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And eat a salad.
C’mon, we gotta go.
No, wait.
What? What am I looking at?
Sometimes it takes a second.
Hah! I’m still worthy.
Oh boy.
Goodbye, Mom.
Goodbye.
Frigga stares at the spot that Thor and Rocket disappeared from, a thoughtful expression on her face. She knows in her heart that Thor will be alright. In other parts of the palace, she can hear the guards fighting the Dark Elves. But there is still time.
Without turning, she says, “Do you desire advice like your brother or is there something else on your mind?”
Frowning, Loki steps out from behind the pillar. His horned helmet gleams.
“Did you know that I was there the whole time?” he asks, trying to sound indignant even though he’s deeply impressed by her skills.
Turning, Frigga smiles wryly at him. “Of course. Since when were you ever able to eavesdrop on me?”
He grudgingly could admit that much was true. He could set all manner of traps on Thor and even slip past Odin on occasion to listen in on council meetings, but no matter how often he tried to spy on his mother, she always caught him.
Of course, when his trickery escalated, and he started slipping in and out of Asgard, she’d had no idea. Frigga was not Heimdall after all, with all-seeing eyes. And even the mighty Gatekeeper didn’t know what he was truly up to.
She presses her hands together and then pulls them apart, revealing a hologram. Intrigued by his mother’s magic, Loki creeps closer and sees that it’s his own self, stretched out comfortably reading a book.
No, it isn’t, he realises, noting the slightly longer hair. It’s this timeline’s version of himself.
“Hmmm.” Frigga raises an eyebrow at the image. “It would appear that Loki is still in the dungeons as Odin decreed,” she muses. “And yet here you stand before me.”
Loki scowls. “Ah yes, the dungeon,” he says disgustedly. “Thor got banished for his own stupidity and arrogance. Yet I get locked up for my supposed crimes?”
Frigga waves her hand and the hologram disappears. “Nothing of the sort happens to you. You escaped that fate.” She smiles sweetly at him, the picture of innocence. “How is the TVA? Busy?”
“Wait.” Loki blinks, utterly caught off guard. “You… you know about the TVA?”
“Honestly, you boys.” Frigga sits down on the nearby couch, exasperated. “Why are you always so surprised by what I know?”
He’s incredulous. “Then you know about the Scared Timeline?”
“Oh yes.” Her eyes sparkle deviously, delighting in his stupefaction. “Have you met Ravonna Renslayer yet?”
“How do you…” Loki rolls his eyes. “Yes, actually. She wanted to ‘reset me for sequence violation 72089.” He shakes his head, marvelling at her knowledge. He had no idea, not an inkling, that his mother knew anything about this. He can’t help his rueful smile. “You and your witches.”
Resigned, he lets the illusion fade away, revealing the TVA jumpsuit and the silly jacket he was given. He sits beside her, and without even realising it, he curls in close to her like he always has whenever they sat side by side together.
She takes his hand and holds it. “Tell me.”
“It’s full of people trying to control the destiny of others. It’s… perverse.” He stares down at their hands, trying to remember the last time they just sat and talked. “They have me hunting some variant of myself.”
“Indeed?” Frigga smirks. “How very helpful of you.”
“I’m not entirely sure that they think that highly of me.” He pouts. “Won’t even let me have my knives.”
“As if you need weapons with what I’ve taught you.”
“True.” He smiles, inclining his head. After all, he is sitting with the one who taught him nearly everything he knows about magic. “You know, there’s an idiot there that doesn’t know what a fish is. I threatened to gut him like one and he had no idea what I was talking about.”
“How can you not know what a fish is?”
“That’s what I said!” He’s glad she ignores the bit about him threatening someone. He has missed her so much. His smile fades. “I’m surrounded by idiots that threaten to kill me unless I do their bidding and don’t even know what a fish is.”
“Why are you permitted to be here now?” she asks curiously.
Good behaviour, he thinks, but doesn’t say. The truth chafes; he gets up and moves to the window. Outside the Dark Elves move in closer, overpowering the Asgardian guards. He watches them silently.
“Loki?” She puts a hand on his shoulder. “Would it make you feel any better to know that from the first day, I knew your fate?”
He snaps around to look at her. “What do you mean?”
So she shows him.
.
Frigga looks up as Odin enters her chambers, a small bundle in his arms. At her feet, Thor plays with his toys. She sees her husband’s missing eye.
“You should be in the healing rooms,” she admonishes instead of greeting him fondly. Servants have already told her what he has returned with.
“I wanted to see you first,” he says, stung by her coldness. He has been in a hard-won war, he clearly expected her to meet him with lavish praise and besotted affection.
When Frigga remains impassive, he pulls back the receiving blanket, showing her the pale face of a baby boy.
“I brought you a gift.”
She slaps him.
“A child is not a war trophy,” she snarls.
