The first thing he feels is wind. Not TVA-conditioned air, but real wind, hot and mineral and wrong, pushing at his clothes like it wants to peel him off the ground.

Loki coughs, rolls onto his side. Dirt, grey and fine and ancient, grinds into his palms. The sky above him is a violet bruise, split by a roiling cloud of darkness that moves like something alive. Alioth. He doesn't know how he knows the name, but he does. The thing at the end of all things.

He pushes himself upright. The landscape is a graveyard: broken ships, shattered towers, a leaning Eiffel Tower rusting away, a dozen realities strangled and dumped on top of each other. The air tastes like ozone and endings. He tests his fingers, half-expecting the familiar leaden deadness of the TVA.

Green sparks.

Actual sparks.

He exhales, just a little shakily.

"Loki."

He turns so fast his neck twinges. She's standing a few yards away on a ridge of cracked asphalt, curls wild, eyes too bright in the purple light. Oridia. Her hands are lit from within. Not brightly, just... there. Like the truth finally has volume again.

He stares.

"The last time I saw you," He says, "you were turning into glitter."

"You were screaming my name," She says back.

They both smile, but it's a thin, stunned thing.

He takes a step toward her. She does the same. The distance between them collapses quickly, too quickly for people who are supposed to have just met, slowly, for people who have done this a thousand times across a thousand lifetimes.

"Are you..." He starts.

"I don't know yet," She cuts in, honest as ever, "Ask me when I stop shaking."

He looks down. Her fingers are trembling, light flickering over her knuckles like candle flame in a draft.

"Your powers are back," He says quietly.

"Yours too," She counters, glancing at the residual magic around his hands.

He flexes them once. A dagger blooms into existence and dissolves again. A reflex. A comfort. Oridia's eyes track it, then return to his face, searching.

"Every universe," Sh starts," We find each other and then we lose each other. Over and over again. We barely know each other here, not really, and still--"

She breaks off, frustrated with herself, with her words.

"And still?" He prompts, soft.

"And still I feel like I'm standing in a conversation we started centuries ago," She says, "And I missed all the good parts."

Something in his chest loosens at that, painful and familiar.

"Love at first sight," Loki says, "Or memory. Or edit. Whatever it is, it's extremely inconvenient."

She huffs out a laugh, "Feels more like déjà vu with bad timing."

Somewhere far off, the sky growls. The dark cloud on the horizon thickens, moving, sniffing, hunting.

They both glance toward it.

Then she looks back at him.

"I don't know what this is," She admits, "I don't know why I can look at you and feel like my heart is reacting to a story I haven't read yet. It doesn't make sense."

"Nothing here does," He says, "But--"

"But?" She pushes, because she always does.

He swallows. No jokes this time. No mask.

"But when that baton hit me," He says, "all I could think was: not again. Not another version of me watching another version of you disappear."

The wind steals some of the words, but she hears enough.

Her throat works.

"And now?" She asks.

"Now," Loki says, "I'm very interested in cheating."

She blinks, "Cheating what?"

"Whatever script that reel thinks it has on us."

For once, she doesn't have a ready reply.

They stand there on the edge of the Void, wind howling, sky roiling, the universe holding its breath around them. Her light pulses in time with his magic, unconscious, involuntary, like two threads vibrating at the same frequency.

He steps closer.

"So," He says quietly, "may I finally do something I apparently have done a hundred times and yet not once with you?"

Her voice drops to a whisper, "What did all those other Lokis do?"

"Die badly," He says, "Love you worse."

It shouldn't land the way it does. It does anyway.

She laughs, helpless, cracked, and then, because she is Oridia and she doesn't know how not to be honest, she says, "Yes."

He doesn't ask again.

He lifts his hand, letting it hover for a moment like he's giving her the last possible chance to change her mind. She doesn't. If anything, she leans in.

His fingers brush her jaw. Her skin is warm, humming with that faint solar glow, like he's touching the edge of a star and it's being very polite about not burning him.

He kisses her.

It isn't careful, not at first. It's stunned and hungry and almost clumsy, two people who've watched themselves die together finally allowed to have something that isn't an ending.

Her hands clutch at his shirt. His other hand finds the small of her back, pulling her closer like he can fold her into his ribs and keep her there.

The Void doesn't disappear. The wind doesn't stop. The sky doesn't clear. But for a moment, the noise of everything else dulls.

