Loki wakes up in a daze the next morning. Something just feels off. He can't explain it. It's not something physical, but it's not all in his head, either; he's sure of it.

He rubs his eyes and runs a hand through his hair. There's something wrong. Is it something wrong with him? Is he sick? He doesn't tend to get sick, but he also hasn't spent much time living among humans. Maybe Jotuns are as susceptible to Midgardian pathogens as humans are, and he's just lived in blissful ignorance for the last thousand years.

He can't pull himself together sitting on his bed in the dark, though. With the flick of his finger, his turns on the light —

Wait.

What the fuck?

Loki looks around, and everywhere his eyes land, he's met with nothing but black, white, and the shades of gray in between. He slowly crawls out of bed, his gaze glued to the formerly-yellow walls. They're just gray.

Loki looks down at his hands, appearing nearly white against the black of his sleeves. He lets the Jotun side come through, and he can feel his body shift into his true form — the side of himself he tends to ignore when he can. But while his hands do change, they change shade, not color. They, like everything else, are in black and white.

Loki magics away his pajamas, replacing them with short sleeves to get a better look at his arms. He can see the faint changes in shades where his arms' coloring is darker, but there's still no color to be seen.

Puzzled, Loki shifts back into his Aesir form. What happened to his eyesight? Because he knows he should have just turned blue. He knows his walls should be yellow. He knows that just about everything in this room should have a splash of color, and it's just not there.

Loki glances at his alarm clock, only to find that it's gone, as is his entire bedside table. Not only does he not have a clock, but he's now missing his phone, too. In fact, looking around the room, he seems to be missing a lot. It's not all losses, though; at least there's a new analog clock next to the door.

He's not sure if he expects anyone to be awake right now. On a normal day, they probably would be, but they were up late last night. It's possible everyone's still sleeping. But he needs to talk to someone about this. Worst case scenario, he'll just go wake Mobius up.

Loki's just barely put a hand on the doorknob when his bedroom door opens, slamming him in the face before he even knows what's happening. He stumbles backwards, covering his face with his hand. "Hey!"

"Loki, something's wrong," Sylvie says quickly, seemingly oblivious to his pain. When he hears the panic in her voice, he almost forgets about his pain, too.

"Oh, I'm so glad it's not just me," Loki mutters to himself. "Why is everything black and white?"

"I don't know; I don't care," Sylvie says, much to his surprise. She grabs his arm and drags him out of his room.

"What are you doing?" Loki asks. "Where are we going? What's wrong and why don't you care that the world's color wheel is broken?"

"I am not in the mood for these questions right now," Sylvie snaps. She drags him out into the kitchen and shoves him away, and he stumbles forward before catching his balance.

Mobius and Beatrice are already out in the kitchen. Beatrice is standing by the counter, flipping pancakes in the most hideous fluffy dress he's ever seen, an apron covering the front. She turns around when she hears them, and the first thing Loki notices, even before her big, genuine smile, is her neat updo that looks absolutely nothing like anything he's seen her wear before (or anything he's seen anyone wear, for that matter).

Meanwhile, Mobius is sitting at the table, a syrup-covered plate in front of him. He'd slowly gotten into wearing jeans and plain white tees over the last week or so, finally letting go of the past, but he's back in his TVA suit today while he reads a newspaper that Loki didn't even know they had.

"Hey, guys," Loki says awkwardly. "What's going on?"

"Nothing much," Mobius says. "Bea's making breakfast."

"Because apparently no one else was gonna do it," she adds playfully, despite the fact that no one usually makes breakfast; they just grab some cereal or fruit or something of the sort.

"I'll tell you one thing, though," Mobius says, and he points his rolled-up newspaper over at her. "These pancakes are the living end."

"Oh, thank you!" Beatrice curtsies, beaming.

Loki looks between his friends uncomfortably, then looks over at Sylvie and asks quietly, "What is happening right now?"

"I was really hoping you were going to answer that yourself," Sylvie whispers back.

Oh, great. So they're both confused. And Mobius and Beatrice aren't confused, which is even worse because they're the ones acting weird! (After all, Beatrice making them all breakfast? That alone could be an omen for an incoming apocalypse. She doesn't even help with family dinners.)

"I don't even know if this is our house," Sylvie whispers. "So much has changed — and I don't just mean the color."

"What do you mean?" Loki asks. Things like his bedside table? His missing phone? What else has changed?

"Have you seen the living room?" she asks. "The TV is the size of my face."

