i actually had this finished about a million years ago, before the enormous setback for female characterization known as Age of Ultron. since Fifteen is a time-traveler, she's been setting up the Marvel movies out of order.
warnings: AU - Fateverse. sci-fi with technobabble. Rule 63. language: pg-13 (for s***).
pairing: gen.
timeline: NO 3652 (AD 6188), shortly after Conducting the Blizzard.
disclaimer: marvel owns all the characters, i just made more alternate universe versions of them.
notes: 1) i imagine the emotional state of a powerful individual (especially one who knows magic) would do some wonky things to timeline resonance. 2) i found it interesting (and slightly disappointing, tbh) that while the Dark World trailer used the line "when you betray me," the line in the actual movie was changed to "if you betray me"...and come on, Thor was at that point totally waiting to see just where Loki planned to stab him this time. 3) Fifteen hates being second-guessed and hates micro-managers, so when she has to deal with Analyst!Pietro in person, she probably spends the whole time looking at him like something nasty on the bottom of her awesome shoes.
visit The Fateverse Glossary (lex-munro . livejournal 64465 . html) for terms and concepts, and The Fateverse Appendix (lex-munro . livejournal 64565 . html) for Nodes, branches, and important people.
Fifteen surveys the smoldering wreckage. "Skuld, show me the extrapolation for Stark, and overlay the ideal."
On the largest crystal of the bracelet on her wrist, several white lines appear, threaded through by a narrow red one and a broad green one.
"Excellent," she says. "Extremis is almost perfectly positioned, then. How is the Winter Sol—"
White room in darkness. Empty hours of loneliness and resentment and guilt and self-hatred and there he is, just look, so perfect, i love him so much i want to rip his face off.
Fifteen takes several deep breaths and focuses on the warning red flash of the bracelet.
~Fidelis Correlation Warning.~
"Low chance, indeed," she scoffs.
She breaks away that little part of her mind, the part that looks at her sister and wants to smash her precious skull in, the part that rejoiced when she unmade their whole world, the part that calls to a fractured man alone in a cell. She takes it and locks it away and tells it to shut up and mind its own business.
"How is the Winter Soldier coming along?" she asks Skuld.
A second red line appears.
"And Pym?"
A third red line.
when you betray me, i will kill you
Speechless for just a moment, laughing outside and crying inside. When, not if. So he's finally given up. Mother is dead, and the last person in all the worlds who cared for him, hoped for him, has abandoned him.
Fifteen gasps for air. She clamps down harder on that shard of despair and shoves it farther away. She must be separate. She must.
Because her plan includes this version of Thor killing her counterpart.
If too much of her mind becomes the other Loki, she'll die when he does.
~Fidelis Correlation Warning.~
She closes her eyes and pictures her sister. Her beautiful, gormless, needful sister. Thor has very little pride, because she has no proper sense of self-consciousness. She disdains interaction with strangers, because they frighten her. She won't leave the apartment alone, unless she's on her way to Natasha's. She cried any time their father tried to separate them when they were younger.
Fifteen loves her sister in a pure and protecting way, not in the covetous and hateful way that this world's Loki loves his brother.
She refuses to give in to this madness, no matter how it pulls at her. She has withstood its like before. She has shared a piece of her mind with a confused child, with a bitter old man, with a vengeful psychopath, and always kept herself separate enough to do her duty.
She will not let her record be spoiled by pitying this wreck that was once a god.
"Skuld, find me a branch point for Quill and send me two months prior. There's work to be done."
Her portable beeps—incoming comm channel from Core Monitoring. Irritably, she thumbs it on.
~"We've detected a fidelis spike,"~ Pietro drawls, so would-be casual it makes her sick. She can hear the sharp and hungry sound of teeth in his words, the scavenger waiting for the injured predator to fall. ~"How are you doing, Fifteen?"~
"All operations proceeding as scheduled," she tells him. "Stark is in position. Thor is well underway, Rogers and Barnes are progressing acceptably, Pym is branching. I was about to go back and start preliminary work on Banner."
The lengthy pause must be for effect, considering how Tom and Pietro process information so much faster (have to, because their bodies move so much faster). ~"You jumped to forty percent compliance for a moment. Will you be able to proceed?"~
She curls her lip. "All operations are proceeding as scheduled," she repeats pointedly. "I can see how a human in my position might worry you, but I assure you that I have everything well in hand."
~"That's good to hear,"~ he says. ~"We'll continue monitoring."~
The channel closes with a low tone.
"Unmitigated ass," Fifteen mutters. "Skuld, send me the graph of my fidelis correlation in this branch since my arrival."
Skuld obeys.
Fifteen blanches.
In point of fact, her correlation spiked to fifty-seven.
It doesn't make any sense. The typical correlation is around five percent, but there are half a dozen spikes over twenty, one of them towering over the others.
when you betray me
She rubs at the aching bridge of her nose. "Shit," she complains to the cloudy afternoon. "I'm nothing like him, why do I keep turning into him?"
~Recent fidelis spikes correspond to emotive projection of hyperbolic chronometric resonance.~
"When he feels strongly, it forces resonance?"
~Correct.~
"Shit."
Apparently, she'll need the bastard to fake his death. Time to use their mutable correlation to her advantage.
It's the work of a thought, a breath, and three seconds of spellcasting to stand invisible beside them—between them, at a table in darkness while they convince Thor's comrades to aid them.
"Look at him," she whispers. "So blind. So headstrong. He may not realize it, but he needs your guidance and protection. Without Mother, who will be his voice of reason?"
Her counterpart shifts uneasily; he's heard her.
"And yet, without Mother, who would ever know the difference if you were to take on Odin's role? You'd be so much better at it…wiser, cleverer, infinitely more compassionate."
His lip curls, and he looks away from Thor, into the shadows.
She leans closer. "And Thor would once again show you that smile of adoration you once so craved. Be the wise ruler, the kind father. Soak up the love he has denied you these latter years."
Ah.
He sits straighter, lifts his chin, clenches his jaw.
Double-vision for a moment as she sees through his eyes, feels the surge of jealousy and covetousness, feels the gleeful little thread of triumph as he plans and plots.
Thor has succeeded in swaying his friends, and his smile is proud and bright, and for a moment, her whole mind is eclipsed by greed and loneliness and a vicious, bloodthirsty love.
Loki pulls away from her counterpart, disgusted by his madness and the sympathy it stirs in her.
There is a brief pause, as if they have sensed her movement; she leaves with a touch of the Node on her wrist.