As Odin gapes at her, she takes the baby from him, holding him close, letting the baby feel her heartbeat. She touches his soft cheek and Odin's magic melts from him, revealing blue rune-covered skin and bright red eyes. A Frost Giant child.
At that moment, the Fates whisper in her ear. Frigga is wise enough to listen closely.
Two little boys running through the halls of the palace. Constantly at each other’s throats and yet, utterly adoring of one another and fiercely protective, unwilling to let anyone else hurt the other. Devastation and anguish following Odin's words. Walking through the shadows of the universe. Found by the Mad Titan and there is pain and fear. Anger, so, so much anger as he rages across Midgard. Ragnarok – ah, so the Goddess of Death would return after all. Once more the Mad Titan looms and no fear this time. Just the grim determination that he must save his beloved brother.
“You will never be a god.”
There is more – the Fates show her hundreds of possible branches. Is the Scared Timeline in chaos? If the Multiverse is to erupt someday, so be it.
He is hers and already she loves him more than she can say. She takes a breath, letting her powerful magic wash over the baby. Once more pale skin settles over him, tufts of fine dark hair, and soft eyes that will become green as he ages.
She kneels to show Thor.
“Thor,” she says and the little boy looks at the baby curiously. “This is your brother, Loki.”
.
He staggers back from her vision. “I thought – I blamed Odin all this time for the secrets hidden from me.” He gapes at her. “But you… you’ve seen everything.”
“Not everything,” she corrects. “Just bits throughout the years.”
“You saw the end though.” His eyes are wild as he remembers the horror of seeing Thanos's hand crushing the life out of him.
“I did.” Frigga wipes a tear from her eye. “No parent should ever have to live with that knowledge.”
“Then you… then you know that now I am little more than a hunting dog, kept on a leash until they have use of me?” He twists away from her. “And you were fine with that all this time.” He laughs bitterly. “Have any of my choices ever been my own then? Do any of us have free will or are we all puppets of these stupid Time Keepers?”
He looks down as the Dark Elves breach the palace walls, leaving several dead guards in their wake. “Just dancing for their twisted amusement.”
Frigga strokes the back of his head. “My darling,” she soothes, “I knew from the moment I held you in my arms that the darkness that lurked in you was as brilliant as the light that shone from your soul. I knew that greatness lay in your future.”
“No.” He looks up at her. “Not mine. The one that dies at Thanos’s hands.”
“Silly boy.” She kisses his cheek. “You have no idea what your future holds.” She leans back to look at the lettering on his back. “Does this jacket not say ‘VARIANT’? Are you not your own person with your own destiny now?”
Loki? Nowhere left to run.
I can’t go back, can I? Back to my timeline.
“I can’t go back,” he whispers, his voice shaking. His eyes shine with tears he hasn’t given himself a chance to shed. Has been too afraid to shed because they may never stop if he does. “I can’t… I can never go back to Thor. To my Thor.”
Technically, it hasn’t been that long since he has seen Thor. And it was not even a pleasant meeting – he did drop him out of helicarrier (admittedly, he was quite confident that he would survive that) and he stabbed him as well. Well, not the first time he’s ever stabbed Thor. All in all, it was quite the humiliating experience courtesy of the wretched Avengers.
But seeing Thor speak with their mother just now… suddenly it all becomes real. He’ll never get to stab or taunt him again.
Fight at his side again. Scheme with him again. Comfort him again. Embrace him again. Get to hear his brother’s voice again.
Down in the dungeon, that privilege, that joy, belongs to a version of him who is probably sulking and pouting over his current situation.
The tears spill over and he begins to sob. His mother pulls him close, and he cries into the crook of her neck, just like he did when he was a little boy.
When he last cried about losing his family, Thanos used his tears against him. Loki thought he was done with the pain, had cut himself off from such weakness and so had sought out the Tesseract at Thanos’s command, set upon being the villain his not-father and not-brother seemed to think he was.
But now, with Frigga's fingers carding through his hair, her soft voice crooning comforting noises in his ear… now it’s a thousand times worse. He clings to her, weeping with the sheer enormity of his loss.
“My beloved son.” Frigga touches his cheek, forcing him to look at her. Tenderly, she wipes his tears away. "I was raised by witches. I have listened to the words of the Fates and the Norns and have seen all manner of futures rise and fall as if they never were and there is one thing that I have realised.” She holds his gaze steadily. “No one in this universe, no one, is created by accident. And we always have a choice. We all do. You are no one’s pawn.”
Loki studies his mother, clad in a beautiful armoured dress. Eyes that have seen so much and are so full of love. For him.
“The fates showed me flashes of the life of the God of Mischief, the dark and light – and I still taught you all I knew about magic.” She leans in close. “I did it knowingly.”