Loki's eyebrows shoot up. "You're kidding."

"I wish I was kidding," she says. "Hey, you want to know what I woke up in?" She grabs his arm, squeezing it tightly. "Do you want to know what I woke up in?"

Loki hesitates. "Do I want to know what you woke up in?"

"Come here." She drags him down the hall yet again, and, just like the first time, he lets her do it. They don't go far this time. They're just barely out of view of their friends when Sylvie drops his arm.

With just a hint of magic she's picked up from Loki over the last couple weeks, Sylvie changes into a two-piece baggy pajama set that looks completely unlike anything he's seen her wear before. Her top has a folded-down collar, and it's cinched at the waist with a thick cloth belt. The pants have the same floral design, and once he predicts would make more sense if it were colored. And then there's her hair. The length doesn't seem to have changed, but it's curled in a way that would almost look natural if he didn't know how unnatural it is. The curls frame her face, a little fluffier than her hair usually is but not unreasonably so. But none of that is as eye-catching as the look on her face. She is furious — furious enough that Loki doesn't even dare laugh at her, even though it's really tempting.

Sylvie changes herself back into her now-usual skinny jeans and crop top. "Why did you get to keep your clothes on?"

"I think the question we should be asking is why didn't you?" Loki counters. "What is going on?"

Sylvie shrugs helplessly. "You don't think it was one of us, do you? You know, somehow in our sleep, maybe we just...?"

Loki shakes his head. "I don't even think I'm capable of this type of magic," he admits. "Outfit changes, sure. Black and white, probably. But Mobius and Beatrice?" He scoffs. "They're not even themselves! You see that, too, don't you? That they're not —"

"Oh, believe me, I see it," Sylvie says darkly. "When I woke up, Mobius tried to tell me we were married."

Loki begins choking on the air at that. "He what?"

She nods. "Yeah. And when I assured him that we are not married, he stopped. He listened to me. I mean, it's the only thing he listened to me about, but he listened. So maybe this was me? Maybe somehow I just...?"

"It wasn't you," Loki assures her. "I don't think this is your type of magic, either. It's not like anything I've ever seen you do, at least -- and I'm pretty sure you wouldn't make a world where you and Mobius are married."

Sylvie frowns. "So, what, there's someone else, then? Someone found us and made it their life goal to mess with us?"

Loki sighs. "I don't know. I mean, we're pretty far removed from... well, everything. And it's not like anyone should be looking for us. I'm dead and you don't exist."

"Then what's going on?" she asks. "Because something is definitely going on."

"I don't know!" Loki repeats, agitated. "I just got up! I am not awake enough to figure things out right now!"

"Then wake up!" she snaps. "I'm not dealing with this. He promised us peace. If he's reneging on our deal —"

"You'll, what, prune yourself again and go give him a stern talking-to?" Loki says sarcastically. "You don't even know if he did this. I'm sure he has better things to do than play games with us. He is still controlling the Sacred Timeline, remember?"

Sylvie crosses her arms. "Well, if it's not him, who would it be?"

"Will you stop asking me questions that neither of us have an answer to?" Loki hisses. "For all we know, this has nothing to do with us. This could be affecting the whole world."

"What? No, that's stupid," Sylvie says.

"Well, yes," Loki concedes, "but considering half the universe suddenly disintegrated five years ago and almost everyone had no warning about it, I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility that this is bigger —"

"That took a Titan and six Infinity Stones," Sylvie reminds him. "No one else has that kind of power."

"We don't know that," Loki says. "Have you even looked outside yet? How far does this black-and-white thing go?"

Sylvie pauses, then turns and heads down the hall. Loki follows close behind to her bedroom, and she flings the curtains aside so they can look.

Sylvie's bedroom faces the backyard, and, on a normal day, that would mean a nice view of the grassy field and the trees off in the distance, like something out of a nature documentary. Today, it's just dreary and gray.

"Well," Sylvie says, "I'm glad we didn't choose the house for the scenery."

Loki just looks out the window for a minute with a frown. All he wanted was the chance to sit around and do nothing for a few decades until he inevitably got bored and went to stir up some trouble. Is that too much to ask?

He sighs. "We should see how far this goes."

Sylvie turns around to look at him, and, in the least enthusiastic voice possible, says, "Road trip?"

"Road trip," Loki replies, just as unexcited as she is.

They walk back through the hallway and out to the kitchen, where Mobius is eating yet another plate of pancakes and Beatrice is finishing up with the rest of the batter. Loki and Sylvie just ignore them, heading straight for the front door without sparing them a glance.

