Trust is for Children

Loki looked up the tall podium where the judge sat forebodingly, looking down her nose at him. Her dark curly hair was pulled back in a neat ponytail. Her uniform was clean and crisp, with a vivid orange sash slashing across her torso. The name plate on the podium read Judge Ravonna Renslayer; Loki thought the name suited her perfectly.

The Hunter that had captured Loki prodded him forward to step on the platform as the judge read off his information.

“Laufeyson. Variant L1130, AKA Loki Laufeyson Is charged with sequence violation 72089.” She dropped the papers on the desk and looked at him expectantly.

“How do you plead?”

Loki chuckled darkly. “Madam, a god doesn’t plead. Look, not that this hasn’t been an enjoyable experience, but I’d like to go home now.”

Judge Renslayer frowned at him disapprovingly.
“That’s not an option. Your options are: Are you guilty or not?”

“Guilty of being the god of mischief? Yes. Guilty of finding all this incredibly tedious? Yes. Guilty of a crime against the sacred timeline? Absolutely not, you have the wrong person.”

The judge raised an eyebrow.
“Oh? And who might that be?”

“I suspect the Avengers. They were no doubt using time travel as a last ditch effort to stop my ascent into kinghood. The only reason I got the Tesseract is because of them.”

The judge pursed her lips, no doubt because she realized he had made an excellent point, so he continued.

“You speak of time criminals, it’s them you should be after. Perhaps you could provide me with a task force,” Loki gestured to the minutemen around him, “And I could return and eliminate them for you?”

He saw B-15 roll her eyes at him but he ignored it. Judge Renslayer frowned in annoyance.

“We’re not here to talk about the Avengers. What they did was supposed to happen, you escaping not so much.”

“According to who?” Loki demanded.

“According to the sacred timeline.” Ravonna explained impatiently. “Now, normally Mr. Laufeyson we offer variants a few choices about where they go from here. They could go into training to become an analyst or a hunter or any other position we have. Or they could choose to be reverted back into childhood and restart their life completely here.” Ravonna straightened the papers on her desk and glowered down at Loki.

“But when we get in variants of....undesirable characters from the timeline, such as yourself, well then we have to revert back to our old methods-“

“Judge Renslayer, if I may?” A man from the back interrupted, standing up. Ravonna glanced back at him in surprise.

“Approach the bench,” she permissed.
Loki’s eyes followed the man as he walked up to speak quietly to the judge, his curiosity piqued.

The man wore a boring brown suit and tie and as he got closer Loki saw that he was a few inches shorter than himself. His nose was a bit crooked and underneath it he sported a mustache just as silver as his hair. Loki listened in on their hushed conversation.

“If you’re thinking what I think you’re
thinking. It’s a bad idea.” Renslayer warned.

“I’m just chasing a hunch.” The man shrugged, shooting her a pleading look.

“If anything goes sideways, it’s on you.”

The judge and this man seemed to be very close friends based on the way they bickered back and forth and after a few more exchanged words, the judge banged her gavel, declaring Loki to be under the man’s supervision from that moment forward. The man turned to Loki, looking pleased with himself.

“And who are you?” Loki inquired, eyeing him distrustfully.

“I’m Agent Mobius,” the man introduced, quirking a soft smile and signaling him to follow him.
“Let’s take a walk.”

He started down the aisle of the courtroom, not looking back to see if Loki was following. With a moment of hesitation Loki went after him, figuring the man was better company than the two brutish hunters and judge glaring at him.

After going down a long hallway and around a corner, they came to a window overlooking what must be the rest of the TVA. Loki looked out at the sprawling tangled layout of buildings and hallways and found himself overwhelmed with how massive it was.

“Home sweet home.” Mobius sighed, coming to stand next to him.

“This place is a nightmare.”

“Eh, it grows on you after a while.” Mobius shrugged. The elevator he had summoned arrived and they began the journey upwards.

