72 hours later
72 hours later
He opened his eyes and blinked for a few seconds before realizing that he was in a strange position and in a strange place.
This was not his room at TVA.
No.
His room, although not as comfortable as other analysts' rooms (for his various "divergences of judgment," the Time Keepers had assigned him almost a utility storage next to his usual interrogation room) was large enough to hold a closet for his clothes, his bed and a desk.
The space he was in at that time barely let him move and the place was also occupied by... was that plastic? What? Did they think he was an item to be transported that had filled the spaces around him with soft plastic balls?
Wait.
He said to himself, his eyes widening when he realized that he was having trouble starting to breathe.
This... what was around him and above was... wood.
He was...
He was in a wooden box.
Surrounded by little plastic balls that weren't letting him breathe.
No.
No.
No.
He had to get out of there.
He had left the hill to go fight the TVA.
Not for...
Had he been intercepted?
He thought trying to push the lid unsuccessfully.
Was this the work of Ravonna and her minute men?
No.
He did not recall ever having used this method to treat a variant.
But the judge had already admitted that she used other "analysts", this could well be the method of those people.
It was not right.
This was torture.
He use his feet as best he could to kick the lid as well as punch it.
Okay. His methods could be kinder, but he recognized that they could also be considered torture.
He, B-15 and his troops treated the variants as objects. Like things that could be removed, because... with all honestly, they couldn't continue doing what they had to do if not.
However… However, there had always been a limit.
_Open this thing! Somebody! Loki! Help!
He exclaimed and put a hand to his mouth when the last words slipped.
He didn't have to say that name.
He must not pronounce that name.
He did not know in whose hands he was and, from what he understood of the TVA, they believed that Loki was pruned and discarded.
He couldn't give them a reason to go after Loki.
When he was with Sylvie trying to find who had created the "sacred timeline" and played with all of them and their lives.
He hit the lid again, biting his lip, trying not to think about Loki and Sylvie together. No… it wasn't right either. Loki… Loki was happy with Sylvie… and he… he had called him friend and… it was unfair to ask for more than that.
Loki was a God. Sylvie was too.
And he… he was a simple analyst who had been abducted from some point in Earth's history. A mortal with a totally boring life who, for sure, had been in the wrong place at the wrong time and had ended up on the TVA by chance.
He had no powers, no royal background of any kind.
Loki… Loki was out of his league.
By far.
The God had been his obsession for years. He admitted it. Probably, if someone did a contest about "who knew Loki best" he would win it; but obsessing with the subject and knowing him, it was not the same as being at his level and be able to conquer his heart and... he had learned it the hard way.
Loki had gone after Sylvie, when they still didn't even know who she was, leaving him alone in Roxxcart and then he had fought to help her, not caring too much what he sacrificed for it.
And worst of all, she knew.
Sylvie knew that Loki was much more than a friend to him, he thought as the lack of air made him move more and more slowly.
Sylvie had smiled sideways at him when she saw him in the eyes when he hugged Loki with all his might, when trying to avoid Loki a problem, he had told him that stupidity that "you’re my favorite" smiling at the female version of the person who he loved.
Because… it was true.
He loved Loki.
He had love him since the first moment he had come across his file at TVA, when he was still a minute man and had not been promoted to the position of analyst. In the dead spaces between mission and mission, he had found that, in the archives, they allowed you to remove the files of the variants considered "of interest", since knowing what they were dealing with was an advantage for the minute men and the administration blieved that it was a good exercise for his staff to know the weaknesses of the dangerous subjects with whom they would have to fight. Then, among a group of files of the supposed “villains” of the timelines, while he was looking for something interesting to read, a photograph fell that caught his attention. An image of a blue baby. He had read the number behind the image and had come across the variant of his Loki. The one of that specific timeline. And, he confessed, the good looks of the God had prompted him to remove the file to read it in the barracks. He had been so amused by his chaotic personality and his tragic existence that as he rose through the TVA ranks, Loki's archive had become his favorite reading material. Distant and far away, like jet-skis, but always present.
And then a nexus event and he had the God in his interrogation room.
The real Loki. Flesh and blood Loki. Arguing, trying to deceive him, suffering, making use of that privileged intellect that he has until leaving him speechless looking into his eyes as life lessons escaped from his mouth, which he knew came from the lectures learned through a lot of pain.
