Endless Mischief

(Idea from: whos_lou) 

This was the most horrible, heart-breaking, evil decision Clint has ever had to make. 

Looking from the first choice to the second, he mentally weighed the pro’s and con’s for the seventh time, and once again came to the conclusion that there equally as much good as bad consequences. 

Fuck Cap for making him do this and fuck Natasha for telling the team about his most well kept secret. 

Seriously, what kind of best friend tells the team that he may or may not have an addiction to seeds?? Which he does not, Natasha. Just because he buys ten packs of different flavoured seeds (that are often bird-food) and eats all of them in one week and then goes again because he wants more doesn’t mean he’s “addicted”. 

He’s not a bird! He just likes bird-food. 

And he had dutifully been the one to get groceries every Monday because he didn’t want anyone to know- god knows he has to tolerate enough bird puns already. 

But then Natasha had snitched and now everyone knew. And then Cap had, bless his soul, told him he would help Clint get over his addiction. 

It’s not an addiction!! 

But now he’s limited to two bags of seeds per week. TWO BAGS!! Of course Clint had tried to smuggle in more, but Cap’s watchful eye picked up on the extra bags every time! 

By now he’s given up and accepted his fate, but then a new horror had made itself know. 

He could only pick two bags, which meant only two flavours. Two. Flavours. 

He might actually die! 

Of course he’d picked Sunflower seeds, both because they were the best and not bird food, which saved him from further puns and mocking. 

But now he was stuck having to decide between bacon-flavoured (they tasted more like tofu but whatever) and cheese-flavoured. They were both great!! Cheese flavoured melted on the tongue, while bacon-but-more-tofu flavoured was like a piece of wood- nice to chew on! 

He just couldn’t choose only one! 

That was when the most brilliant idea came to his mind. 

He was, obviously, in the pet store, as that’s where the the best seeds were sold. And at the pet store, you could customise the food (for your pets)! So, he could just ask a worker to mix him a bag! 

“Yes, big brain move there Clint!”, he praised to himself, patting himself on the shoulder. 

He walked over to the reception, dinging the little bell thingy there. 

“Just a second!”, a voice shouted from behind the half opened ‘Employees Only’ door. Huh, the voice wounded oddly familiar. But to be honest, he was to excited for his seeds to try and figure that out right now. 

A moment later, a person carrying a tower of boxes so high it obscured their face from view walked out. They set down the boxes behind the counter and finally turned towards Clint- 

“Loki?!”

The man- god in question looked startled, then confused, then annoyed, then remorseful, then neutral. 

“Who?”, he asked, faux innocence clinging to his voice. 

“Don’t ‘who’ me, Asshole!”, Clint shouted, pointing his finger at the god. 

“I’m sorry, have we met before?” 

“Have we met- YES WE HAVE MEET! You BRAINWASHED ME! YOU TRIED TO TAKE OVER EARTH!!” 

The annoyance was back. 

“Ugh, are we still on that?” 

“Are we still- YES WE ARE STILL ON THAT, IT WAS LITERALLY HALF A YEAR AGO!” 

“Oh, right, half a year.”, the god said, looking like he genuinely forgot it’s only been six months since his fucking alien invasion. “Ugh, look, I’m sorry okay? I was an asshole back then and what I did was really messed up, but I’m a changed god. So if you could just forget about the invasion, that would be very nice.” 

“Sure. Yeah. I’ll just forget that you caused the death of hundreds, destroyed half New York, brainwashed me, traumatised thousand of people including me and most of the team and committed terrorism.” 

“Great! Now, what can I get you-“

“That was sarcasm, you idiot. I’m never going to forgive you for that, you ruthless, heartless, evil bastard of-“ 

“Yes, I’m an asshole.”, Loki said with an eye roll, waving him off. “Now, what can I get you? And since when did you have a pet anyway?” 

Clint blinked, and actually looked at Loki. 

He was wearing the pet stores uniform, was covered in quite a bit of dirt and yet seemed happier than during his invasion. 