He tastes dust and ozone and something that is just her, like the air before a meteor shower, like the moment in a lie where he decides to tell the truth instead.

She kisses him back like she's been holding her breath since the TVA took her and this is the first real inhale.

Above them, the purple cloud stirs, the air pressure shifting. The ground vibrates.

Oridia breaks the kiss with a gasp, palms flattening against his chest.

"Loki," She says, "That big angry weather pattern is coming this way."

He tilts his forehead against hers for one more heartbeat, eyes closed.

"Of course it is," He mutters, "The universe finally gives me something nice and the sky has an opinion."

She huffs against his mouth and pulls back, turning to scan the landscape.

That's when she sees it, a shape half-buried in a ditch, off to their right. Boxy, familiar, ludicrously mundane among the ruins of ten thousand worlds.

A Honda Odyssey.

Its paint is scraped, one window cracked, the entire thing tilted at an angle like it gave up halfway through tumbling out of reality.

They run.

The ground shakes again, Alioth's roar closer now, like a thunderstorm learning to speak. Oridia's light flares brighter as adrenaline spikes. Loki's magic prickles along his skin.

They reach the van and yank the sliding door open. It complains loudly but moves. The interior smells like old fabric and lost time.

"After you," Loki says, already slightly out of breath.

"Generous," She replies, climbing in, "Is this chivalry or self-preservation?"

"Both," He says, following and dragging the door shut behind them.

The inside is dim, tinted glass muting the hellscape outside. There are still stickers on the windows, cartoon dolphins, a faded "Honor Student at..." something the Void has eaten. Crumbs are embedded in the carpet. A child's car seat sits askew in the back row, straps hanging.

Oridia ends up in the middle row, dropped into a grey fabric seat that squeaks. Loki sprawls opposite her, knees almost touching hers; the van isn't meant for gods with this much restless energy.

They sit for a moment, breathing hard, listening to the roar outside sweep past like a train with teeth.

The van rattles. Dust drifts from the ceiling liner.

Then... quiet.

Or as close to quiet as the Void allows.

Oridia leans her head back against the seat and laughs once, incredulous.

"First date in a minivan at the end of time," She says, "Romantic."

Loki huffs, "I've done worse."

He watches her, the way her shoulders slowly drop from around her ears, the way her light dims to a steady ember instead of a flare.

"I meant what I said," She says after a beat, eyes on the roof, "About cheating the script."

He taps a fingernail against the plastic trim absently, "Good. I'd hate to be the only one committing treason against our own narrative."

She turns her head to look at him.

Up close, he looks... tired. Not just from running from a cosmic smoke monster. From the TVA. From the reel. From a lifetime of being the punchline in someone else's story.

"What are you thinking?" She asks.

"Dangerous question," He says.

"Try me."

He considers that, then answers, unusually honest, "I'm thinking that I watched a dozen versions of myself fail you. Some out of arrogance, some out of cowardice, some out of sheer bad luck. And I'm wondering how not to add my name to that list."

Her throat tightens.

"Maybe," She says slowly, "we stop worrying about all of them. They've already done their damage. Maybe we focus on the two people stuck in a Honda Odyssey right now."

He makes a soft sound at that, half scoff, half startled pleasure.

"You shouldn't love me," He says, almost to himself.

"I know," She says, "I'm working on it. It's not going well."

Their eyes meet.

The tension between them shifts, less frantic now, more like gravity finally having its say.

He reaches across the narrow space, fingers brushing the inside of her wrist where the cuffs used to sit. The skin there is unmarred, but she flinches anyway, a ghost-sensation.

"Sorry," He murmurs.

"No," She turns her hand, interlacing their fingers, "It's just... strange."

He doesn't joke. Doesn't deflect.

Instead, he lifts her hand to his lips and presses a slow, deliberate kiss to that tender place, as if he's rewriting the history of her skin.

She exhales, shaky.

"How does that feel?" He asks quietly.

"New," She whispers, "And familiar. I don't know how that's possible."

"We're specialists in impossible," He says.

She shifts, unbuckling the seat belt she never fastened properly, and slides across the narrow space until she's right in front of him, knees bracketing his, the van's cheap upholstery creaking in protest.

"This okay?" She asks.

He smiles, small and real, "You're asking the man who just nearly died for the chance to kiss you in a junkyard minivan."

"Point taken," She says, "Consent still matters at the end of time."

His eyes warm at that.

"Then yes," He says, "More than okay."

