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❛ ᴇᴡᴛʀᴛᴡ​​​​​​​​​​. ❜ ° . ༄
- ͙۪۪˚   ▎❛ 𝐒𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐍 ❜   ▎˚ ͙۪۪̥◌
»»————- ꒰ ʀᴀɢɴᴀʀᴏ̈ᴋ ʙᴇᴄᴏᴍᴇs ᴀ
ᴘᴏᴘᴜʟᴀʀ ʀᴇsᴛᴀᴜʀᴀɴᴛ ᴏғғᴇʀɪɴɢ ꒱


❝ YES, VERY SAD. ANWAY— ❞

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Loki sat on the bench outside a pair of double doors while Jimin stood across from him, her arms folded across her chest. Her face wore a stoic expression, giving nothing away about her inner thoughts. There were no other signs of impatience that he was used to seeing in mortals, either. No tapping of fingers or feet, no biting of nails or fiddling with hair. The Asian woman stood so still that she might have been made of waxwork.

It was a little unnerving, to say the least.

He truly had no idea what to make of her; from what he'd seen of her life in the projector room she was not on the weaker side of the human spectrum. She'd had her fair share of defeats and successes. As a god, he'd given mortals— especially Midgardians— very little thought. They were even more gullible than his own people, which was certainly saying something. He'd believed that they had been there for his amusement and had never to payed them any mind. (After all, why should he, when his single life spanned so many of their generations?)

The Asgardian was used to humans viewing his people— him, most recently— with respect that even bordered on fear and giving him the honor he was due. He wasn't entirely sure what to. . . do with this one, who that showed none of what he'd grown accustomed to. Perhaps it was because she was so— so opposite of him; she was full of order and discipline whereas he was made up of chaos and mischief and they were destined to repel each other.

Mobius reappeared then, drawing him from his thoughts, and made a gesture for them to follow him. Loki scrambled to his feet and raced after the man while Jimin followed more sedately. "You're probably wondering what happened out there on the mission," he began. "That was your first lesson in catching a Loki— expect the expected. You see, half the fun of being a trickster is knowing everyone knows you're a trickster and then, many of your tricks can come from exploiting the fact that you know that they know—"

"Okay, just shut up!" Mobius snapped. "Please. What happened to the guy I met on the elevator, who didn't like to talk? Remember him? You should take a leaf out of Agent Hui's book because she's not the one that won't stop yacking away about what makes a Loki tick!"

"What? Isn't that precisely why I'm here?" the god asked.

"No. I don't care what makes you tick. You're here to help me catch the superior version of yourself, that's it!"

"Hang on, I'm not sure 'superior' is actually quite the right word."

"See? There it is— right there. I believed, stupidly, that insecure need for validation would motivate you to find the killer. Not 'cause you care about the T.V.A. mission or being a hero, but because you know this Variant is better than you and you-can't-take-it," he added the last words in a mocking, sing-song sort of voice.

They stopped in front of the elevator as Loki gave him a fake smile. "Very nice. I mean, it's adorable that you think you could possibly manipulate me." He stepped forward and condescendingly fixed the man's tie. "I'm ten steps ahead of you, I've been playing a game of my own all along."

"What, charm your way in front of the Time-Keepers, hustle them and seize control of the T.V.A.? Am I getting warm? A double cross by history's most reliable liar."

"Okay, why are you in there sticking your neck out for me?"

Mobius moved towards him. "I'll give you two options and you can believe whichever one you want. A, because I see a scared little boy, shivering in the cold and you kinda feel bad for the ice runt or B, I just wanna catch this guy and I'll tell you whatever I need to tell you."

✧ ✧ ✧ 

Jimin followed Loki and Mobius out of the elevator once they'd arrived on their designated floor, watching the pair give a short-tempered exchange. It had been true what the gray-haired man said: she made an effort not to speak far less than Loki did (though anyone would be hard-pressed to be at his wordy level.) She found her own silence comforting and the quiet made it easier to observe others.

It also gave her time to process the whirlwind of events that had been occurring since they'd landed in the T.V.A.— everything from Loki's trial to their 'road trip' to 1985. While she could act as if she wasn't affected by the quickly-changing locations, it was much harder to accept it herself. Even with the nearly-impossible things she'd experienced during her time at S.H.I.E.L.D. (most notably a 1940s hero emerging from the ice), this took the cake and it was a lot for a single person to process especially in the short amount of time she'd had.

She took her time assimilating the facts and information she'd learned— the videos had been helpful, no matter how much Loki had complained about them— and tried t organize it inside her mind.

They walked along a balcony that overlooked an uncountable number of levels, all connected by a glass elevator that moved up and down along the middle. Jimin noted the three alien-like statues of who— she assumed— were the Time-Keepers themselves standing in a stereotypically religious position, their hands folded in front of them. Mobius explained their task: "I need you to go over each and every one of the Variant's case files and then give me your. . . how do I put it? Your unique Loki perspective and critical observation analysis. Who knows? Maybe there's something we missed."

The Asian woman gave him a brief nod. As usual, though, Loki had more to say. "Well, you're idiots. I suspect you probably missed a lot."