“Are you taking me somewhere to kill me?” Loki finally asked after he tired of the silence.

Mobius chuckled, “No that’s where you just were. I’m taking you somewhere to talk.”

Loki scowled at him. “I don't like to talk.”

“Oh now, I think we both know you love to talk.” Mobius replied teasingly and then walked out of the elevator with Loki trailing behind him.

They went around a corner and down a small flight of stairs, passing multiple other TVA agents all hurrying along on their business.

“So, you're part of the TVA's courageous and dedicated workforce?” Loki asked in a mocking tone, looking around at the other agents.

“Correct.” Mobius confirmed.

“You were created by the Time-Keepers to protect the Sacred Timeline.”

“Ehh, not so correct.” Mobius shook his hand in a so-so motion, “We can’t quite figure out how to turn those old propaganda videos off. We’ve asked Miss Minutes about it but it’s in her programming to run them and she can’t stop it.”

Loki blinked at him. What on earth was the man going on about? Mobius chuckled at his blank expression.

“I’ll explain later. Let’s just say the TVA has gone through a reformation recently and leave it at that for now.” He said dismissively and walked over to a room labeled Time Theater 5. He motioned for the minuteman guarding the door to hand him his pruning baton. The guard did so with a nod and looked at Loki suspiciously.

Mobius opened the door and gestured for Loki to enter the room first.
“After you.”

The room Loki entered was mostly empty, only containing a small round table with two chairs facing each other. On the table was a small orange computer with a few papers and a soda can next to it. Mobius made his way over to the table and set down his clipboard.

“For the record, this really does feel like a killing-me kind of a room.” Loki critiqued, looking around.

“Not big on trust, are you?” Mobius put down the baton and started fiddling with the computer.

“Trust is for children and dogs.” Loki sneered, slowly walking further into the room, “There's only one person you can trust.”

“Yourself? I like it. Slap it on a T-shirt.”
The computer booted up and a projection of the TVA logo appeared on the wall in front of them.

“If the TVA truly oversees all of time, how have I never heard of you before?”

“'Cause you've never needed to. You've always lived within your set path.”

Mobius adjusted the nobs on the computer a little more until he accomplished whatever he was trying to do. “Okay, come have a seat.”

Loki stalked towards him, intending to take the baton and-

Mobius suddenly straightened up and clicked a nob on a small remote he had hidden in his pocket. Loki felt himself jerked back to exactly where and how he’d been standing just a few moments ago. He blinked in surprise. The damned collar he was wearing must give Mobius total control over him.

Seemingly unfazed, Mobius sat in one of the chairs, “Time moves differently in the TVA. Come on, sit down.”

Loki moved across the room slowly, before he dropped down in the chair across from Mobius, crossing his arms and glaring at him menacingly.

“If looks could kill.” Mobius quipped, looking amused.

“What do you want from me?”

Mobius took a big breath then said, “Well let's start with a little cooperation.”

Loki shook his head, “Not my forte.”

Mobius looked doubtful, “Really? Even when you're wooing someone powerful you intend to betray? Come on.”

“You don't know anything about me.”

“Maybe I'd like to learn.” Mobius popped open one of the soda cans on the desk, “I specialize in the pursuit of dangerous Variants.”

“Like myself?”

Mobius took a swig of the energy drink and shook his head as he answered, “Mmm... No, particularly dangerous Variants. You're just a little pussycat.” He teased.

Loki rolled his eyes and Mobius continued.
“I got a set of questions for you. You answer them honestly, and then maybe I can give you something you want. You wanna get out of here, right?”

Loki tilted his head.

“Yeah, so we'll start there. You get out of here, what are you gonna do?”

“Claim my throne.” Loki answered simply.

“The throne of Asgard? You want to be king?”

“I don’t want to be I was born to be.”

“You weren’t born to be king of Asgard.” Mobius didn’t bother to look at Loki as he dismissed the notion, instead writing something down on his clipboard.