She leans in.

This kiss is different from the first.

The first was the universe screaming. This one is what comes after, the quieter, more dangerous part where they both consciously decide to stay.

Her hands find his shoulders, thumbs stroking along the edge of his neck, mapping him like she's memorizing a constellation. He responds with a restraint that surprises even him, keeping his touch light: fingers at her waist, slow, reverent, like he's afraid if he grabs too hard she'll dissolve again.

He kisses like he talks when he's being honest, thorough, attentive, a little theatrical in the best way. He listens to every shift in her breathing, every small sound she makes, adjusting, coaxing, answering.

The van sways slightly as she ends up half in his lap, one knee on the sagging seat. Fabric pulls. Breath mingles. Time outside the tinted windows gnashes its teeth and moves on without them for a while.

When they finally part, both of them are breathing harder, foreheads pressed together, the world condensed to shared air and the drum of two hearts trying to sync.

"You realize," He says, voice low, "this is a terrible idea."

"Definitely," She says, "Do you want to stop?"

He looks at her for a long moment, green eyes steady.

"No," He says, "I want to remember what it feels like to make a terrible choice that isn't about destruction."

Her answering smile is soft and almost shy, a surprising expression on someone who has spent so long being an instrument instead of a person.

She kisses him again, slower.

The rest unfolds naturally, unhurried. Clothes soften, not vanish; hands ask before they explore new places; promises aren't spoken, but they're there in the way he pauses to check her eyes, in the way she tugs him closer instead of pushing him away.

In the cramped, ridiculous backseat of a Honda Odyssey at the end of all things, the god of mischief is careful. Gentle. He laughs quietly when she teases him, murmurs steady nonsense into her hair when she shivers, treats every inch of her like it's the first thing in the universe that's ever truly belonged to him.

Outside, the Void rumble fades to a distant storm.

Inside, for a stretch of stolen time no reel has recorded, they are not doomed lovers or narrative devices or cosmic pawns.

They're just Loki and Oridia.

Warm. Entangled. Breathing the same borrowed air.

They're still half-laughing, half-shaking from everything that's happened, the pruning, the fall, Alioth's shadow passing over them, but as the laughter softens, something else settles in its place. That fragile, dangerous calm that comes after terror, when the only thing left to do is feel.

Oridia is still in his lap, knees bracketing his thighs, one hand twisted in the fabric at his shoulder. Loki's palms rest at her waist, thumbs drawing idle circles through the thin material of her shirt, as if he can't quite convince himself she's really there unless he keeps touching her.

They kiss again, slow enough now that there's room to breathe between them. He doesn't rush it. Every time she leans closer, he meets her halfway; every time she shifts, he adjusts, as if her comfort is a rhythm he's learning by heart.

Her fingers wander, along his jaw, into his hair, down the line of his throat. He makes a quiet sound when she brushes the edge of a bruise from the fall, and she immediately stills.

"Sorry," She murmurs.

He catches her hand, presses a kiss into her palm, "Don't be. I like knowing I'm not imaginary."

"Imagine you?" She scoffs softly, "I can't get you out of my head even when you're not here."

There's a flicker of something raw in his eyes at that, "You have no idea what that does to me."

The edges blur after that.

"Is this okay?" He asks more than once, voice low and oddly careful for a man who has made a career out of chaos.

"Yes," She says, every time, with more certainty, "Yes, Loki."

He says her name like it's the first honest spell he's ever learned.

They move to the back row where there's more space, awkwardly graceful in the cramped van. The upholstery squeaks in protest; he snorts against her neck and she laughs, tension bleeding out of her shoulders. It's ridiculous and strangely perfect, making this soft little universe for themselves in a place built for school runs and grocery trips, not gods and star-weavers.

Every movement is unhurried, guided more by the need to stay connected than by urgency. He pays attention, to the way her breath hitches, to the way her fingers clutch at him when something feels particularly good, to the soft sounds she can't swallow down. Whenever she tenses, he slows; whenever she leans into him, he follows.

Outside, the Void snarls and shifts, but in here it's just skin and breath and the whisper of fabric against fabric. Oridia's light glows faintly under her skin, not blinding now, just a warm halo where his hands rest. Loki's magic hums so low it's almost not there, more a feeling than a show, like the universe acknowledging, quietly, that something has changed.