Yeah okay, fucking sure, apparently the supervillain liked working at a pet store.  If Loki got hired despite being a worldwide known terrorist, then he must be good at his job…

Clint decided that he could call the rest of the team, and while they were on their way he would get himself his seeds. 

He did just that, and then turned to Loki, who hadn’t moved one bit and looked at him like he was the worst Karen to ever have existed. He probably had to deal a lot with these. 

Hah Karma. 

“Can you- ugh, I can’t believe I’m actually asking this- can you please make me a mix of all kind of bird-seeds you have expect pebble, sunflower and banana that has the exact same size as an average packet of bacon-flavoured ones?” And just to petty: “And please add in some smashed Sunflowers for flavour.” 

Clint was sounding like the most annoyingly specific customer in the existence of customers, exactly as planned. 

“Yeah, of course! Just a second.”, Loki said cheerfully, and then snapped his fingers. And to Clint’s surprise, a bunch of different coloured and sized seeds were coming flying out of the ‘Employee’s only’ section, along with an empty bag of the bacon-flavoured seeds, before flying inside of said bag and it sealing themselves. 

The bag landed on the counter with a small thud and Loki typed something into the cash register. 

“That would be ten dollars and fifty cent, please.” 

This was feeling like a fever dream. Was this a fever dream? It had to be, right? 

Clint numbly handed his enemy eleven dollar and got back fifty cent a moment later. 

What the actual fuck was even happening. 

***

Fury observed the man that had just appeared out of the Tesseract with narrowed eyes. The Intruder seemed confused, so Barton’s theory about someone opening the door from the other side was probably wrong- 

The confusion in the man’s eyes cleared up, and a manic looking grin stretched over his face. 

Welllll Fuck. Fury was getting the feeling that what was about to happen wouldn’t be pretty. 

“Sir, please put down the spear.”, Fury called out, just to at least try to solve the situation without violence. 

“Hm, no. Although, if you help me with a request of mine, I can swear not to harm anyone here- and I do take my oaths very seriously.” 

“How do we know that we can trust you?”, Fury said, suspicious dripping off of every word he said. 

“I could curse the oath so that it kills me if I should break it?”, the stranger suggested with a shrug, like he didn’t just reveal himself to be able to curse promises and possibly people. “But if you don’t help me, you would die. For fairness reasons.” 

Fury narrowed his eyes. 

“And what is that request of yours?”, he asked, hoping, wishing, praying that the stranger didn’t want help with something bad like terrorism, world domination or the absolute worst, kicking baby kitten. 

“I need help to find-“, the man chuckled to himself, seemingly unwilling. “-to find-“ it happened again. “Ah fuck this is just- I’m sorry I’m feeling like a Disney Character asking this-“ 

What?

“Okay, give me just a second, I need to mentally prepare myself.”, The man said, and took a deep breath. 

Fury was just plain confused at this point. 

“What is up with that guy?”, Fury heard Barton mutter to himself. Seemingly he wasn’t the only one. 

“Okay, so, I know this is gonna sound ridiculous, but I need you to spare with me. I need your help to…to find..to find my…oh my god! I need your help to find. My uh, goddamnit, ugh. Happiness. I need your help to find my…happiness. Please.” 

“What?”, Fury voiced his thoughts this time. 

“Don’t make me say it again!”, the man said, glaring at Fury in obvious embarrassment. 

“Why do you- I mean why-“, Fury was struggling to comprehend just about anything at this point, “You- We-“ 

The man seemed happy enough…?

“Take your time.”, the man encouraged, cheerfully. 

Fury did take his time, struggling for almost five minutes until he finally could formulate his sentence. 

“Uh, I’m sorry if this sounds rude, but you seem happy?”, Fury asked, slowly. 

“Common misconception!”, the man chirped happily. “But just a few minutes ago, someone told me he would destroy all my happiness, and that means it has to be somewhere. Maybe I just spent the past few thousand years looking in the wrong places?” 