“Oh yes I know, Thor was wasn’t he?” Loki’s tone was bitter and cynical.

“Odin never should have let you believe you had a chance at the throne. He never had any intention of letting you rule but he filled your head with the desire anyways.”

Loki hated how he couldn’t help but agree with Mobius’s statement. If Odin had simply been up front about his adoption and the fact that Thor was the one he wanted to be king from the beginning, Loki’s life would have been so much simpler.

Mobius set down his pen and turned to the computer to press a button. The projection pixelated into the skyline of New York and Loki scoffed.

“What is this?”

“A sample of your greatest hits. If I may?”
He hit another button and they watched as the screen showed them a few of Loki’s misdeeds, killing the Shield Agent Coulson, taking a man’s eye, trying to take over New York.

“Do you enjoy hurting people? Making them feel small and afraid?” Mobius asked, looking at him intently.

Loki’s gut twisted unpleasantly as he watched the awful things he had done. He briefly thought of defending himself, explaining that while he had done those things, he hadn’t been fully in control. That Thanos had twisted his mind and warped his desire to be king into his own agenda to get the stones.

But he knew nobody would believe him if he tried to explain. They all would think it was just another of of his tricks, that he was just trying to escape the consequences of his actions.

So now here he was, stuck playing the role of the villain because there was no other path available for him.

He sunk down further in his chair and glared back at his interrogator.

“I don’t have to play these games with you. I’m a god.”

“The god of mischief right?” Mobius asked in mock confusion, “See, none of these things seem especially mischievous to me. More sadistic than anything.”

Loki said nothing as Mobius continued,
“Let’s take a look at some of your previous visits to earth, hmm? This one is one of my favorites.”

Mobius hit another button and they watched a younger version of Loki jump out of an airplane with a bag of money and disappear, creating one of the most famous unsolved mysteries on earth.

“I can’t believe you were D.B. Cooper!” Mobius slapped the table in glee, “Now that,” he pointed at the frozen image of Loki in sunglasses, “That’s what the god of mischief should be about. Causing little harmless bits of chaos like that. Not murdering people or taking over the world.”

He eyed Loki critically, “What happened to that Loki? What made you change from that to how you are now?”

Why was Mobius so hung up on the reasoning for everything Loki had done? Most people just accepted the fact that he was the bad guy, so of course he did bad things. They didn’t feel the need to know why.

But Mobius....Mobius seemed intent on getting an answer and Loki wasn’t going to give it to him.

He pushed his chair away from the table and stood up abruptly. “Enough.”

Mobius clicked the remote again and Loki was back in his chair with a frustrated huff.

“We’re not done here.”

“What is it that you want?” Loki finally asked.

“I want you to be honest about why you do what you do.“

Loki scoffed, looking towards the ceiling. “I know what this place is. It’s an illusion. A cruel elaborate trick, a desperate play for control conjured by the weak to inspire fear. Now, you all parade about as if you're the divine arbiters of power in the universe. My choices are my own.”

“Your choice is your own. Good, let’s work with that.”

Mobius started up another clip, this one Loki didn’t recognize. He could see himself being led into the throne room of Asgard in chains.

“If you hadn't picked up the Tesseract, you would have been taken to a cell on Asgard.” Mobius explained.

“What is this? This never even happened.” Loki dismissed. Did Mobius think he could lie to him and he wouldn’t notice?

“Not yet. Look, the TVA doesn't just know your past, we know your whole life, how it's all meant to be.”

The screen showed Loki rejecting Frigga as his mother and her hurt expression. Loki hid his wince, ashamed he could ever talk to her like that.

“And then the Dark Elves attack the palace, and you think you send them to Thor.” Mobius explained, skipping forward a bit.

“You might wanna take the stairs to the left.” Future loki said.

“But instead, you send them...”

Frigga glared at the dark elf defiantly.
“I'll never tell you.”

Malekith nodded.
“I believe you.”