“You’re wrong, though. You see, I know something children don’t. That no one bad is ever truly bad. And no one good is ever truly good”
The asgardian had told him at that table where they discussed the present and the future and he had had to feign indifference, while he buried one of his hands in the pockets of his jacket to avoid holding his face and caressing his cheeks, where he know what, if another it would have been the God's burden of difficulties, a less harsh one, tears would have flowed without restrictions.
He swallowed hard letting his eyes close.
“It’s always the game within the game with you guys”
He had told the classic and older variant of his Loki.
He had also affirmed that he respected that.
That he respected them.
Because it was true.
Loki. His Loki. All the Lokis.
They were survivors. Fighters. Magnificent. Delusional. Consuming. Incredible. Fiery. Blindingly bright.
Overcoming them was… almost impossible.
That is why they fought them.
Because Loki was an unstoppable force of the same nature that had given birth to him.
His Loki didn't know, but the file he had given him to read was missing a few pages. Those that referred to his birth. Of his conception. Of the mistake Odin had made in believing that he had picked up Laufey's son.
No. Loki was not the son of the king of the frost giants.
On the other hand, Laufey had been the one who at birth been condemned him to perish.
Why?
Because Loki's origin was unknown.
He had simply been born from his own timeline, as if time itself had given birth to him.
And, although it could be considered that this was the epitome of what a nexus event meant, a being that should not exist, the condemnation that his adoption in to the royal house of Asgard meant for the little one had been enough to prevent that, in that line he was a target of the minute men, until the Avengers themselves provoked it.
Odin had been afraid of him his entire existence.
When he had realized, after making that his healers examined the child, that the boy was not exactly a total frost giant, that there were things in him that did not have sense, he had put his own power to check the capacity of the little one, who, in addition to be able to mimic his skin, he had responded overwhelmingly to his tests.
Loki was simply more powerful than his son and a real threat to his own throne.
But, as befits a being who have existed for more years than could be calculated, he did not expel the little one. He kept him close. To control him. To curtail his capacity. To make him the lap dog of his heir and tie him through affection with his wife and son who, of his plans, had no idea.
And Loki had fallen, because like all beings, he needed affection.
And affection had become his chains.
And the pain his eternal company.
He let a tear fall thinking about how badly he had handled his encounter and friendship with Loki, while he felt the loos of air taking its toll on his body. Strategic. Thus, he had been convinced of his decisions. The actions he had carried out with Loki, he had called them “strategy” and had put a barrier to not be so exposed.
And it hadn't done any good.
In the end, he had ended up equally heartbroken and exposed, because he simply hadn't been able to not fall in love with the flesh and blood Loki, as he had fallen in love with the Loki from the old, wrinkled yellow file that he had read hundreds of times.
_I’m sorry - he whispered panting - I'm sorry, Loki. I'm sorry love. I could not keep my promise.
The TVA was going to continue to function.
He hadn't been able to get to it to help B-15 and eliminate Ravonna.
They had captured him and he was going to die asphyxiated.
_For the love of…! Larry! Here he is! They put him in the other deposit!
_Oh shit. Jed! Teddy! See if you can talk to him, I'm going to bring the lever!
_Do you think he's okay, amigo?
_I do not know, boy. It has been quite a while since sunset.
He blinked at hearing voices around him and a couple of knocks on the wood.
_Mobius. Agent Mobius. Do you hear me?
Was he dreaming?
Had someone called him by his name?
_Mobius, damn it, you better be okay, because Loki needs you - he felt a voice say to him, while the blows on the wood became stronger and stronger.
_Jedediah, it seems to me that we have not arrived on time...
_Don’t! No, Teddy! Loki, Mobius! Loki! Do you hear?! Loki needs you! Wake up!
He opened his eyes when he heard the last scream and blow on the wood and, drawing strength, from his exhausted body he returned the blow from within.
_I knew it! Gigantor! He’s alive!
_Jed, down. Teddy, help me - he heard another voice say – At my count. One. Two. And… three!
The wooden lid flew off and and as he felt the air enter the box, he sat up coughing and trying to fill his battered lungs.
As his breathing improved a little, he put a hand to his chest and blinked focusing, since he had gone from the darkness of the box to the fluorescent light of a room cluttered with things.
_Hey - said a person in a uniform, whose identification tag said his name was Larry Daley and that he was the night guard - Can you tell how many fingers I'm showing you?
_Two... Two - he replied when he saw how he showed him the index and middle finger.