Fury was, for the first time, actually completely helpless. What do you answer to that??

“And that’s why I now need you to help me find it! Please?” 

…

Ok, yeah, fuck it. If finding a depressed and immortal magician his happiness would save them from battle with said depressed and immortal magician, he would gladly do it. 

— 

“Okay, uhm, what exactly is this?”, the magician, apparently not a magician but actually an actual god conveniently called Loki and falsely known for lying (looking at you mythology), asked. 

“This.”, Stark said, because of course they’d gotten Stark to help with this. “Is an amusement Park!” 

Loki was silent for a moment. 

“It looks like a glorified and romanticised torture chamber.”, is what he answered. 

“I’m…fairly sure torture chambers are not this big…”, Fury said, which was probably the wrong response to that statement. 

“They aren’t?”, Loki asked, surprise clear in his voice. “Well, the one I was in surely was. Maybe it’s a Thanos thing? He is a titan, maybe he just needs everything big.” 

The somewhat good mood plummeted once again. Loki really had a knack for dropping horrific events of his life casually. 

(“Nu-uh!”, Stark had argued. “I bet I have the bigger Daddy Issues!” 

“My adopted father is the king and went to war with my species. He found me and decided I was good as a political weapon. He did get attached though, so he just raised me normally, though he would constantly favour my adopted brother. 

He did nothing against the fact that I was growing up thinking my actual species are monsters, and didn’t even bother to tell me I was adopted. I figured out eventually and we had a big argument, but he used his escapism tactic which makes him fall asleep for a long period of time, so it didn’t really last long. Next time I saw him I told him I was doing everything I’ve done for him while hanging over an abyss. He basically told to fuck off, so I let go but sadly survived. 

A time skip further forwards, where I’m on trial and-“ 

…

He’d just kept going, unaware of the completely horrified looks Stark and Fury had given him.) 

“Well, it’s not a torture chamber, it’s very fun actually!”, Stark interrupted with a awkward laugh. 

Loki shrugged. 

“Alright, if you say so.” 

You would think someone who’s going into what looked like a torture chamber to them would be a bit more suspicious, but then again, Loki didn’t really seem to value his life that much. 

“I promise, dude!”, Clint added from the side, because he had insisted to go along. Probably only because he wanted to go the amusement park. 

“Sure.”, Loki said, giving a small smile. 

It would have looked genuine on anyone else, but given everything they knew about their new friend? Probably faker than Fury’s backstories he gave whenever someone asked what happened to his eye. 

“How about we start now?”, Natasha said, because if Clint was going then she was going. 

“Yes, I agree.”, Rogers added. He was tagging along because his (Shield sent) therapist told him to try and connect and enjoy to more modern aspects of his new life. 

“I’m not sure about this..”, Banner said, who was tagging along because he needed to learn some damn anger/fear control. They had of course made sure that the amusement park they’d chosen was far away from the next city and closed to the public today. 

“Banner.”, Loki said, having somehow teleported (not even literally. How the fuck-?) over to Banner in the span of a second. “I know for a fact that you have amazing control over your other side, and I can also tell for sure that nothing will happen.” 

Banner didn’t look convinced. 

“If anything should happen, I will put an sleeping spell on you.”, he added. 

That seemed to do the trick. 

“Alright then, let’s go!”, Stark cheered. 

Was it a coincidence that the whole possibly to be Avengers Team was here? Yes actually. They’d all volunteered to try and help out a depressed god. 

***

(Idea from: AvengerDragon) 

Being a snake was surprisingly comfortable. Well, Loki was always aware that being a Snake was comfortable, but he was talking about being a soon to be pet snake in a pet store was even more comfortable. 

He got free food, people were still more or less scared of him but loved him at the same time, and no one would berate him for biting anyone, especially since he wasn’t poisonous! 

Today he was just enjoying another day of staring out of his cage and doing absolutely nothing while waiting for someone to buy him. And hopefully a customer would soon appear and decide to buy him! 