When it finally crests, when tension gives way to shaking release, it's not loud or dramatic. It's a long, shared shudder, her forehead against his, his mouth against her shoulder, both of them clinging as if the Void might try to rip them apart mid-heartbeat.

After, there's no rush to separate. They stay tangled together in the too-small seat, her cheek on his chest, his fingers tracing slow, absentminded patterns along her spine. The world outside the fogged windows keeps ending in a thousand different ways, but inside the van there's only the soft settle of their breathing as it calms.

"This doesn't fix anything," She says quietly, after a while.

"I know," He replies, "But for once, I'd like something that isn't about fixing. Just... about us."

She lifts her head to look at him, eyes searching, and whatever she sees there makes her relax again.

"Then it's about us," She agrees, and nestles back into him, letting herself believe, for this brief, stolen span of time, that doom can wait its turn.

–

The Void smells burned-out and stale, like the ash at the bottom of a universe-sized fire.

Loki and Oridia walk side by side across cracked concrete and baked dirt, the sky above them a churning bruise of violet and ink-black cloud. Alioth prowls in the distance, the smoke-shape of it rising and collapsing like a lung.

They've redressed in silence, straightening buttons, brushing dust from each other's shoulders with embarrassed little touches that say we just did something irrationally human at the end of time and we're not ready to name it yet. Loki's coat is slightly skewed; Oridia's shirt is misbuttoned at the top. Neither of them mentions it.

"Where in the nine realms do you think we are?" Loki asks, scanning the horizon. Ruins upon ruins: a half-buried ship, a leaning clock tower, something that might once have been a rollercoaster.

"Somewhere past the edge of the map," Oridia says. Her palms hum quietly at her sides; the weave is back now, and it will not shut up. Every broken structure, every stranded object buzzes with memory, with discarded timelines, "It feels... wrong. Like someone swept everything under a cosmic rug."

"Comforting," Loki mutters.

They crest a low rise, boots crunching on scattered glass, and see it: a bus stop sign, standing absurdly normal against the chaos of the Void. A crooked plastic bench sits beside it, half-swallowed by weeds that have no right to exist here.

And standing under the sign, like this is an ordinary, slightly delayed commute, there are four of him.

Loki stops so hard Oridia nearly bumps into him.

A kid in golden-green leather, crown too big for his brow, clutching a small alligator wearing a tiny horned helmet.

An older man in a faded, almost cartoonish Loki costume, yellow boots, sagging green fabric, horns tall enough to scrape the sky.

A broad-shouldered man with a makeshift hammer slung over his shoulder, eyes bright with boast and bravado.

An alligator in his arms, snapping idly at the air.

The weave punches through Oridia's chest like a drumbeat.

She staggers a little, hand flying to her sternum.

"What is this place?" Loki demands, "Where are we? Who are you?"

The older Loki, the one in the ridiculous classic suit, inclines his head slightly, as if greeting a reflection he grew out of.

"This," he says, voice rich with weary drama, "is The Void. That's Alioth." He jerks his chin toward the roiling storm-beast in the distance, "And we're his lunch. Come on!"

He turns without waiting, as if he's already explained more than he owes. The others fall into motion.

Kid Loki jumps off the curb and starts walking, Alligator Loki tucked under one arm like a dangerous handbag. The hammer-bearing one, Boastful Loki, strides beside him, spinning the weapon. Classic Loki leads the way, cape snagging on twisted rebar.

Loki and Oridia exchange a look, then follow.

The weave tugs at Oridia, insistent, and as she looks at each variant, she sees more than their faces.

In the boy's eyes she sees another child-Loki, smaller, softer, teeth gritted as he stands beside a girl his age, dark curls and starlight eyes. That Oridia wears tiny training leathers, a betrothal ring too big on her finger. They're exchanging knives instead of flowers, solemn as kings as they swear to protect each other. She feels the echo of their promise like phantom warmth around her own ring finger, empty now.

In the alligator's slit yellow eyes she sees a different Oridia: scaled, sinuous, half-woman half-serpent, coils wrapped around a throne made of shipwrecked bones. A viper in every way, worshipped and feared, her tongue flicking with poisonous truths. She and Gator Loki circle each other in some swamp-realm at the end of a forgotten sea, equal parts menace and devotion.

Boastful Loki glances back once, and in his gaze Oridia glimpses an arena on Sakaar, neon stars flickering overhead. She sees herself shirtless, scarred, glistening with sweat and battle-glory, a gladiator whose astral disks are blades of pure solar gold. She and that Loki crash together in combat and in bed, crowned in applause and blood.