The elf holding her plunged the sword into her back and Frigga gasped in pain, crumpling to the ground. The screen froze on his mother’s dead body.

“Your choice is your own and you choose to sell out your own mother.” Mobius tutted.

Loki shook his head in disbelief. He may be one of the most reliable people when it came to back-stabbing, but he would never betray his mother, he refused to believe it.

“You’re lying.”

Mobius leaned forward across the table.
“Do you enjoy hurting people? Do you enjoy killing?” He asked intently.

“I'll kill you.” Loki snarled.

“Like you did your mother?” Mobius taunted.

Loki saw red as he rose from his chair and hurled it at the hologram, then charged at Mobius. Mobius just rewound him again, plopping him unceremoniously on the ground.

“Sorry, the Time Twister just loops you, not the furniture.” Mobius didn’t sound apologetic. He stood from his seat and walked around to look down at Loki.

“You weren't born to be king, Loki. You were born to cause pain and suffering and death. Just so the good guys can come in to stop you, and learn to work together as a team before they have to face the real threat.”

Mobius pressed another button to show another clip of the Avengers, this time they all looked to be about a decade older. They were all charging towards Thanos and his army, who had gathered the infinity stones.

The very thought of Thanos with all the stones made Loki want to shudder. He had been able to torture and control Loki using only one of the stones, he didn’t want to know what he would do with all of them.

The screen rewound back to New York in 2012, panning around the Avengers all standing back to back and working together, fully assembled for the first time.

Was that truly his only purpose? He was just....a training exercise for the Avengers?

Seeing Loki’s lost expression, Mobius’s face softened in sympathy.

He reached down and offered Loki his hand. “Come on.”

Loki took it and, seizing the opportunity, carefully slipped his other hand in Mobius’s pocket, stealing the remote from him as the door opened.

Hunter B-15 walked in and Loki bristled.

“What are you doing?” She asked. Mobius raised his eyebrows at her, “My job. Is it your job to interrupt?”

“We have a situation.” She glanced distrustfully at Loki and Mobius turned to him.

“Don’t go anywhere. It was just getting good.” And they left Loki alone in the theater.

The second the door closed, Loki took out the time twister and rewound himself back to the hallway where he’d first arrived in the TVA. He glanced around warily, seeing minutemen all around him. Luckily none of them seemed to notice him but he needed to find a way out of here before they did.

He tried to summon his magic and shapeshift into some kind of small animal to sneak around the TVA as, but instead he found something blocking his powers.

Maybe it was the collar on his neck? He pressed a big round button on the center of the remote and released it, yanking it off with a sigh. He tried to use his powers again but still nothing happened. Something in the TVA as a whole must be blocking them then.

The squeak of a wheel caught his attention and he saw the man that Hunter B-15 had given the Tesseract to, pushing a cart around a corner. He followed the man into the next room but stopped in the doorway to avoid suspicion and looked at his surroundings.

The room was filled with about a dozen small cubicles, all outfitted with a phone or computer screen. Most of them had folders and papers scattered on the desk.

A splash of color caught his eye and he walked over to one of the desks, picking up the small green stone that was heavier than it looked.

As he lifted the stone, he noticed the stack of paper it had been on top of started moving from the breeze of the small fan that was on the corner of the desk.

He glanced over and saw the man from before place the Tesseract on his own desk and used it to prop up some books on his shelf and then walk away.

Loki’s heart plummeted in dread.
How powerful must the TVA be if they used Infinity Stones as paperweights? Weren’t they worried about a stray variant such as himself coming along and using one?

He walked over to the desk and picked up the Tesseract, examining it carefully. It’s glow was significantly dimmer than it should have been and, turning it over and over in his hands, he realized he couldn’t feel it’s usual thrumming energy coming from it.

Whatever was blocking his powers was also able to neutralize the stones, essentially making them useless.

He looked despairingly around the room. This drab, dusty boring place was the greatest power in the universe? If it was able to repress the Infinity Stones like they were nothing, how could he ever hope to escape?