"Woah, look at you two burnin' rubber over there," Mobius remarks, amused. "Where are you off to?"

"Out," Sylvie deadpans.

Loki clasps his hands in front of himself, takes a deep breath, and turns around to face them. It's worth a shot. "Have you noticed that the world is broken, or did you break right along with it?"

Mobius and Beatrice just look at him for a few seconds, and then they burst out laughing, like it's the most ridiculous thing they've ever heard; like they think he's joking and not actually concerned that his world has been turned upside down overnight.

"Right." Loki clicks his tongue. "You're broken."

Beatrice scoffs and looks at Mobius, a big smile on his face. Does she really think that was a joke? Because when he teasingly makes fun of his friends, he does it in a much funnier way, thank you very much.

Mobius laughs even harder, and he slaps a hand down on the table. "Kachow!"

"Classic Loki," Beatrice adds. "Always the comedian."

Loki shakes his head to himself. "I can't do this." He walks out the door without another word, Sylvie right by his side.

When they get outside, they both freeze. There's a problem here. There's a very big problem here.

"Loki," Sylvie says slowly, "where's the car?"

Loki stares at the empty driveway in silence. How did they lose an entire car?

Sylvie turns around, opens the front door, and yells, "Where did the car go?"

"What car?" Beatrice calls back.

"The car!"

"Our car!" Loki adds. "The one that should be in the driveway!"

"Our car?" Beatrice repeats. "Loki, if you're planning to buy us a car, you're gonna need a better-paying job."

Loki grits his teeth and kicks the door shut. "We don't have a car?" he hisses.

"Apparently not," she mutters. "So, what do we do now?"

Loki shrugs helplessly. "We walk?"

Sylvie scoffs. "We have no idea how long this goes on for! What do you want to do, walk to the ends of the earth?"

"An hour," he says. "We can walk for an hour. If this is about us, we might find an end by then."

"Or it will just follow us," Sylvie adds.

"That's also possible," Loki admits, "but I don't think we can afford to sit here and do nothing because doing something might not work."

Sylvie hesitates, then sighs. "Fine, let's go for a walk."

So that's what they do. They head down the street, walking in discouraged silence, only broken once early on when Sylvie decides she has to complain that some of the neighbors still have cars in their driveways.

Loki glances at his watch (yes, he has a watch; no, it did not look like this yesterday, though he suspects it's worth far more now) every few minutes, just waiting for this promised hour to end. That's probably part of the reason it takes so long. Staring at the time is one way to ensure the time does not fly.

But finally, finally, that painfully long hour is up. Nothing's changed, though. Everything is black and white as far as the eye can see. The very few neighbors they catch a glimpse of are all dressed weirdly, too, just like Beatrice and like Sylvie was when she woke up. Sometimes they'll wave or say hi, and the two awkwardly wave back every time.

"Finally, we can go home," Sylvie mutters.

Loki hesitates. He really would like to be at home, but it would take another hour to get back and he's not sure he has that level of commitment just to accomplishing nothing. "I'm going to keep looking."

Sylvie scoffs. "We've been looking around for an hour!"

"Exactly," Loki says. "And we're no closer to an answer. You can go home if you want, but I want to go a few more miles."

"So you're going to spend another hour walking around aimlessly?" Sylvie asks.

"Actually, I'm going to run," Loki says. "But yes."

Sylvie looks at him with narrowed eyes, then sighs. "Fine, I'm going with you."

"You really don't have to," Loki says.

"I'm not walking for an hour by myself," she says. "So yeah, I do."

"I don't even know how long I'll be looking," Loki tells her. "I could be out here for a few more hours."

"How far are you going?"

He shrugs. "Until I find an end or I get discouraged and turn back around."

Sylvie frowns. "So we could be out here all day."

"That's entirely possible," Loki says. He doubts he'll have that type of ambition, but it's possible.

"And you're going to do this with or without me," she says.

"That's the idea," Loki says.

Sylvie shakes her head. "You're insane," she tells him. "You have officially lost your mind."

Loki stops walking with a sigh, and, confused, Sylvie stops as well. She looks up at him expectantly.

"Look," Loki says solemnly, "these last few weeks have been incredible. I've felt at peace in a way that I don't think I ever have before. And now all of that is gone."

Sylvie lets out a long breath. "Yeah, I know what you mean."