Classic Loki looks at her, and she nearly loses her footing. In his eyes stands an Oridia older than gods, draped in layered green and white, galaxies threaded into her hair, the AllMother of Nine Realms. She sits on Odin's throne, not beside it, her hand resting lightly over Loki's as they preside over a universe they almost managed not to ruin.

The visions hit her in quick, painful flashes, a reel within the reel, and then she's back in the Void, lungs burning.

She doesn't realize she's slowed until Loki's hand brushes hers, grounding.

"You feel it too?" He murmurs.

She nods once, jaw tight, "Every version of you has one of me. Every one of them lost her."

"And every one of me is still on brand," Loki mutters.

Ahead, the ground trembles.

A shape passes overhead, a smear of darkness and teeth, Alioth sweeping across the horizon like a storm front. The wind stings their faces with particulate ash.

"I suggest we take a breather," Loki calls over the rising gusts, "so I can ask several thousand questions."

Classic Loki doesn't bother turning around, "Gotta keep moving so we don't die."

"Okay, but what's your plan?" Loki presses, picking his way around a toppled fast-food sign.

Boastful Loki says, "Don't die."

Loki throws his hands up, "Okay, but beyond that?"

Classic Loki, dry as desert bone, "Don't die."

"'Don't die' is not a plan," Loki says, "It's a general demand of living. If you're Lokis, you should always have--"

He's cut off by an unholy chorus of squawking.

From the wreck of a toppled bus station, a flock of headless, featherless... peacock things erupts, their bodies all bone and ragged skin and too many legs. They scramble across the road, shrieking, scattering dust.

One of them stops, stares at Loki with its stump-neck, and lets out a sound like a broken trumpet before scuttling away.

Loki just stares after it.

Then he snaps.

"Will someone please explain to me what the hell is going on?!" He shouts, voice fraying, "Look, it's been a very, very, very trying past few days. Months? I don't even know how long it's been since New York."

He gestures wildly at the ruined landscape. Oridia watches him, the corner of her mouth twitching despite everything.

"All I know," Loki goes on, "is I got pruned and I woke up here, and now I'm surrounded by Variants of myself, plus an alligator, which, sadly, I didn't find all that strange. And now we're running from God knows what to God knows where, when I need to be trying to find a way back to the TVA."

The sky rumbles like a warning drum.

Kid Loki stops and spins, irritation written all over his young face. A dagger appears in his hand with a flash.

"Stop wailing," He says, "or you will signal Alioth."

Loki blinks down at him, "You mean the monster in the sky?"

"This is the place where the TVA dumps its rubbish," Kid Loki says matter-of-factly, "Everything they prune. And Alioth, he ensures none of it ever returns."

Boastful Loki adds, swaggering, "It's a living tempest that consumes matter and energy. They send entire branched realities here that are devoured instant--"

Classic Loki cuts across him, "We're in a shark tank. Alioth is the shark."

Alligator Loki growls indignantly at that, a deep, rumbling sound that vibrates through Kid Loki's arms.

"Oh, there's no such thing as an alligator tank," Classic Loki sighs, "Besides, it's a better metaphor. He's overly sensitive like the rest of us."

"Hang on," Loki says, pointing at the reptile, "That thing's a Loki too?"

The alligator bares its teeth.

Oridia squints at it, feeling for the thread. The weave answers, loudly, "It appears so."

Loki gives the alligator a long, resigned look, "Okay. Fine. Willing to accept that. Why are there so many of you?"

Classic Loki shrugs, cape lifting in the wind, "Because Lokis survive. That's just what we do."

"Great," Loki says, "So how do we escape?"

"We don't," Classic Loki replies, "All of us were arrested by the TVA and pruned, just like you. And just like you, we all stood around making bad plans that went nowhere."

Loki's nostrils flare, "But we could use a TemPad."

Boastful Loki barks a laugh, "Oh, the one thing that could get us out of here, yes. They're all over the place, right, guys?"

Loki glares, "Fine. What about causing a nexus event?"

"The TVA doesn't care what happens here," Boastful Loki says, "No one's watching the trash heap."

"Surely there's something to do," Loki insists, desperation creeping into his voice.

Classic Loki's gaze cuts sideways to him, tired and sharp, "There is. Survive. That's all there is. All there ever was."

Kid Loki's patience snaps.