…

That sounded very weird, out of context at least. 

As if summoned by his thoughts, the bell at the stores door ringed, announcing the arrival of a new customer. From his position at the back of the store he couldn’t see them, but he could hear and understand them just fine! 

“Hi!”, a suspiciously familiar voice greeted the owner of the small pet store. “I wanted to ask if you have snakes- a green one preferably?” 

“Oh, yes actually! We have three green snakes at the moment! Two Eastern Green Mambas and an unusually green corn snake!” 

“Alright that’s nice. Are they poisonous? I would prefer a harmless one if possible.” He knew that Voice from somewhere…

“Ah, Green Mambas are very poisonous, but corn snakes aren’t! They’re actually very docile and known for being easy to handle, assuming that’s what you’re looking for.” 

“That’s great actually! Can I see it?” 

“Of course! Here, just follow me!” 

Loki waited patiently for the store owner, Christine, to arrive with the customer before looking up. 

And promptly finding himself staring at Bartons Face. 

…

WHAT?!?

***

(The TVA’s Gremlin and his (mostly) friends: Part 1, Renslayer) 

“Renslayer!”, the familiar annoying, so fucking annoying, voice shouted down the hall.

Renslayer ignored it and kept walking, albeit getting a bit (lot) faster. She skill fully ignored the next few shouts of her name. 

Once she passed the corner that lead to her office, she grabbed a random minuteman guarding it by the arm. 

“Keep Variant L00P-1 from entering at all costs.”, she hissed, then added, “but do not prune him unless completely necessary. Understood?”

The minuteman nodded, answering with a “Understood Ma’am.” And she hoped, desperately hoped, that the variant would give up after being told he couldn’t enter. Mobius was her best (only) friend, and sadly Mobius didn’t like it when L00P-1 was removed from the TVA before his time limit of three days, 54 Minutes and 34 seconds. 

So she tried to avoid that outcome as much as possible, and since L00P-1 was now always forced to wear a bracelet to make him recognisable, she couldn’t blame pruning as accidental either. 

Stupid Mobius and his love for that damn pest. If they could actually contain him, L00P-1 would be locked in a cell for the rest of eternity. 

Renslayer pushed open the door to her office and slammed it shut as hard and fast as possible. The slam would no doubt be heard all through the halls, and hopefully it would convince L00P-1 that she was not suitable company right now. 

She doubted it would work, but miracles did happen every once in a while, so maybe she would be lucky today. 

(Spoiler alert, she would not be lucky. Not in this eternity nor the next.) 

She sighed as she was sitting down on her desk, already turning on the computer to do what she was born for (literally), which was doing her work. She had a lot more of that since L00P-1 started appearing. 

That went to her list of reasons to hate him. 

She did work without interruption for the next five minutes. Huh, maybe the minuteman had actually been able to stop L00P-1, or even pruned him- 

The door was thrown open and Renslayer smashed her head on her table. Maybe if she died she would be free from this. 

“Rennie!”, the variant said in that unnaturally annoying voice of his, walking over to her. “I knew I saw you in the hallway right now!” 

“No you must have seen wrong.”, she tried weakly. “I’ve been in my office for the last hour now, doing very important work, for which I need to concentrate. So if you could please-“

“Help you with it?”, L00P-1 finished for her. “Of course Rennie!”

“Don’t call me that.”, she said, then realised something. Slowly, she questioned: “What happened to the guard…? He wasn’t supposed to let anyone in.”

“Oh, Markus?” Of course L00P-1 knew the minutemen’s name. “I asked nicely and he let me inside. I definitely didn’t hex him. I would never.” 

Like he totally didn’t hex those copy machines to print in green only (hideous colour, it was now forbidden in the TVA) or how he totally didn’t curse all clocks to be an hour and seven minutes too late? 

“…Sure…”, she answered. “But I don’t need help, just peace and quiet. So if you could please leave?”

