The Variants
There are two things that don’t belong in a sunset: intense light, and intense darkness. Somehow, Loki and Natasha experienced them both.
“What the-“ is all the Prince of Asgard managed to say before a collar was secured around his neck, the felt wrapping around his throat just a centimeter tighter than necessary. His arms were yanked behind his back by a gloved hand, and even though he was positive his eyes were open, he saw nothing but darkness. Loki heard many things as his feet were forced forward; boots shuffling on loosely packed soil, those blasted tempads beeping incessantly, and Natasha’s slight grunts as the soldiers overtook her too.
Loki couldn’t help but feel a stab of guilt. He should’ve known better. He should’ve walked away; left the poor woman alone to grieve her own death. Loki was far too familiar with the politics of himself. He knew, more than anyone, how prone he was to ruining the things that were good. Nice. He should’ve expected he would ruin perhaps the only good thing he’d ever done. The only olive branch he’d ever been offered.
“We’ve secured the Variants,” a voice said.
Loki tilted his head. Variants?
“Let’s go.”
As if privy to Loki’s confusion, the hood – ah, it was a hood – was removed from his head as the female soldier pushed him though that strange yellow block that seemed to function as a portal. Loki peered over his shoulder, catching sight of Natasha as another pair of soldiers did the same to her.
“Wait-“His head flew sideways from the force of a particularly strong blow to his cheek.
“Shut up, Variant,” the woman spat, eyeing him with a homicidal glare. Loki matched her stare with one of his own before he opened his mouth to speak.
“She’s got nothing to do with this. Let her be.”
The soldier glanced at Natasha over Loki’s shoulder before meeting his eyes once again. Her mouth broke into a satisfied smile, speaking to Natasha but keeping her stare locked on his.
“Natalia Alianovna Romanoff, you are hereby arrested for crimes against the sacred timeline.”
“The what?” Natasha’s voice was weak from struggling, from confusion, from dying. Unsurprisingly, the spy’s question remained unanswered.
“Minutemen, keep a tight grip on these two,” the soldier said, narrowing her eyes at Loki. “They tend to be slippery.”
Once again, Loki was thrust into the dim yellow lighting and tacky carpet that coated the Time Variance Authority. Their boots echoed across the corridors, the maze of hallways adding to the dizziness and confusion that seeped out of Loki’s mind. At last, the footsteps slowed, the pulling ceased, and Loki was met with a face that was equal parts familiar and unexpected.
“I’m waiting,” Agent Mobius said with a lilt to his voice that Loki would almost call melodic.
Loki glanced at the soldiers securing his arms. “For what, may I ask?”
Mobius raised an eyebrow and said, “an apology,” as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
Loki scoffed, glancing momentarily at Natasha, whose silence was never comforting. “I will not apologize for trying to earn back my freedom; something you pesky little ‘minutemen’ are far too keen on stripping away.”
“You never had freedom, Variant.”
Loki straightened, turning to face that fierce female soldier. “You keep on calling me that. I hope you realize it’s not remotely as insulting as you seem to think.”
The black stick in her hand suddenly seemed to come alive, the rounded end radiating a yellow glow. The soldier aimed it at Loki.
“You either shut up now or I shut you up for good.”
Mobius slid in between Loki and the woman.
“Geez, B-15, cool it with the power trip,” the man said, his palms held up in surrender. “Interrogate first, prune later. He may be able to help us.”
“He’s a Loki, Agent Mobius.” The soldier, B-15, glared at Loki. “They never help anyone.” She huffed before storming away, followed closely by the rest of her team of agents. A Loki? What the hell had she meant by him being a Loki? He considered asking that question aloud, but figured it would flit away unanswered, like most of the questions he had about this place.
Mobius didn’t speak until she was out of sight.
“I would apologize for her behavior but I’m pretty sure you’ll be dealing with a lot more of B-15 so,” he sighed, twirling that pesky little remote in his hands. “I’ll save it for later.”
Loki sighed. “Mobius, listen-“
“Unless its an apology, I don’t want to hear it.”
Loki pressed his lips into a thin line.
“No apology?” Mobius raised an eyebrow. “No shock there.” He gestured between Loki and Natasha. “You two, follow me.”
Much to Loki’s utter surprise, Natasha complied. He stared open mouthed as she passed him by. It took a full ten seconds for Loki to follow, too distracted by the woman’s seamless compliance. He sped up until he was close enough to whisper in her ear.
“What are you doing?”
Natasha bat him away like a temperamental fly.
“Natasha-“
“Just-“ she hissed between gritted teeth. Without breaking her stride, she met his eye. “Be patient.”
Patient. Loki was never patient. He frowned, falling into step next to her. It dawned on him then that, of course she would treat him with hostility. The alliance they’d shared was built on shattered ground, held together only by the shaky, unstable bond formed by those who had no choice of companion in their dying breaths. Now that Natasha was no longer dead, nor dying, and Loki was no longer the only other being on a wasteland with a purple sky, the two were back to being enemies.
Loki’s steps faltered.