"We're done talking," He says, "Let's go."

He starts walking again, chin high. Then his eyes flick to Oridia, and for a heartbeat, the boy is not a king of ruins but some child prince who once had an Oridia of his own, small and fierce and betrothed by decree.

"My darling," He says with startling gravity for someone his age, "I would strongly suggest you follow."

Oridia feels the echo of that child-Oridia's hand in his: two kids promised to a future neither of them gets. Her chest tightens.

She inclines her head, "Lead on, Your Majesty."

The Lokis start walking again. The sky grumbles above, Alioth's shadow sliding over the distant wreckage.

Loki and Oridia linger for half a second, eyes locked.

He looks wrecked and defiant and strangely... soft, in the way someone looks after they've just made themselves vulnerable and the world hasn't had time to punish them yet.

She feels the weave between them thrumming, not calm but steady. We survive, it seems to say. We keep doing this.

"Ready to go be the worst support group in existence?" Loki asks, wry.

"Considering the alternatives?" Oridia says, "Yes."

They fall into step behind the others.

"Okay, wait, wait, wait," Loki calls up to the group, "Why do you wear the horns? You let a child command you."

Classic Loki doesn't slow, "You'll do well to respect the boy. This is his kingdom."

"Right," Loki says, "And what was your nexus event, Your Majesty?"

Kid Loki stops again. Turns.

His gaze is old. Older than it should ever be on a face like his.

"I killed Thor," He says simply.

Just that.

Then he turns back around and keeps walking, Alligator Loki hissing quietly in his arms, as the Void stretches out before them and the end of all things rumbles overhead.

—

The bunker hatch is a rusted circle in the ground, half-hidden behind a toppled billboard for some forgotten soda brand. Kid Loki jumps down first, dropping lithely to the darkness below, Alligator Loki tucked under his arm. The faint clang of his boots echoes up the metal shaft.

Classic Loki gestures grandly at the open hatch, "Home, sweet catastrophe."

Boastful Loki swings his hammer off his shoulder and starts down the ladder, one big hand gripping the rail, the other bracing the rungs as he descends.

Oridia steps up to the opening and looks down; it's steeper than it seemed from afar, and dim. A surge of unease rolls through her, not fear of heights, but of falling into yet another unknown.

Before she can move, three hands appear.

Kid Loki looks up from below, one palm reaching up toward her; Boastful Loki offers a steadying grip from a rung down; Classic Loki puts a careful hand at the small of her back as if to guide, not push.

"Careful, my lady," Classic Loki murmurs, "We don't want you cracking your head before the void does it for you."

"Come along, love," Boastful calls up, grin broad, "Can't have the only interesting person up there."

Kid Loki simply lifts his hand a little higher, "We won't drop you."

Oridia blinks at the chorus of attention, at how all three sets of eyes are locked on her, how even Alligator Loki's golden gaze tilts upward, unblinking, as if ready to lunge at gravity itself on her behalf.

She glances sideways.

Her Loki watches it all, jaw tight, eyes narrowed, not jealous exactly, but keenly aware. His fingers flex once at his side, like he's resisting the urge to swat the others away and declare some sort of cosmic dibs.

Oridia snorts softly under her breath and puts her foot on the first rung.

"I can climb a ladder," She tells them, but she takes Kid Loki's offered hand anyway. Classic Loki's guidance at her back is light, never forcing. Boastful Loki shifts his body to give her room, bracing in case she slips.

She doesn't. But she notices.

And so does Loki.

He comes down last, dropping the final two rungs and landing lightly. When his boots hit the bunker floor, Alligator Loki gives a low, approving grunt, like the arrival of another piece in a game only he understands.

The bunker smells like metal and damp cloth. It's lit by mismatched lamps, scavenged from a dozen realities, casting a warm, patchy glow over the cramped space. Old couches, a milk crate table, a kiddie pool filled with murky water for Alligator Loki. In the corner, a battered box that once held Roxxiwine; now, it holds dented cups.

Kid Loki climbs up onto a throne, he settles with the weary ease of someone who's been king of nothing for far too long. Classic Loki takes a threadbare armchair. Boastful Loki flops onto a crate, hammer resting beside him.

Loki and Oridia end up on a sagging loveseat, close enough that their shoulders brush.

Classic Loki pours the boxed wine into plastic cups with theatrical solemnity, handing them out.

"Roxxiwine," He proclaims, "The vintage of people who got eaten by corporate apocalypse before the rest of us."