He had no magic, no Tesseract, and now, no plan.

The ding of an elevator behind him made him turn around. The door opened to reveal Hunter B-15 and a large group of minutemen streaming out of it, followed by Mobius. B-15 charged towards him, baton held at the ready.

Loki quickly slapped the collar back around his neck and took out the time twister, rewinding himself back to the theater just as B-15 lifted the baton to swing it at him, missing him by centimeters.

He landed on the floor of the time theater again with a groan, cursing the TVA and the timekeepers and all the bothersome hunters. He tossed the remote and collar onto the table and pushed himself up.

Taking a moment to catch his breath, he sat down in the remaining chair and glanced curiously at the computer before him.

Mobius had said that the TVA knew his past and his future, so why not take a look at what it held in store?

He turned to the frozen image of the Avengers with disgust and quickly skipped forward through his file until he came to Frigga’s lifeless form again and his breath caught in his throat.

Could it be true? Did he actually have a hand in his own mother’s death?

Shaking his head to clear away the few tears gathered in his eyes he skipped forward again, pausing on a clip of him, Thor, and Odin sitting on a cliff top in Norway.

He watched as Odin slowly dissolved into golden light and drifted away, leaving him and Thor alone, now orphans.

“You did this.”
Thor’s fingers crackled with electricity.

So he ended up killing both his parents in the end, then. He wouldn’t think Thor could ever forgive him for that, but the next clip showed them fighting side by side. Then Thor telling him how highly he thought of him, how he wasn’t so bad after all and hope blossomed inside of Loki’s chest.

Nobody knew him as well as Thor did, and if after everything he had done: trying to kill Odin and take over Asgard, trying to take over the world (under Thanos’s influence, although nobody knew or cared about that small detail) and causing both their mother’s and Odin’s deaths, Thor could still forgive him and see good in him well then, maybe....maybe he could be good.

But just as it seemed Loki would finally get to stand in the sunlight with his brother, things turned dark. Thanos found their ship, the ship containing the few surviving members of the people of Asgard. He watched as his older self tried to trick Thanos and pledge his loyalty to him and then stab him in the back, but Thanos used the stones to stop him, giving him an unimpressed look.

“Undying?” Loki watched as the mad titan grabbed his older self’s arm, twisting the dagger out of his grasp,

“You should choose your words more carefully.” His tone was menacing and sent a bolt of fear down Loki’s spine.

Thanos reached out with his gloved hand and lifted him by his neck.

The god kicked his legs and pried at the hand around his throat, desperately trying to break free. With his last breath he wheezed, “You... will never be... a god.”

Snap

Thor sobbed into Loki’s chest, clutching desperately at his body and begging him to end the illusion. But like Thanos had said, there were no more resurrections. The engine of their ship exploded, making the screen go blank and pixelate into the words END OF FILE.

Loki stared in dismay at the words. That was it? That was how his life ended? He finally did something good, finally made up for all of his past misdeeds and reconciled with his brother and then his life just ended there?

Glorious purpose indeed.

Feeling absolutely drained, he sat down on the steps, staring at the Tesseract and feeling a stray tear fall down his cheek.

“Loki?” Mobius called cautiously. He approached the variant slowly, as if trying not to startle a wild animal, with the pruning baton held protectively in front of him. Loki could tell by his demeanor that he didn’t want to use it.

“Nowhere left to run.”

“I can’t go back can I?” Loki sighed, “Back to my timeline?”

Seeing how the rest of his life played out in front of him, he wasn’t so sure he wanted to go back. What was the point, if he was just going to die in the end? His only role boosting others up while he was left in the shadows.

Mobius watched him sadly, sympathy plain in his eyes.

“I don’t enjoy hurting people.” Loki explained shakily. He wanted Mobius to understand that the facade he put up wasn’t the real him. “I don’t enjoy it. I do it because I have to, because I’ve had to.”