“I can be quiet.”, is what the Variant offered. 

“No.”, Renslayer answered immediately. 

“Yes I can.”

“No you really can’t.”, Renslayer said with a grimace, remembering the last time Loki had watched her work under the promise to be quiet. It had ended with a rebellion of the TVA’s files, which L00P-1 had cursed to be alive. 

The TVA was now digitalising everything, but it would take another few centuries until they’re actually done, mostly because the files were running away from them. 

Curse L00P-1’s magic. 

“Please?”

“No.” 

“Then let’s just not do work!”, L00P-1 said happily. “You still owe me those ten strawberry chocolate bars.” 

Ah, that’s right. That bet. Damn, she’d hoped he had forgotten. But that gave her an idea. 

“If I give you the ten bars of chocolate-“

“Strawberry chocolate.”, L00P-1 corrected. 

“Right. Strawberry Chocolate. If I give you the ten bars of Strawberry Chocolate, will you let me do my work in peace?” 

L00P-1 seemed to be pondering, before shrugging. 

“Alright, you got yourself a deal!” 

***

This was a disaster- and it wasn’t even his fault for once! Well, okay, everything happening was his fault because everyone else just reacted to his actions, but really this was just unlucky. 

Like, he only made the portal a tiny bit bigger! He’d even made sure that the Avengers would arrive at perfect time and didn’t drop Thor out the window! Coulson had been kept alive for extra backup too! How was he supposed to know that a certain council would decide the best solution would be a fucking atomic bomb!

And how was he supposed to know that he should have teleported away because Stark could not change that one’s course! No one told him that! 

And then how should he have known that he wasn’t the only one in the security bunker under the Stark Tower! It’s not like he could read minds- no wait he could if he wanted to. 

But that was beside the point! 

So really, this situation was not his fault at all. It wasn’t his fault that the atomic bomb exploded everything, leaving him trapped here. And it certainly wasn’t his fault that Coulson decided to hide in there too! 

Like, how was he supposed to know that!?

Really, this was Coulson’s fault. He was the one who hid in here first, Coulson just joined after! 

He glared at the man in question from where he had been (uselessly) tied up. All his fault. Coulson however seemed to have the opposite opinion, if what the man was saying was anything to go by. 

“This is all your fault! Millions of people are dead because of you-“ 

“Well excuse me?”, Loki interrupted, offended. “I was only doing my job! You were the ones that sent an Atomic bomb! That was hardly my decision!” 

“But it happened because of you!”

“Well how exactly was I supposed to know that would happen?! I can’t see into the future, I’m not a witch!” 

“Really?”, Coulson said, eyebrow raised. Loki was getting deja vu. “Then why do you dress like one?”

“I hate you.”, Loki said to no one in particular. “But like, in a good way. You’re funny. Why are we doing this again?” 

“You were the one who started it.” Coulson reminded, trying and miserably failing to hide his disgust at what Loki just told him. 

“Yeah, but no.”, Loki said wisely. 

There was silence. 

“Why did you even do this.”, Coulson asked, more murmuring to himself than actually asking. Because he was nice, Loki still answered. 

“Boredom.” 

Silence again. 

“Why did you say that like it was the answer to the question of life.” 

“Because it is. We do everything we do because of boredom- at least I do.” 

“You’re a fucked up Asshole.” Coulson informed him. He was obviously trying not to yell at him because he started a war because of boredom. Honestly, Loki was glad he was trapped with Coulson and not Thor. Or Barton. Or Stark.

At least he kept his opinion to himself- more or less. 

Loki snorted. 

“I know.”

He knows.

—

Loki was officially loosing his mind here. They had been trapped in this bunker. For. Three. Days. 

Three days weren’t much, really. Loki had been trapped in other places for far, far longer. And he even had company here! 