"I understand this is boring," Loki says. "I don't blame you for wanting to go home. I do, too. But..." He shakes his head. "I can't do that until I know I've done everything I can to figure out what happened to our friends. So I'm going to keep looking."

Sylvie hesitates, then sighs. "Are you really planning on running the rest of the way?"

"For as long as I can, yes," Loki says. "There's no point in wasting time walking."

Sylvie nods in understanding, then cracks a smile. "Then you better keep up."

With that, she takes off running, and Loki immediately chases after her. Fortunately, having much longer legs than hers comes in handy, because it doesn't take long to catch up.

"For the record," Loki says, slowing his pace just long enough to speak to her, "it's you who will have to keep up with me." He speeds up again, and the frustrated groan he hears come out of Sylvie's mouth brings a smile to his face.

Sylvie matches his pace, though she must be putting in far more effort. A part of Loki wants to speed up more just to see what she would do, but he's not sure how long he can hold a full sprint. It would be counterproductive in the grand scheme of things. He'll just wait until she tires out at this pace instead.

"You're an idiot," Sylvie tells him through huffs of heavy breathing.

"How so?" Loki asks, panting a bit himself.

"There is no way you'll outlast me," she says. "You complained that we walked too much on Lamentis."

"I didn't say we walked more than I could; I said we walked more than I wanted to," Loki says defensively.

"You said we walked more than you ever had in your life," she corrects him. "Whereas I've spent my entire life running from the TVA."

"And by 'running,'" Loki says, "you mean hiding. Far less cardio than the name implies."

"I fought and killed countless of their agents," Sylvie says.

"I grew up on Asgard with Thor for a brother," Loki reminds her. "I've fought my fair share of battles, too."

"Right," she says sarcastically, "and how much cardio is casting a few illusions and throwing a couple knives?"

Loki scoffs, but, unfortunately, she has a pretty spot-on impression of how he fought most of his battles, so he doesn't have a good response to that.

"What's the matter, hmm?" Sylvie asks mockingly. "Silver tongue turn to lead?"

"No, it's just..." He pauses, taking a few seconds to focus on his breathing as he runs before continuing, "very hard to talk and run."

"Really?" she says. "I could do it all day."

"No, you couldn't," Loki says, but, now that he actually listens to her, she doesn't seem to be struggling with it. Her breathing is very rhythmic, coinciding with the drop of each foot and the swing of each arm. As long as she only speaks on her planned exhales, she seems to have no problem at all.

"In fact," she adds, "I could probably sing and run."

"Now that is impossible," Loki says. "Especially at this pace."

"Oh, really?" Sylvie smirks, and begins to sing (very horribly, might he add), "I stormsvarte fjell, jeg vandrer —"

"Stop!" Loki says loudly — or as loudly as he can muster on such a shortness of breath. "You ruined it. You ruined my song."

"Oh, shut up," she says, but she's clearly fighting back a laugh.

"That wasn't even singing," Loki adds. "That was what happens when you choke a cat and light it on fire."

Sylvie bursts out laughing. "That's what happens when you what?"

"You heard me," he says with a grin.

They bicker for another few minutes that seem to stretch on for an eternity, until Loki begins to feel like he can't go on much longer. Sylvie doesn't seem to be struggling as much, but, then again, the whole point is that they're pretending this is easy. He's sure he doesn't seem to be struggling as much as he is, either.

But he refuses to be the first one to stop, so he says, "You getting tired yet?" It's supposed to sound mocking, so she doesn't realize that he's also exhausted. He's not sure he gets across any tone when he says it.

"Not at all," she says. "You?"

"Pfft, no," he lies. "Easiest thing I've ever done."

"Glad we're on the same page, then," she says.

So he has to suck it up and keep running, even though every muscle in his body is begging him to stop.

Refusing to be the weak Loki Variant is a hell of a motivator, because the two of them keep running for a while longer. He's almost beginning to feel like he can keep going forever as long as he doesn't take a break (which means it's going to be a long walk home when he realizes he can't run anymore). He's definitely not enjoying it, but he manages.

Bickering with Sylvie helps, too, in a weird way. It sucks all the oxygen out of his lungs, but it's a nice distraction. And, of course, hearing that Sylvie isn't struggling is just more motivation for him to keep going.

Until finally, Sylvie says a very sudden, "Loki, stop!"

"Why?" Loki asks, still running straight ahead. "So you can one-up me?"

Sylvie grabs his arm and yanks it toward her, and he stumbles backwards, almost falling on his ass but recovering at the last moment. He doubles over, his hands on his knees, panting hard. He was right. He definitely cannot force himself to start running again now that he's stopped, so Sylvie better not ask him to.

