That was it. That was the final straw.
The words echoed throughout his mind in an endless loop as his feet carried him along the hallways of the TVA. Sweat and blood clung to his tattered uniform, mercilessly reminding him of his repeated and incessant failures.
It seemed he would never escape that paradigm as nameless hunters and analysts slammed past him, eager to fix the motion of events he had set into place.
Loki recognized one or two of them as they barked orders to the others, and he considered screaming at them that there wasn’t a point any longer.
But they weren’t the same ones as before, were they? And they wouldn’t have listened to him, even if they were.
The image of Mobius’ and B-15's bewildered faces as they took him in, as they tried to decipher the meaning of his warning, still burned into his eyelids.
With the timelines jumbled together, and with the threat of He Who Remains and his variants staring him in the face, there wasn’t - ironically enough - time to convince them of his worth. Again.
Just when he had been making headway, just when he was finding his footing at long last, the rug was yanked out from under him. Like it was always meant to do.
It was easy enough to bewitch the closest things he had to friends after they’d called for backup. The decision to bewitch them at all so he could escape had been the agonizing one.
The TVA’s hallways seemed endless, more so than the other times he had been dragged through them under heavy guard. He almost wished to be a prisoner again, to have this not be his problem anymore.
But it would always be his problem. It was his curse, his pain, his fury - and he was so goddamn sick of it all.
Eventually, Loki found himself in front of the armory. Time Sticks, helmets and shields were strewn haphazardly across the floor after it was ransacked by Hunters desperate to do their jobs.
The ones they had been programmed to do. The ones that didn’t matter anymore.
The urge to destroy everything in the room was a massive, vehement one. But it was too much effort, and its effect would be meaningless anyway.
As Loki turned to drift on, an object in the corner of the room caught his eye. The silver and wood grain stuck out among the black armor on the floor, dropped and forgotten in the midst of the chaos.
Was it a beacon of hope, or was it another illusion?
His limbs pushed him forward before he even realized what he was doing, and his hands grasped the TemPad before he could stop himself.
Where would he even go? Dare he try returning to Asgard, his home? But it hadn’t ever been his home. Not really.
His lungs tightened in his chest as he stared at the most powerful object the TVA had. Loki wasn’t even sure if the TemPad would still work as his fingers tapped mindlessly on the screen.
Maybe he could try Jotunheim. He could probably convince the few remaining Frost Giants to let him lead them back to glory without even breaking a sweat. And it would be so easy…
He cursed and shook his head. That plan would only lead him to the dungeons of Asgard, and Odin would be more than happy to keep him locked there forever under his thumb. Loki would rather be dead than trapped within that particular form of misery.
Ultimately, he knew it wouldn’t matter where or when he went. In spite of his centuries of painful existence, every decision he made was the wrong one.
Loki believed there was nothing he could do to escape himself. He had tried, many times, to no avail. Each time he had ended up worse than the attempt before, whether by his own flesh or one akin to it.
But that was before the timelines had broken free. There was no sinister figure calling the shots any longer. Could he try, one more time, to escape that fate?
That question remained unanswerable even as the interdimensional portal opened before him. Its glowing amber reflected off his disillusioned and resigned features as he hesitated.
The absence of crimson around the Time Door did nothing to assuage his fear - it would be a time loop whether he wanted it to be or not.
But this time, he didn’t know where or when he was going, and that was the point. The less he knew, the less he could screw up.
Perhaps he would try apathy for awhile. Even if it didn’t save him, at least it would be less effort.
And maybe, just maybe, this would be the last time he had to flee.
Even Loki didn’t believe his own lie as he disappeared through the portal into the unknown.