Sadly, said company was the problem. Coulson was, nicely said, awful. He was so fucking…boring! He didn’t do anything, he was actually ignoring Loki! Not even yelling at him, or torturing him, or talking to him, or literally anything! He just sat in complete and utter silence! The only thing he did was sometimes getting himself some of the food stored in here. 

Boring. So fucking boring. 

Loki there and then decided that he was done sitting in silence and made it his new life goal to get a reaction out of Coulson. 

I mean, how hard could it possibly be? 

—

Very hard. The answer was very hard. 

—

Loki first started with just trying to start a conversation. 

“So…How are you on this fine day?”, he asked, awkwardly. He was, disappointedly but not unsurprisingly, ignored. 

“Not good I imagine, with the whole bomb and trapped in here with me thing.” 

Silence. 

“You can talk to me, you know? I can’t control you without my sceptre.” 

Still silence. 

“Okay, are you maybe possibly mad at me? I’m getting the feeling you are.” 

Silence once again. 

“I’ll take that as a yes.”, Loki stopped, thinking for a bit. “What can I do to make it up to you?” 

This time, Coulson stopped tapping his foot on the ground for a split second. 

“Go back in time and fox this.”, Coulson said, sarcastically. Loki, however, took this very seriously. 

“That doesn’t wor-“, Loki stopped and thought for a second. “No wait, that’s actually something I can do. Huh, I would’ve thought you would choose something completely ridiculous.” 

Finally, Coulson turned to him. 

“What?” 

“I can do that.”, Loki repeated, shrugging. “It’s forbidden, I’d need the time stone for it, and it’ll probably mess up the Universe, but I could do it.” 

Coulson looked at him, then turned and went back to ignoring him again. Seemed like he didn’t believe him. 

How Rude.

Well, he’d just keep asking questions until Coulson would reply. 

—

A few hours later, Loki  was tired of asking useless shit and tried something else instead. He’d learnt this tactic when he’d tried to annoy Thor when they were younger. 

“-son Coulson Coulson Coulson Coulson Coulson Coulson Coulson Coulson Coulson Coulson Coulson-“

He could see said mans eye twitch. 

“-Coulson Coulson Coulson Coulson Coulson Coulson Coulson Coulson Coulson Coulson Coulson Coulson Coulson Coulson Coulson Coulson Coulson Coulson Coulson Coulson Coulson Coulson Coulson Coulson Coulson Coulson Coulson Coulson Coulson Coulson Coulson Coulson Coulson Coulson Coulson Coulson Coulson Coulson Coulson Coulson Coulson-“ 

—

Since he didn’t get any reaction beyond so many eye twitches that Loki was worried about Coulson’s left eye, he decided to stop. 

And do something else, of course. That something else was just dropping facts about the way of the universe, time travel, and some other shit. Just, shocking for the sake of shocking. 

Coulson had to ask about one of these things eventually. And if he didn’t, then hopefully this would create enough of an branch that the TVA would pick him up. 

“-and then there’s this titan called Thanos. He’s collecting six stones made at the beginning of the universe, which are called Infinity stones. But he’s destined to fail, because that’s what was written into the flow of time-“

Coulson looked at Loki like he was telling a fairytale. 

“-and like, if I had to rate them based on how good of dads they were, I think I would give Odin a three of ten. He wasn’t abusive or anything, just a bit neglecting when it came to me. And yes he didn’t tell me I was adopted, which was shitty of him, but I can understand why he wouldn’t tell me. And he was overall awful, but he could be nice though. And at least he tried, y’know? That’s something at least. My Original dad gets a zero, cause he just left me to die on a rock-“ 

“-And the correct flow of time is shit, to be honest. Like, I die. Stark dies. Thor adopts a child. Thor adopts a child! Thor. The same Thor that started a war because someone called him princess- I am honestly worried about that poor kid-“ 

“You know what I just realised? I’ve talked about the sacred timeline a lot, but I never told you who made it! That would be the Timelords- I haven’t met them yet but I’m working on that-“ 

“And honestly, be careful to never get inside a time loop, it gets boring very quickly-“