Good, he said to himself. He bit his lip as to not say it aloud. Good. Everything is how it’s supposed to be, he thought to himself, now with the bitter taste of copper on his tongue.
“Through here,” Mobius muttered, ushering them through a door. It was an identical room to the one that Loki had been in before. The one that broadcasted his birth, life, and gory, tragic end on a screen no taller than Loki himself.
The God of Mischief gulped.
Mobius dropped into one of the three chairs that occupied the room. Much like Natasha, Loki remained standing, alert, waiting for the next twist in this rollercoaster of an afternoon.
“Don’t just stand there.” Mobius pointed at the chairs. “Sit.”
Natasha approached the table, much like she was about to sink into the seat. Instead, the woman bypassed the plastic chair at the last second, slithering forward to pass Mobius and turn, leaning against the farthest wall. Mobius tracked her carefully.
“I was dead,” Natasha said, her eyes fixed and haunted. Mobius cringed.
“Yes.”
Natasha glanced at him, rubbing her thumb and pointer finger together in front of her mouth, her teeth biting down on her bottom lip.
“Am I still dead?”
Mobius didn’t cringe like last time. He must have been expecting this.
“Depends.”
Natasha’s eyes flew up. Furious. “Depends?” Her voice quivered. Loki wasn’t used to that. “On?”
“Who you ask. And when. And where-“
The woman slammed her palm against the wall, allowing the momentum of it to drive her forward and off the wall. “To you, to us, here and now,” she spoke with ferocity. With strength, punctuating every word with a step closer to Mobius. “Am. I. dead?”
Loki gaped. Mobius swallowed. “No.”
Natasha inhaled a sharp breath, but concealed most of her true shock. She looked to Loki. “Is he?”
“No.”
With a stiff nod, the woman took a step back, crossing her arms over her chest.
Mobius snuck a look at the woman before clearing his throat. “Well, um, now that we have that covered-“
A blasting intercom roared to life, loud enough to force Loki and Natasha to cover their ears.
“All agents please report to the Time Theater at once. I repeat, all agents please report to the Time Theater. This is not a drill.”
Swearing under his breath, Mobius leaped out of his chair. He turned around before he reached the door.
“I know its pointless to tell either of you to ‘stay put’ and not try to escape, so just…” he hesitated. “Don’t break anything.” Loki and Natasha raised their eyebrows. He sighed in defeat before slipping out of the door.
Loki cleared his throat, rocking back and forth from the ball of his foot to his heel before deciding to start pacing. In the corner, Natasha had rested her back against the wall once more before sinking to the ground.
He supposed there were worse people to be trapped in a cell with. The Hulk, for one. Loki’s back still ached with the pain of that particular encounter. Stark, too. The man’s constant boasting would surely drive Loki insane faster than any prank Thor ever conjured.
Thor.
His chest ached, and Loki reached up to claw at it. Was he having a heart attack? Did that happen to frost giants?
“We have to get out of here,” Loki said to distract himself from the ache. The woman didn’t look up at him, her eyes still that haunted hue. “Natasha.”
“Do we?”
Loki reeled back as if physically struck. “I beg your pardon?”
This time, Natasha looked up at him. “We’re alive. For now. What do you think happens when we escape? When we go back to the world where we’re dead and gone?”
“Easy.” Loki shrugged. “We go to a different world.”
“A different world?”
Loki nodded. “Its…um.” He grasped at the air, glancing around the room. “How do I explain this…when the TVA first captured me, they showed me this video. It explained the TVA’s main motivation, the reason they arrest people like us-“
“That soldier, she called it the Sacred Timeline,” Natasha muttered.
“Exactly. There is one timeline, but that timeline has hundreds – no – thousands of different other timelines. Timelines with copies of people. People like us. And when the people in those timelines don’t do what they’re supposed to, it becomes a nexus event. They become variants.”
“Like us.”
“Precisely.”
Natasha’s brows furrowed in thought. “So your plan is to just escape to another timeline?”
Loki nodded.
“Won’t that just cause another nexus event?” She rose to her feet. “Popping in and creating a timeline with two Loki's? Two Natasha's?”
Loki blinked. He hadn’t thought of that. “So it’s not a perfect plan.”
“It’s a terrible plan.”
He perched his hands on his hips. “Okay, Black Widow, what’s your plan?”
Natasha bit her lip, and now she was the one pacing. After a minute and a few desperate tugs at her collar, she turned around. “I don’t know.”
Loki scoffed. “Not so easy, is it, Romanoff?”
“But I have an idea.”
She turned to face the door, exhaling a long breath.
Loki drummed his fingers against his thigh. “Care to share?”
“Just follow my lead.”
“Your lead?” Loki scoffed. “I’m going to need a little more than that.”
“Just,” she looked at him. “Trust me.”
She rolled her shoulders back and perched herself beside the door. “Those little phones they have-“
“Tempads.”
“They seem to control the portals they make.”
Loki made his way opposite her. “You’re not wrong.”
Natasha shot him a glare. “So we steal one, get the hell out of here, and then we make a plan.”