Boastful Loki raises his cup, "To survival."

"To bad decisions," Loki adds quietly.

Oridia reaches for her cup, but Loki's hand darts out, intercepting. He takes it, eyes flicking to hers.

"I remember how you get on this stuff," He murmurs under his breath, "I'm not wrestling you out of another apocalypse because you decided the end of all things was a good time to outdrink a god."

Her lips twitch, "You enjoyed that."

"I enjoyed parts of that," He corrects, "I'd prefer you conscious for whatever ridiculous plan we come up with next."

He hands her back the cup, but only after deliberately filling it halfway. When she arches a brow, he shrugs, feigning indifference.

"Moderation,"He says, "It's a new experiment I'm trying. Don't make me look foolish."

She clinks her cup lightly against his, "No promises."

Around them, the Lokis settle.

Boastful Loki lifts his drink and, without waiting for permission, launches into his story.

"So," He says, voice rich and booming, "after I vanquished Captain America and Iron Man, I claimed my prize--" he pauses for effect "--all six Infinity Stones."

Alligator Loki, floating in his kiddie pool, emits a low, guttural growl. It's more syllabic than animal, like he's trying to fit a whole insult into his throat.

Classic Loki doesn't miss a beat, "That's alligator for growling and saying 'liar' at the same time."

Boastful Loki bristles, "At least my nexus event wasn't eating the wrong neighbor's cat."

Alligator Loki launches.

It happens fast: a blur of scaled green and snapping jaws as he surges halfway out of the pool, teeth clamping around Boastful Loki's forearm. Boastful curses, trying not to spill his drink as he struggles.

Oridia doesn't think, she moves.

Her palms flare with solar light, hot and precise. She twists her wrist and a small disk of condensed energy whips out, hitting Boastful Loki's arm at just the right angle. It knocks his forearm back, out of Alligator Loki's teeth, without grazing the reptile at all. The alligator splashes back into the pool, hissing indignantly.

Every Loki in the room freezes.

Six eyes, and one reptilian pair, turn to her.

Her hands are still glowing, golden white, little suns pulsing under her skin. For a second, she looks like something out of a myth none of them have told yet.

Then the light fades.

Boastful Loki shakes out his arm, checking for bite marks, and lets out a low whistle, "Well now. Thank you, love. I prefer my fingers attached."

Oridia exhales slowly, the adrenaline catching up, "He wasn't going to stop if you hit him. He was going to stop if I hit you."

Classic Loki's lips curl into a fond, almost nostalgic smile, "Always were quick, the Oridias. All versions of you knew exactly where to throw the sun."

Loki feels a strange, sharp glow of pride, not only at her display of power, but at the way the others look at her. Awe, nostalgia, longing. The weave sings around them like taut strings.

Kid Loki, lounging on his throne, lifts his chin toward their Loki, "Tell them your story, Loki."

Classic Loki waves a hand, "Me? Nobody wants to hear about that."

"I would, actually," Loki says. His voice is quieter now, curiosity genuine, "I've been wondering, because I'm... well, we're supposed to die, aren't we? Thanos kills us after Ragnarok."

The room shifts subtly, that name dropping like a stone into a pond.

Classic Loki's gaze goes distant.

"Thanos," He repeats, "In my timeline, everything proceeded correctly. My entire life, until Thanos attacked our ship."

"So, you didn't try to stab him?" Loki asks.

Classic Loki chuckles, the sound dry and self-deprecating, "Certainly not. Take no offense, my friends, but blades are worthless in the face of a Loki's sorcery. They stunt our magical potential."

Boastful Loki raises his mug, "But they look awesome."

"Oh, yes," Classic Loki says, eyes glinting, "Especially when they clatter to the ground just before your neck is snapped."

Oridia feels Loki flinch, just barely, beside her.

Classic Loki continues, voice softening, "I cast a projection of myself so real even the Mad Titan believed it. Then hid as inanimate debris. After I faked my death, I simply drifted in space. Away from Thor. Away from everything. Thought about the universe and my place in it, and it occurred to me that everywhere I went, only pain followed."

He shifts in his chair, fabric rustling. His gaze flicks very briefly to Oridia.

"So I removed myself from the equation," He says, "Landed on a remote planet and stayed there in isolation, in solitude, for a long, long time."