"That's why I'm lucky I got ya for a little bit longer. Let me park you two at this desk. Don't be afraid to really lean into this work. Here's a good trick for you: pretend your life depends on it. I'm gonna get a snack."

Without another word, the agent took the seat with its back facing the rows of files while Loki sat across from her. Paperwork wasn't. . . alien to her, so it was easy— almost soothing— for her to fall into the routine of scanning lines of type to look for a pattern.

✧ ✧ ✧ 

Surprisingly, Loki didn't speak again for some time. Despite the task being rather repetitive, the pair's silence had lasted much longer than Jimin had expected, only to be broken when the god let out a mocking gasp. "Oh my goodness. Don't tell me the Variant ambushed and killed another team of minutemen."

Against her better judgement, Jimin allowed a faint smirk to appear on her face. "And he stole their reset charge as well?" she asked, copying his tone.

Their momentary companionship was interrupted by a woman sitting at a nearby table who shushed them with irritation. Loki, offended, turned around and mimicked the gesture. The Asian woman suppressed the urge to roll her eyes, instead allowing her expression to return to its normal impassive state as her gaze fell back to the papers in front of her.

The god stood without warning and disappeared from view. Jimin only glanced up curiously before she returned to her work. He appeared again shortly after with a stack of papers in his hands. She missed the series of vastly different expressions that crossed his face but as he stood again, she looked up with annoyance. "Do you mind?"

"Come on, let's go." He didn't let her respond as he took off, leaving her with the only choice to hurry after him.

✧ ✧ ✧ 

"I found something," Loki reported as they found Mobius' desk.

The man was not pleased. "No. I said 'don't bother me until you've read all the files.'"

"I have."

"Every file?"

"Yes."

"Pertaining to the Variant?"

"The answer isn't in the files, it's on the timeline," the Asgardian explained as he took the spare seat.

Jimin met Mobius' irritated look with one of her own. "Don't look at me, I don't know what he's on about."

"He's hiding in apocalypses," Loki revealed.

"Which apocalypse?" Mobius asked shortly. "Any time in history? There's, like, a million of 'em."

The god shuffled through the files he'd brought and pulled one out. "Ragnarök, are you familiar?"

"The destruction of Asgard and most of its people, sorry."

"Yes, very sad. Anyway," he hurried on. "It got me thinking. . ."

"That's never a good idea," Jimin muttered, though the god heard her and narrowed his eyes.

"Very clever," he countered drily before he resumed his point. "Nexus events happen when someone does something they're not supposed to do, right?"

"Well, it's a little more complicated but yeah."

"Great," Loki said enthusiastically, giving him a thumbs up. "And then that thing they're not supposed to do cascades into a whole range of other things that aren't supposed to happen and so on and so forth until eventually, a new timeline branches, yes?"

"Chaotic alterations of predetermined outcomes," the man supplied.

"Exactly! So, let's just say. . ." He picked up Mobius' meal. "Your salad is Asgard in this scenario."

"It's not Asgard, that's my lunch."

"A metaphor," the Asian woman realized.

"Yes," Loki agreed with a nod. "For example, I could go to Asgard before Ragnarök causes its complete destruction and I could do anything I wanted." He picked up the nearby salt and pepper shakers. "I could, let's say, push the Hulk off the Rainbow Bridge." He turned the shaker over.

"The salt's Hulk?" Mobius asked.

"And I could also. . . set fire to the palace." He poured more salt onto the salad.

"No, just stop. Don't set fire to the palace," the man sighed.

"Okay?" Loki said, ignoring him. "I can do whatever I want to do and it would never matter." Now he was using both hands to season the salad. "It wouldn't go against the dictations of the timeline because. . ." He put the containers down and picked up the drink can, only to frown when it was empty.

Looking around, he spotted another one at a nearby desk and quickly stood to grab it, ignoring the T.V.A. employee's protest before he returned to his seat. ". . .because the apocalypse is coming. Ragnarök, Surtur, will destroy Asgard no matter what I do." To finish his example, he dumped the can over the bowl, allowing the contents to stream out.

"No, don't do—"

"There's the apocalypse."

"That's the apocalypse?" Mobius' tone only held defeat.

"Ragnarök obliterates the salt." The Asgardian emptied the drink out and smiled. "Ragnarök, there it is."

"What am I looking at?"

"Yes, it was a clumsy metaphor but you see what I mean." Compared to the man's frustration, Loki only seemed more enthusiastic. "It doesn't matter. It could be any apocalypse, it could be a tidal wave. It could be a meteor. It could be a volcano, a supernova. If everything and everyone around you is destined for imminent destruction, then nothing I say or do will matter." He had picked up the salt and pepper again and was energetically shaking them over the salad. "Because the timeline's not gonna branch, 'cause it gets destroyed. Hence, the Variant could be hiding in the apocalypse and do whatever he wants and we wouldn't know."

As loath as she was to admit it, Jimin conceded that Loki might not have been as. . . senseless as she'd originally thought. She'd only had his obsession with world domination to go on, after all, and that was a classic "villain" plot that didn't involve much intelligence— at least in her opinion. But being able to find a loophole in the T.V.A.'s complex organization wasn't really something to sneeze at and she begrudgingly allowed that he might be more credible than she'd originally thought.