“Okay, explain that to me.” Mobius requested softly.

“It’s the cruel elaborate trick, conjured by the weak,” Loki gestured to himself, “To inspire fear.”

“A desperate play for control....you do know yourself.” There was a hint of pride in Mobius’ tone that Loki didn’t have the mental capacity to ponder at the moment.

“A villain.” He summarized disgustedly. “That was your role on the timeline,” Mobius said gently, lowering the baton and stepping closer to the variant, “That’s what you had to be, in order for the timeline to flow right and for the Avengers to defeat Thanos in the end. But you don’t have to be that here, Loki. In the TVA you can be whoever, whatever you want to be, even someone good.”

When Loki didn’t say anything Mobius continued.

“I know what Thanos did to you.”

Loki stiffened.

“I know that you were controlled by the Mind Stone. That you only hurt people to keep yourself from getting hurt first. That if you were given the choice, you wouldn’t be a villain.”

Loki fiddled with the tesserect in an attempt to keep his hands busy. He felt totally exposed now that Mobius had fully psychoanalyzed him.

“I don’t need your sympathy.” he said mulishly.

“Have you tried to use that?” Mobius asked in an amused tone, changing the subject.

“Oh several times. Even an infinity stone,” Loki tossed the cube in the air a couple times, catching it like a ball, “is useless here. The powers of the TVA are quite formidable.” He set it on the ground.

Mobius looked at Loki thoughtfully for a moment before he finally seemed to come to a decision and nodded to himself. He set the baton down on the table and walked closer to him.

“You may not be able to go back to your timeline but maybe I can offer you something better. I want to give you a second chance. A chance to be the good person I know you can be.”

“And how exactly do you plan on accomplishing that?” Loki asked dryly.

“The Avengers, in their quest to invent time travel, also accidentally created the technology to push time through a person, giving them the ability to age or regress someone. Sometimes we offer it to variants that had a rough life on the timeline so they can have a shot at a happier life here. Ravonna mentioned it at your trial.” Mobius explained.

“I wouldn’t call that ridiculous procession a trial.” Loki snorted, “I didn’t even get a lawyer.”

Then he paused. “What are you suggesting? You want to- to what? Turn me into a baby?”

“Not a baby.” Mobius corrected. “Just a child. We’ll figure out the exact age later.”

“You can’t be serious.” Loki scoffed. “Why on earth do you think I would agree to that?”

“Because I think you’re tired of being the villain. And a fresh start is exactly what you need. No throne to compete for, no Odin to impress, no secrets. Just, a normal healthy childhood.”

Loki scoffed. “Right. And if I agreed to that, then what? Where would I live? What would I do?”

“You could live with me.”

Loki lifted his head and looked at Mobius in curiosity. “Why would you offer this to me?”

“Because I see good in you Loki. You’re not evil, you’re just.....” Mobius’s mouth twitched into a small smile, “A mischievous scamp.”

For a moment, Loki genuinely considered the offer. A second chance would be nice, completely restarting his life.... but what of his magic?

Magic was the one thing that made him feel closest to his mother, and if he truly was never going to see her again he refused to give up that connection.

A plan started to form in his mind. He could pretend to accept this offer, and use the appearance of a child as cover until he found a way to escape the TVA. He would just need to lay low for a little while and win over Mobius’s trust.

But he needed to know more details about this process first. If a fresh start meant erasing his memories and his mind then that plan wouldn’t work.

“How does it work, this....” he searched for the right word, “Deaging? Will I still be me? Or would I truly be a child again?“

“You can keep your memories,” Mobius assured him, “It’s your body that regresses, not your mind. You’ll essentially have an adult consciousness in a child’s body. Although, once you’re a child, everyone in the TVA will treat you as such.“

This plan was sounding better and better. The only downside was that Mobius would surely be watching him, so finding an escape would take an indefinite amount of time. But it was the only plan that he had so he nodded.

“I’ll give it a chance.”