

Something was not right in his words. There was no true lie, for everything he said rang true in Loki's heart. He had never felt worthy, he had never been allowed to be worthy; Thor was the golden son, in more ways than one, whereas Loki was the child in the shadows; their fighting styles, their personalities, their paths had all formed to reflect that. But Loki knew a lie when he heard it and he knew a half-truth and an omission as well, and while all of that was well suited to the being that he was, something didn't fit with Luka. Astrid existed in this timeline but not in the one Loki had come from, nor the "Sacred Timeline" Mobius had shown him; Luka acted like the two of them were the same person, the same "Loki" who had suffered the same, dealt with the same, fought the same, until some trick of fate that diverged them and made them Loki and Luka instead. But it wasn't so simple, because Astrid was theirs by blood and there had be a story behind that. And the reel of his life that he had been shown before saw him be taken to Asgard, imprisoned and festering in his own hatred until a choice took the parent he loved the most and he found his escape. Luka had no hate that he saw; he called himself Odinson, he called Odin Father, he got along with Thor. He was in some ways the Loki from before the reveal, the prince who loved his family and his kingdom and dreamed of one day standing by his brother's side or ruling himself, and in others he was something more, something different. Loki could not put his finger on it but he knew the mysteries were deep in their twin and he wanted to know the answers badly.

"You saw the lies as slights, even if they were supposed to be to protect you," Sylvie said and she furrowed her brow.

"I saw the way Odin continued to try to cover his own truth up with more sweet nonsense as a slight," Loki said, "I saw being told I was born to be king but realizing that I was never meant to be the king of the realm I loved as a slight. I could forgive it if he had been truthful with me, had simply admitted that he wanted me as a tool and that I was never the same as Thor to him, but Odin wanted so hard to not admit that he had made a mistake that it just dug in deeper and harder how little I really mattered as Loki to him."

"So how did your obsession manifest? If mine apparently is focused around wanting answers, and so I try to attack the TVA over and over for that, then what did you do for yours?"

"We killed our birth father." The words were cold and factual; there was no warmth to what had happened, simply the fact of the matter. Laufey had died by Loki's hand, because Loki wanted to show that he was not a monster after all.

"We tried to destroy Jotunheim, which luckily we didn't though the bridge was damaged. And then in a twisted form of our obsession, pushed forward by the same sort of mind control that we used on Hawkeye, we tried to become ruler of Midgard instead, to prove we were worthy of ruling," Luka added and shrugged, "It did not work of course. And from there we diverged."

"That's not true though." Luka blinked as he looked back at Sylvie and Loki wondered if she too could feel the omitted truths. "You diverged long ago, you have Astrid after all. And frankly I find it really hard to believe that you two both went the same traumatic experience like you did."

"Oh? And why is that?"

"Loki calls Odin by his name; you call him Father. Loki's emotional about what happened, he's always emotional of course-"

"I believe the Midgardian saying is 'pot calling the kettle black'?"

"Shut up fool. Point is, the way you talk about it it's clear that you do have hurt from it but it's not the same as the idiot's. You seem more resigned to it, more accepting of it; you do dismiss Odin's words but you don't sound as angry about them as Loki is. But more importantly, Astrid is not an infant; she's a toddler, running around, able to communicate and do things on her own. She's older than a year and I might not know how Asgardians or whatever the hell we are-"

"Jotun," Luka and Loki both informed her at the same time.

Sylvie waved it off. "Doesn't matter. Anyway, I don't know how our reproduction works, but if Astrid is three, and you learned a year before the Battle, and we're currently at a year after the Battle, then the timeline doesn't match up. You shouldn't have a daughter, not without Loki having one too; something about you doesn't add up the same way it does with the idiot and I have to wonder what exactly you haven't been telling us."

Loki expected Luka to be annoyed or smug, something that befit a Loki, befit him. Sylvie was right, there was something not right with Luka's timeline, something that bothered Loki; Astrid, the way he talked, the friendliness of his brother and the Avengers, and his magic. Sylvie didn't touch on it but Loki still hadn't let go of that particular thought from before: Luka's magic was stronger than his own, more mature, more refined. Magic was their specialty but Luka seemed even more so than he, the ease with which he cast powerful barriers and transformed himself completely not unknown to Loki but he wasn't there yet. It didn't feel like a year's difference either but something else, something more, and it bothered him.

