Chapter 1 (?)
It had started it out as a normal day for a Mr. Mobius M. Mobius of the TVA…
How he had ended up walking out of the courtroom, having gotten assigned to a Loki variant?
He had no idea. Truly. He didn’t.
It all started with a folder.
Not even that. Three papers, technically, but the TVA always put things in folders. He had gotten a folder of one piece of paper once.
To give you a bit of perspective, that was considered an interesting moment in Mobius’ life. Opening a folder to find one mostly blank sheet of paper inside.
He had a boring life, really. He wanted to be a field agent so many times, but according to higher ups, he was “physically unfit” for that. It was fair. He had gained a bit of extra weight around the stomach. He couldn’t help it, though. Not when the pie was so good.
Instead, his life consisted of staring at numbers and words all day.
Or, well, that’s how it had been for as long as he could remember.
The unnecessary folder landed on his desk with a small “thud” and he thanked the even more bored looking than him attendant, but she walked away before he could finish.
He leaned back in his chair, taking the moment to stare at something other than his computer screen, and opened the file.
His pages were there, but what caught his attention more was the small almost polaroid size photo that fell into his lap, face down.
He closed the file again, the papers inside now just about the last thing on his mind, setting it down on top of the other massive stacks of papers on his desk, which, as he was drawing his hand back to grab the photo, knocked the stack down right onto the floor and all over his lap.
What a mess.
What a mess indeed.
The photo fell to the ground, unnoticed to him as he stood, the papers all falling to the ground with it, burying it deep under the paper and ink mountain now on his cubicle floor.
***
Loki felt the sand in his eyes as he laid there.
In the literal middle of nowhere.
He wasn't kidding either.
A desert.
He hadn't even thought of where to go after he got his hands on the tesseract, he just needed to get out of the Avengers tower where even with his magic, which he doesn't have from his cuffs, he was so heavily outnumbered.
He set the tesseract sown in the sand, then took the piece covering his mouth off, then the handcuffs, lightly throwing them off into the sand, listening slightly as the wind blew a light dusting over them.
He peeked his eyes open, stinging with the sand already, and instantly got blinded by the bright mid-day sun.
He turned over to grab the tesseract, to see… someone there. More than one someones based on how many pairs of boots there were, and an orange…. thing. He wasn't entirely sure what exactly it was.
His hand was outstretched to grab the tesseract still when he saw them move in front of it.
He looked up to see a Black woman there, dressed all funny like security guards. Why there'd be guards in a desert? That he didn't have an answer to.
“On behalf of the Time Variance Authority, I hereby arrest you for crimes against the Sacred Timeline. Hands up. You're coming with us.” She said, Loki glanced around, hand still half reaching for the tesseract. He was so tempted to try and grab it and run.
Curiosity got the best of him, though.
“Us…?”
Before he got an answer, he found himself in handcuffs again, being dragged through the weirdly rectangular orange portal thingie, the other guards taking the tesseract into what seemed to be a glorified briefcase.
He felt himself cry a little on the inside at the sight.