_Well, it seems there has been no harm to regret - commented the other man in the room, who looked suspiciously like Theodore Roosevelt.
_I don't know, compadres. This one does not look much like the Mobius from the series - he heard a voice say from one of the sides of the box – What if they send us a failed one?
He turned his face to one side and to the other looking for the origin of the voice, but could not find it.
Then, the night guard with a smile, bent down and extended his hand, to then brought it close to his face, showing him a cowboy like the ones you see in the movies, no more than four inches tall.
_I think he's Mobius, Jed - said the night guard speaking to the cowboy in question - He only has longer hair than the one in the series.
_Let's see - the cowboy replied walking over the hand until he was close to his face - Hey, Mobius, what do you say if I tell you that Sylvie betrayed Loki?
His eyes widened.
How?
What?
He means, he wasn't very surprised.
Sylvie, she was a Loki after all, but...
He narrowed his eyes.
How had she dared? He had given up on being with Loki even though he knew the God couldn't returns his love to make him happy!
_Oh, that variant it’s in a lot of trouble... - he murmured trying to get up from the box, to be stopped by the subject who looked like the twenty-sixth president of the United States.
_Loki is fine, Mobius. Take it easy - the night guard said smiling, and then turned his face towards the cowboy again – This answer your reservations?
The little gentleman in question took off his hat and shook his head looking directly into his eyes.
He held his breath as he fixed his gaze on the look of the blond in front of him.
_ Surprised, boy? – the minature asked him crossing his arms - Because believe me that when I saw your face I was also speechless.
There was no doubt about it.
If it weren't for his height, his mustache, and that his hair was already graying, the little person in front of him could well pass for his twin.
But nevertheless. He had other things more urgent than noticing these trifles.
_Loki. Sylvie. You said that she had betrayed him. How do you know that? Are we on the TVA?
_The TVA... no longer exists - the night guard told him - The... Avengers intervened and... let's say they decided to reorganize the temporal authority. Sylvie now works with them and… Thor got them to forgive Loki.
He sighed in relief.
Sylvie working with the Avengers sounded logical. She had the intellect and the ability.
_But... What happened to Loki?
_Loki ended up here - the guard told him - With us. In a reality in which the Avengers are stories of entertainment and...
_By sincere with him, Gigantor. Loki is suffering here. He's not having a good time at all - intervened the little cowboy.
_Jed... - the guard warned him - We agreed to go slowly on this.
_Slowly. Slowly - the cowboy answered, turning to see him again - Mobius. Tell me. Are you in love with Loki, yes or no?
He swallowed hard, feeling the colors rise to his face.
_Me… what?
_Yes or no, Laredo. It is not so difficult. Do you like Loki?
_Why do you ask me that?
_Because in recent months that God has been following me like a punished puppy because I look like the person he loves and, apart from generating problems with my Roman, he has made me feel horrible because I am not you. So, do you love him? Because I do not want to carry the guilt of having managed to bring you to this reality so that he finds that you do not want him.
Had they brought him to this reality?
From the TVA?
Had the heroes Loki always fought against have intervened again?
It could be. If Loki's brother had managed to get them to forgive him and let him live in another world, he might as well have managed to allow him to be in this one too… if his brother felt something… for him.
Which was what the little cowboy was saying, right?
Loki followed him because they looked alike.
And this had generated guilt and problems because, evidently, the man was engaged, if the ring on his left hand was any indication.
But it was also evident that, in that place, they appreciated the God of Mischief, because, they were making sure not to cause him more harm.
If he told them no, they would surely return him to his reality.
But if he said yes ...
_I... he is a God. I... I am not a God.
_And what does that have to do with anything? I am a cowboy from the Wild West and I married a Roman General who became Emperor. Larry is a night guard that become the boyfriend of a Pharaoh and Teddy was President and he is now the boyfriend of a famous native american explorer. Here things are very different, long hair. In this reality, anything is possible.
He carefully observed the three people in front of him and could not read in their expressions that what this Jed was saying was a lie.
_Loki. I… - he began to say to stop and take a deep breath because it was something that he hadn't confessed to anyone - I have love Loki for a long time. No... there will be no problem with me on that side. Please... can I see him?
The cowboy put his hat on again and winked at the other two.
_What do you guys say? Do we lead him to our resident Norse God?
The night guard laughed and the so-called former president held out his hand to help him stand up.