Especially as Luka's only reaction seemed to be to raise an eyebrow and shrug, noncommittal, unaffected. His mysteries it seemed were ones he still would not share so easily and he spoke with clarity and calm, "You're not wrong but it's not time to tell you everything yet."

"Not time," Loki repeated and felt himself get angry; like Odin, it reminded him of Odin.

Luka's gaze seemed to soften realize this and he shook his head. "It's nowhere near as disastrous as the things Odin kept from you. I'm not going to say that this is for your sake in any way, it is entirely selfish; I'm not ready to speak of the answers you're asking for. But I assure you that my true wish is no different than yours still, just a little more...involved."

True wish. Not obsession. There was something softer there and deeper, and Sylvie and Loki both exchanged looks without a word. The tension seemed to ebb away, leaving only the vestiges of a conversation where emotions had been bared and truths both spoken and hidden. Loki thought of Sylvie's pain, the pain she had to go through, the pain she still held; he thought of the wild cat she was, volatile and angry but could he really blame her if all she'd known was disaster and death? Loki had known the glitter of Asgard, and for all the darker memories were ones that shone with some light. But Sylvie didn't and it felt clear suddenly why she acted the way she did.

The familiar voice of Astrid called out their names from far away, joined by their ever loving brother Thor's. The moment passed and the trio of Lokis looked at one another once more. The strange black bracelet around Luka's wrist seemed to vibrate and he put a hand over it as if to hide it; Loki still noticed though and his male twin smiled lightly, "I should return to work. You two, please continue to take good care of Astrid. I cannot express enough how much of a salvation she is."

"You will need to explain everything to us eventually," Sylvie said, more calm than Loki expected from her, "The secrets you're holding back, the truth you are keeping, you'll have to share eventually what's actually going on."

"I promise I will. For now, you should return to Thor and Astrid before they come looking for you." Loki didn't answer; he just grabbed Sylvie and walked out, feeling as if this was the only way. Luka was intent upon being enigmatic and if that was how he wanted to play for now then fine. But Sylvie was right, they all knew it: eventually, someday, Luka would tell them the truth. He just hoped that that day didn't come too late.

Luka watched Loki and Sylvie leave and for a few seconds after the door closed behind them he did not breathe. His heart beat still, he lived on, but the breath held in his throat until a count of ten and finally released. He wanted to believe that he did not shake but Loki and Sylvie's questions, their ability to see through him, it just made him remember. His hand went to his throat for only a fraction of a second but fell quickly enough and he ran his fingers along the black band.

"Nightingale," he spoke calmly, a facade if there ever was; a split second hesitation, then continued, "Tsuki."

"You look shaken." Her voice was soft and he thought about the first time they met. It made him smile; she'd been such a different person then, but then again so had he.

Turning around he found her leaning against the large window of the room, the skyline of New York and the bright blue sky set behind her. It did not escape his notice the way the shadows that should have been lining the underside of the sill were pooling closer to the ground, or the mild glow of those inhuman red eyes. But he had long since come to terms with who and what she was and took a step towards her.

"We have work to do still," he told her, not answering her question; she didn't need one nor would she push for one.

A gentle smile crossed her lips and she nodded before offering a hand to him. Midgardians always surprised him with how small and fragile they seemed but the strength those hands could hold; hers weren't as rough and raw as that day years ago but they weren't the hands of someone who lived their days in peace. He imagined blood upon them but he realized all he could imagine was his own; he was far more stained than her, than Sylvie or Loki. They wanted to know the truth, they expected to learn it; he wasn't sure what would happen when they did learn it. Especially Loki; he was always searching for something, some meaning, some answer. Sylvie showed her emotions externally but of the three of them, Luka worried most for the mental state of their middle member. He didn't doubt the TVA had shown him the way things were supposed to go and he wondered how he had felt about it all. On the tails of the pain that came from Odin's revelation, the fall from the Rainbow Bridge, the Other and Thanos and Chitauri and the Specter, Loki was maybe in reality the weakest of them emotionally.

"They'll be okay," he spoke to himself, a charm he wanted to believe in, "They'll be fine."

Tsuki did not answer but he was sure she had thoughts too. Drawing himself up the Loki smoothed back his hair and straightened himself to his full height before taking her hand.

"We found Jane Foster," Tsuki said and Luka felt his heart ache, knowing what that meant, "Shall we?"

"Of course; on your mark." Still that smile; he could not resist returning it and took a deep breath.

That time Sylvie and Loki spoke of was perhaps coming far before they knew. Luka would do everything in his power though to make sure that everything would go right this time, no matter what it took.