“We?” Loki repeated with a humorless scoff. “I thought you hated me.”
She blinked a few times, and Loki felt a sting of pride that he seemed to have caught her off guard. “I do hate you.”
“Oh.” Loki straightened, struck by something in her stare. “Then I hate you too.”
Natasha arched her brow. “Okay.”
“Okay.”
A bang echoed just passed the door, and the two uneasy allies dropped to a crouch.
Natasha nodded. “Ready?”
Loki didn’t have time to reply. The door burst open, inviting in a world of chaos. Loki recognized the first soldier to come barreling down the steps as B-15, and personally took it upon himself to target the fierce woman first.
He ducked beneath her outstretched arm, shooting up in front of her and yanking the black glowing stick from her grasp. B-15 was quick to recover, landing three separate blows to Loki’s head, chest, and groin before he could even use her own weapon against her.
Over her shoulder, Loki could see that Natasha was faring much better. She too had gone for the strange stick they used as a weapon, except she had somehow gotten two. Mobius dodged her swing as another soldier with a number instead of a name ducked behind her and struck the side of her head. Natasha whirled around, striking the soldier across the head and slipping his tempad from his waist as he fell.
Loki’s mouth grew into a rare smile. With renewed confidence, he landed a kick in the center of B-15’s stomach before sprinting towards Natasha. The woman was still fending off Mobius and the soldier, but now with one hand on a weapon and the other on the tempad.
Loki planted himself in front of Mobius. “Sorry about this.”
He snatched the collar remote from Mobius’ hand and pinned him against the wall.
Mobius didn’t look scared. Merely inconvenienced. “No you’re not.”
Loki tilted his head. “You’re right. I’m not.”
He flashed a smile, giving Mobius one last shove before fleeing. Loki grabbed the back collar of Natasha’s assailant, throwing him against the wall before swiping the tempad from Natasha’s hand.
“Let’s get out of here,” Natasha gasped between breaths, sending a well-aimed kick to the soldier’s groin. Loki didn’t have time to voice his agreement. Instead, he flipped open the tempad, pressing down randomly on the screen. Miss Minutes popped into the frame.
“How does this blasted thing work?” Loki muttered.
Natasha punched one soldier after another and slid between a pair of legs. “Just get us out of here!”
After fiddling with the buttons, the screen finally illuminated a list of pre-set destinations coded in a language Loki didn’t understand.
“Loki,” Natasha warned.
He flipped through the list, hoping to find one that he recognized.
“Loki!”
He pressed on a random set of coordinates. Loki jumped back as a bright orange door appeared in front of him. Without a second thought, Loki pulled Natasha away from her assailants, sped past the advancing minutemen, and leaped head-first through the portal.
He expected to feel some sort of inner disturbance with the harsh leap through time and space. Usually, the bi-frost made him feel like lurching up his last meal. Instead, he simply felt his fingertips grow numb as he pulled Natasha behind him, walking forward through the thick air and emerging into a shaded stone archway.
Natasha’s heel was barely clear of the portal before it slammed vertically to the ground. The woman stared at the space where the light orangeish, yellowish rectangle used to be.
“How…” she started to say before trailing off. She must’ve realized, as Loki did, that of the many things that had happened to them in the past hour, travelling through inter dimensional time and space wasn’t actually the most peculiar one.
Loki’s gaze passed by Natasha as he scanned his surroundings. There was nothing too identifiable in the landscape. They seemed to be in an outdoor structure built of lightly stained stone. The wall curved into a ceiling a few feet above his head, and extended out into a hallway that led to winding green hills. There was a balcony a few paces away, one that stretched over a vast sea.
Natasha took a few steps forward, stopping next to Loki.
“Where did you send us?”
Loki blinked. His throat was too tight to respond, so he held the tempad out to her instead. Natasha took it, read the strange lettering, and huffed in defeat.
“Looks like Earth.”
“But it doesn’t feel like it,” Loki said, turning to face her.
“What?”
He ran a hand through his hair before sighing, approaching the balcony. “It feels…different. It feels…” heavier, lighter, clearer, maybe even…familiar?
Loki’s lips parted, and without meaning to, whispered, “I know this place.”
“Bow before Surtur!”
A voice. A child’s voice. Light footsteps came echoing through the halls, prompting Loki and Natasha to duck behind the nearest pillar. A particularly loud thump, that sounded a lot like falling, preceded the emergence of a little boy. He looked to barely be a teenager. His blonde hair spilled just past his ears, speckled with dirt and dust. A tiny red cape spilled over his shoulders, and the ache in Loki’s chest transformed into an abyss.
It was Thor.
Just…not his Thor.
“Never!” Another childish voice replied. This one was lighter, tinier, yet booming. Commanding. It took all of Loki’s strength to tear his gaze away from the boy that was and was not his brother in order to look at-
Oh.
Oh.
“Surrender now, Surtur,” the little girl in green declared proudly from the top step, a wooden dagger dangling from her hand, “or you will face the wrath of Princess Loki of Asgard.”