Oridia's throat tightens. In the weave, she sees a lonely, green-clad figure on a barren world, conjuring little illusions to talk to, one of them always taking the shape of a woman with starlight in her eyes.

"How did the TVA find you?" Loki asks, leaning forward.

Classic Loki's eyes linger on Oridia now, fully.

"I got lonely," He admits, "To tell you the truth, I missed my brother. And I wondered if he missed me. If anybody else did..." his gaze softens further, landing on Oridia like a confession, "if the light of my life did."

Oridia's breath catches.

"But as soon as I took my first steps to getting off the planet," Classic Loki finishes, "the TVA arrived. Because we, my friends, have but one part to play. The God of Outcasts. Nothing more."

Silence unfurls.

The wine in Loki's cup suddenly tastes like ash. That's it? That's what they get? Loneliness, a half-step toward healing, and a baton to the chest?

He sets his cup down with a soft thunk.

Oridia lifts hers for another sip, but he gently catches it midair, slides it out of her hand, and sets it beside his.

She blinks at him, "Hey."

"We need our wits," He says, "For once."

He stands, still holding her hand from where he took her cup, and tugs her to her feet.

"We're going," He announces.

Boastful Loki looks up, amused, "Going where?"

Classic Loki starts to rise as well, frowning, "Out of the seat and into Alioth's mouth, presumably."

"Out of this place," Loki says, steady now, "Out of The Void. Back to the TVA."

He squeezes Oridia's fingers once, grounding himself as much as her.

"We're as good at escaping as we are at surviving," He goes on, "That gives me a decent chance."

"You won't do either," Classic Loki says flatly, "You'll be murdered."

"Well, so be it," Loki says, "That was my destiny to begin with."

Kid Loki studies him, head tipped, "You're different."

Loki huffs, "Why? No, I'm not, you see? I'm the same, really. I'm the same as all of you."

He scans their faces, then asks, "Have any of you met a woman variant of us?"

Classic Loki makes a face. "Sounds terrifying."

"Oh, she is," Loki says, a small, involuntary smile tugging at his mouth as he glances at Oridia, "But that's kind of what's great about her. She's different. She's not trying to take over the TVA, she's trying to take it down. And she needs us."

He paces a small arc, letting go of Oridia's hand only to gesture, then catching it again like he can't help himself.

"Now, you said Alioth is what keeps us here. You said it's a living thing. You said it's a shark," He points toward the ceiling, toward the roiling sky they can't see from here, "Well, if it lives, it dies. So I'm going to kill the shark. I'm going to kill Alioth."

He looks around at them, each Loki, each ghost of what he could have been.

"And I could use all the help I can get."

There's a beat of silence.

Then the Loki variants start laughing.

Oridia, still standing close enough to feel the tension radiating off Loki, hiccups. She puts a hand on his shoulder to steady herself and raises her other hand in a small, half-sincere toast.

"A for effort?" She offers.

Loki gives her a look that's equal parts long-suffering and fond, "Incredibly helpful, darling."

The Lokis keep laughing, unconvinced.

Loki doesn't wait for their approval this time.

He threads his fingers through Oridia's again and pulls her toward the ladder.

"We don't need them," He mutters, "We have an awful plan and some vague bravery. What else could we possibly require?"

"A map?" She suggests.

"Now you're just being picky."

They reach the ladder. Loki goes up first, one hand on the rung, the other still wrapped around her fingers until the distance forces him to let go. He disappears up into the hatch, leaving her alone in the bunker for a brief, suspended moment.

Classic Loki watches her, mouth pursed like he knows exactly what it looks like when a Loki chooses love over self-preservation, and that it never ends neatly.

"Good luck, my lady," He says quietly.

She nods once, then sets her foot on the rung.

Above, the hatch creaks open.

Loki's voice reaches down, strained, "Oh, for--"

Oridia climbs faster, heart kicking.

By the time she reaches the top and pushes herself half out of the hatch, Loki is frozen in place, staring at a circle of armed, scruffy-looking variants.

One of them stands in front, in a torn suit, horned crown askew, campaign badge on his lapel that reads LOKI FOR PRESIDENT.

He grins, all teeth.

"Ah," President Loki says, taking them both in, "Hello. Which one of us are you?"

Loki closes his eyes for a second.

"This is a nightmare," He mutters.

And for a heartbeat, with the Void above, doom around, and Lokis on every side, Oridia has to agree.

✦
✦
✦
✦
✦
✦
✦
✦
✦
✦