Her smile turns sly. “And do you honestly think that I believe that you’ll let some idiot that doesn’t even know what a fish is stop you from seeing your brother if that’s what your heart desires?”
She’s right of course. He draws in a sharp breath. He is the God of Mischief after all, and really, what is the God of Thunder without him?
What she’s suggesting is dangerous. Very dangerous. If he is caught…
The court finds you guilty and I sentence you to be reset. Next case please.
Reset? What does that mean? What - is that bad? What does it mean? You ridiculous bureaucrat! You will not dictate how my story ends!
It’s not your story, Mr. Laufeyson. It never was.
He will make it his own.
“Perhaps I have grander plans than just seeing Thor,” he huffs. His mouth turns up faintly in a hint of a smile. “I won’t do it because you suggest it,” he adds loftily.
“Oh, of course not,” she agrees, nodding sagely. “Grander plans and all.”
“Exactly.” He wrinkles his nose. “Especially in that sorry state of his.”
She elbows him in the middle, tittering at his faux mocking. “I think you might spare him a bit of pity. He mourns for Asgard, our people, his friends, his parents, his honour, and most of all, you.”
The reminder of Thor's losses sobers him. “I’m not… I’m not the Loki that he knows though,” he whispers. “It won’t be the same for him.”
The idea that Thor might reject him makes his blood run cold.
Frigga runs her fingers over his palm. The pale skin fades away, revealing the blue skin of his true Frost Giant self. Loki tenses at the sight of his true heritage. It is something that he tries to ignore every day. He can’t bring himself to embrace it.
But Frigga just smiles at it and squeezes his hand gently. “As if that will matter to Thor. He loves you with all his heart. No matter your form.”
She lets go, restoring her magic, and the blue fades away.
“My form?” he scoffs. “Did you see his belly? There’s no excuse for the God of Thunder to let himself go like that. None.”
She leans in close, smiling conspiratorially. “Then perhaps you ought to go whip him back into shape.”
Before he can respond, the sound of fighting is closer. The clash of weapons is just down the hall and Frigga realises that if she doesn’t move now, she might be cut off from the room she needs to get to. Reluctantly, she gets up.
“I think this is our farewell, my darling son.” She smiles sadly at him.
His smile is pained. “Whatever that… that complete idiot in the dungeon said to you, it was a lie. You are my mother. I love you.”
A happy tear rolls down her cheek and she smiles gratefully. She hugs him tightly.
You might want to take the stairs on the left.
But instead you send them…
I’ll never tell.
Where do you have her? Where is she?
You lead them right to her.
I don’t believe you. You’re lying. It’s not true.
It is true. That’s the proper flow of time.
“Thor tried to tell you,” he begins, but she stops him.
“Oh, Loki.” Frigga kisses his cheek. “I know what day it is. I have always know when my death would come.”
“Please.” He catches her hands, afraid at the thought of losing her. Of losing his mother forever. “I don’t want you to die.”
“I have been gifted extra time with my sons. I cannot ask the Fates for more than that.” She cradles his face in her hands. “Go, my darling. Find your brother. Be the God of Mischief that you want to be. And always remember that your father and I love you.”
He falters slightly at the mention of Odin, as if just realising that there is no goodbye to be had between them, but nods.
“I will. I promise I will Mother. I love you. Goodbye.”
Frigga lets him go and watches as he slips away into the shadows.
.
Back in the TVA, Loki prowls around the offices, generally irritating everyone until he is sent to the ‘Recreational Break Room’ until he’s needed for the next field mission.
He finds Casey and several other near-identical office drones sitting around a screen drinking coffee and energy drinks and eating junk food.
Ever polite, Casey holds out a video game controller to him. “Here,” he says cheerily. “Go on, make yourself an account and have some fun.”
Loki stares at the device in his hand with distaste. “What is this nonsense?”
“The humans on Earth call it Fortnite. They really like it.”
Loki rolls his eyes and then notices the clock in the upper corner of the screen showing a date and time. “Wait. You’re playing them in the Sacred Timeline?” He looks back down at the controller. “That’s allowed?”
Casey grins deviously. “Well, we set this link up to during that whole Thanos Snap era debacle, so a lot of things will get undone. A few sneaky slip-ins here and there don’t get noticed.”
Loki raises an eyebrow at him, filing that bit of information away for later. “How very naughty of you.”
Casey laughs bashfully. “So do you want to play?”
“Certainly.” Loki sits down beside him and looks blankly at the controller in his hand. “What do I do?”
“Well, first we gotta get you a character.” Nervously, Casey pushes a few buttons and Loki watches as the screen in front of him activates. “What do you want as your username?
“Ah.” Loki isn’t really paying attention anymore. His mind is far ahead, full of potential schemes. “You can pick. Just, you know, make it a good one.”
“Uh, sure thing.” Grinning to himself, Casey types in:
'noobmaster69'
***
End