"What?" Loki asks irritably.

"Look." She points straight ahead, but she's breathing too heavily to explain what the hell that means.

Loki looks around, confused. "What, the sign?" It's just the "Leaving Westview" sign. They've seen it before. It's nothing new.

"You don't feel it?" she asks.

He looks at her helplessly. "No?" He doesn't feel what? All he feels right now is the fire in his lungs and his painfully weak legs. Anything and everything else is lost on him right now.

"The energy," she says. "You really don't...?"

He shakes his head.

Sylvie walks towards the "Leaving Westview" sign, but she stops a few feet before it. Loki plops down on the ground to watch whatever weird shit she's doing. She slowly reaches a hand out, and, suddenly, the air begins to... wobble, for lack of a better phrase. Sylvie pulls her hand back immediately.

"Okay, that's weird," Loki remarks.

"You think?" she says sarcastically.

Loki picks up a rock and chucks it in that general direction. It acts perfectly normal until the air wobbles again and it disappears.

Sylvie turns around, confused. "What did you just do?"

"Threw a rock."

She raises an eyebrow. "You threw a rock."

He nods. "Mm-hmm."

"Why?" she asks, exasperated.

"Curiosity," he says with a shrug. "Did you see it?"

"Did I see what?"

"C'mere." Loki gestures for her to stand back near him. When she's far enough from the barrier, he picks up another rock and chucks it. Once again, the air wobbles and it disappears. "See?"

"It's gone," she says.

He nods. "It hit the Wobble Wall and disappeared."

She stares at him. "It hit the what?"

"The Wobble Wall!" he repeats. "Because it gets all wobbly when something touches it. So it's the Wobble Wall." He gives her a cheeky smile.

She shakes her head to herself. "Okay, fine. Whatever."

"What should we do?" Loki asks. "Should we go through it?"

Sylvie shakes her head. "We're not going through the Wobble Wall."

"Why not?" Loki asks. He's sure it probably is a bad idea, but he'd like to think it warranted a little more consideration.

"Because we don't know what it is," Sylvie says. "It might be a doorway, sure, but it also could have just disintegrated a couple of rocks."

"But it could be a doorway," Loki says.

"But it could disintegrate you," Sylvie says.

"But it could be a doorway," Loki repeats.

"But you could be an idiot," Sylvie says.

Loki shoots her a glare. That was uncalled for. (Okay, it might have been a little called for.) "Sylvie, it's entirely possible that this entire problem could go away the second we step through the Wobble Wall," he says. "Are we really just not going to step through the Wobble Wall?"

"I'm not," she says. "And I don't think you should, either. I don't think it wants us to."

Loki furrows his brows. "What do you mean?"

"I don't know," she says. "I just have the feeling that it wants us to stay in here; that we're not supposed to cross it."

"Sylvie, you're insane," Loki tells her.

"Just look at it," Sylvie says. "Listen to it. Maybe you'll hear it, too."

Loki raises an eyebrow, but if she really thinks the wall is talking to her, he owes it to her to at least try to listen. He looks at the Wobble Wall, focusing all his energy on it.

He doesn't hear a voice. It doesn't sound like anyone is speaking to him or giving him instructions. But somewhere deep inside him, so subtly that he barely notices it, he feels the faintest urge to walk away. He just wants to leave; he wants to go back home and act normal — but not him normal; Mobius and Beatrice normal. A normal in the eyes of other people, not his own.

"You know," Loki says, "the fact that it doesn't want me to go through it makes me want to go through it more."

Sylvie sighs. "Please don't go through the Wobble Wall."

Loki reluctantly agrees to that — "but only because you said 'please.'" He really does think that crossing the Wobble Wall could fix all of this, but if Sylvie thinks it's a bad idea, he'll listen to her, if only because he doesn't want to do it alone.

All of this puts them in an interesting position. They know that this — whatever this is — is about them. There's no other reason it would only surround their town. But what do they do about it? They don't know who's doing it. They don't know how to find them. They don't know if it's safe to just leave — or if it's even possible. So what do they do?

Finally, Loki just asks, "Do you want to go home?"

Sylvie sighs and sits down next to him. "After all that running? I would rather go through the Wobble Wall and hope it kills me."

Loki chuckles. "I knew you didn't think it was easy."

Sylvie shrugs. "When the only other option was to lose to you? Yeah, it was pretty easy."