Chapter 13
Idunn, Loki, and Mobius sat around the kitchen table, having just heard all of Idunn's history.
"Did your advisor really tell you none of this?" Mobius judged.
"I didn't let him," Idunn stared at her hands.
"Why?" Loki frowned.
"Because hearing about it, isn't the same as remembering it." She repeated herself. "it still just feels like stories instead of experiences."
"We'll get them from Adam," Loki assured her.
"I still can't believe how amazing this is," Mobius gestured to both Loki and Idunn. "I mean, who would have thought that you, Loki, and you, Yelena, sorry Idunn would end up together. I get it though, I mean, you weren't always the villain, but this is so exciting! It's almost like the universe wanted you to find each other. Without sounding like a soppy romance novel, though."
"What is 'universe'?" Idunn asked. "In relation to the timeline?"
Mobius opened and closed his mouth a few times, unable to answer her.
"Is the 'sacred' timeline within the universe, or is the universe within the 'sacred' timeline?" Idunn's complicated questions continued.
"Wow," Mobius said after a long silence, "the way your mind works."
"I think, as long as the timeline remains as they want it to, the Universe is inside the timeline, but the moment you branch away from it, you create an alternate universe on the side of the timeline?" Loki tried.
"Something like that," Mobius thought. "but there are multiple universes that mirror each other but are different from each other in many ways…"
Loki and Idunn stared at Mobius, confused.
"There are multiple versions of you," Mobius pointed at Loki, "that are not Variants of you. It's not like they veered off the sacred timeline. They still follow their sacred timeline."
"What?" Loki accused.
"It gets extremely complicated, I don't think I know how to explain it." Mobius felt defeated.
"I don't have multiple versions or Variants?" Idunn probed.
"Nope. You are one of a kind." Mobius pursed his lips.
"Okay, just recap the basics for me again, please," Idunn insisted.
"Okay, so steve Rodgers went back in time to put the stones back in place, he went to Vormir before Natasha sacrificed herself and gave the stone to Hawkeye, creating an infinite loop that corrected her sacrifice. She then went back with Steve, he went and had that promised dance with Peggy because he is a man of his word and he and Natasha found themselves a piece of land that was secluded and safe and built themselves a home and a life together. They got married, because that's how Steve wanted it, and not too long after that, she was pregnant with you…"
"How is that possible? I mean Tannan at least mentioned that she couldn't conceive, so how?" Idunn said with her hand in her hair.
"It's not that complicated, the Black Widow Program told the girls that they removed their uteruses, but it was a lie. Of course, it was. Have you ever known a villain to tell the truth?"
Loki narrowed his eyes at this.
"So she could conceive?" Idunn interrupted.
"No, not really, the program did alter them in a way so that they could have longer lives and heal faster and be stronger and they had their wombs on an adrenalin-charged timer. So, as long as they were active in the program, they'd have constant adrenalin pumping through them which would keep their womb basically frozen. But the minute that they stop actively running around and killing people, the womb would sort of defrost."
"This is allowed?" Loki accused.
"It's not the TVA's job to judge right from wrong, as long as things follow the right path, it doesn't matter. Life would be boring without problems and without bad guys. I mean, you're the reason why the Avengers became the Avengers because they teamed up against you and that was allowed because it was the allowed timeline."
"So, Steve, my father," Idun had a hard time saying it, "not going back to the twenty-first century was allowed on the timeline, but my conception wasn't?" Idunn scratched her head.
"Technically," Mobius thought deeply, "technically he wasn't allowed to do any of that. The virtual contract with the soul stone is that it is eternal, it can't be undone, but he did find a way around it. To keep both his timeline and the world's timeline intact. And while they were time-hopping, they weren't causing any changes in the timeline. So he just said goodbye to Peggy and stayed out of the timeline and out of the way so that they barely caused any attention. But your existence was a huge branch in the timeline. At first it basically just trickled out, you stayed with them in a simple hidden life, but when you started showing powers, you spiked interest. My interest, in fact. I've been monitoring your life since. I got to say I was so bummed when they wouldn't let me interview you in the first place. But you, Loki, were just as amazing to catch."
"What are my powers?" Idunn asked.
Mobius sat back in his chair, thinking for a bit, "the first time you raised an alarm at the TVA, you had created yourself a mini reality. You basically formed your own imaginary friend out of nothing. That's the reality stone. Oh but before that, you sent your mom mental messages before you could even talk. That's the mind stone. You also regularly moved things with your mind. You were always physically strong but I think that's genetics. And you could also manipulate energy, you made this white ball of magic that could blast holes in walls. You teleported around your house, which is the space stone, and you could undo things. Like when you broke a whole tea set, you turned the time back just on the tea set and un-broke it. That's the time stone. You were amazing. You still are."
"And the soul stone?" Loki pried, having listed five out of the six in his head.
"I don't know," Mobius admitted. "There isn't a lot of information on the soul stone. No one knows anything about it except that it is a soul for a soul and very few can make that sacrifice. So we don't know how you would use it."
"Maybe I don't have that one." Idunn thought out loud, thoughtfully tracing patterns on Loki's hand.
"That is possible, I guess, but I don't think so. Your parents were exposed to all six of them. So if you did get the powers from their exposure to them, you would have the soul stone too. Okay, granted, I mean we've never seen you use them all at the same time. When Thanos and Hulk did, it nearly killed them. Or will almost kill them. I don't' know what earth year we're in." Mobius wandered off, looking for an answer as if written in the room.
"You escaped in the year 2012, so I guess that's when we are." Mobius looked at Loki. "Those things haven't happened yet, and yet they have. But that's complicated again."
"Which stone causes lightning or electricity?" Loki asked feeling her energy pass between them and remembered being shocked by her. "And why can she pick up Mjolnir?"
"Are you kidding me?" Mobius sighed, "she's the manifestation of two of the most worthy people in the entire universe."
"Why does she have it?" Loki asked as he pointed at Mjolnir back in its original place by the weapons.
"That," Mobius sat up, excited, "is an interesting story."