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Loki was a fine actor, he would say. A damn good one even. But he had never been particularly good at playing dumb. He’d always start well, all doe-eyed and simple-minded, but then it would start to rankle him. Everyone underestimating him, everyone dismissing him as stupid and unimportant, even if that was exactly the sort of impression he wanted to give. He’d inevitably give into his desire to show off, and that would be the end of that.
Loki did not give into this desire. When this other, false Mobius asked him his name, asked him what he was talking about, Loki had mere seconds to process this and come up with a new plan. He started rambling, apologizing that he was just some low-level grunt and they told him to deliver that message: We did it. Sorry, so sorry, don’t know what it means. I’m just the messenger. Who gave him the message? He thought quickly-- “Hunter C-20.”
And they were off, off to find her, to ask what the message had meant. Giving him plenty of time to steal a TemPad. He did what Lokis do best: he ran away.
He chose a random time at a random place and hoped and wished and prayed that it would somehow lead him to... to where he wanted to go. He didn’t know where, not anymore. Was he even still on the Sacred Timeline? Had he ended up in an alternate universe, a branch that had grown wildly uncontrolled, un-pruned?
He goes through the Timedoor and he thinks, at first, that it must be Fate because there is Sylvie, running towards him. Her body slams into his, teeth clashing as she pulls him down into a kiss, and he thinks— this is home. This could be home. She pulls away with an angry growl and shakes him by his shirt. “How could you do that?” She demands. “After everything! How could you betray me! Do you even know where you sent me?”
“What?” He asks, and his stomach is churning. His heart feels like ice. No. No no no nononono--
“You pushed me through the Timedoor, you asshole! I should have been the one to kill Kang!” She yells.
He might be hyperventilating. “Sylvie,” he says. “You were the one who pushed me through the Timedoor.”
He can see the moment realization sinks in. Her eyes widen, her mouth pinches shut. Her hands slip away from his chest and she takes a step back. And another. And another. She does what Lokis do best: she ran away. Loki lets her go. She wasn’t his Sylvie anyway.
Loki hops from place to place. It’s always a coin toss where he’ll end up, if said coin had an infinite number of sides. The TemPad cannot keep track of the ever-expanding branches. He can pick a spot, and say: I want to go to Paris, year 1899, on June 13 at 4:00 in the afternoon. And it might be the Paris he knew from the Sacred Timeline, or it might be a Paris that never underwent the French Revolution and the French leader is now some clown named King Louis XX.
So, he doesn’t bother. He breezes in and out of places, out of times, not looking at the people around him, not paying attention. It doesn’t matter. None of it matters. He doesn’t belong to these people. He’s lost and there’s no hope of ever getting back. He closes his eyes when he picks his destinations now.
Something crunches under his foot. He steps out of the Timedoor and opens his eyes to a frozen winter landscape. There is some sort of building in the distance, and something glittering. Shining. He squints his eyes and it moves, undulating like the sea, and he realizes it’s armor, gleaming in the dull light. And not just any armor. The Einherjar, his father’s army. He’s on Jotunheim, and there is his father, a fresh bandage over his eye.
He knows this story. There’s a baby in that building, a Frost Giant runt that has been abandoned in the face of the advancing Asgardian army.
His father is stepping out of the temple, but his arms are empty. Where is the baby? Where is he? Loki breaks out into a run. “Wait! Stop!” He calls out as Odin climbs onto his horse, but his voice is lost on the wind. “Help the child!”
Odin rides to the front, the Einherjar following behind. They’re miles ahead by the time Loki reaches the temple. He gasps for breath as he braces one hand against the blocks of ice, barely noticing the blue sheen that starts to cover his skin. It takes him a long time to look up. He’s stalling; he knows he is. He’s scared of what he’ll find. He thinks in this timeline Odin was too late. Loki had died, and the only thing he will see is a tiny blue corpse.
But there’s a muffled cry and Loki jerks his head up, taking a hesitant step inside. The baby is there, swaddled in his blanket, and moving. He’s alive, but then Odin— Loki suddenly understands; this is a Variant Odin. An Odin that looked down at a helpless babe and only saw a monster.
Loki kneels down beside the baby, who stares up at him. His lips are clenched together, his eyes watery, and Loki knows nothing about babies and, in his panic, reaches out to pick him up, to somehow stave off the oncoming cries that are threatening to spill. He’s terrified at how the baby wiggles in his arms. How is he supposed to hold him if he doesn’t stop moving? What if he drops him? He doesn’t want to give himself a concussion.
Loki looks around, clutching this blue, infant version of himself to his chest, as though he’s expecting someone to pop out and say, “Psyche! This was all a joke! We’ll take it from here.” But, of course, no one comes. Little Loki is all alone, with no one but himself to take care of him. Loki thinks for one brief second that he can leave him here on the floor of the temple, like Odin, let him die; maybe the universe would be a better place if Loki never lived past this moment.
He looks down at the baby, at the tiny blue hand that reaches out for him, the watery eyes. If you only knew, Loki thinks. If you only knew the life that awaits you. Maybe you would want me to leave you here. Maybe I should spare you all of that pain and loneliness, let you die.
He can’t do it. He can’t leave him here. If no one else is kind to Loki, then Loki will just have to be kind to himself.
Loki hopes he’s landed on the right branch. Or, at least, an approximate branch since there are no right branches. The first time he went in search of Frigga, he found a different woman, a strange woman by the name of Jord sitting on his mother’s throne. A branch created by a Variant Odin who chose Jord to be his wife, and not Frigga. The second attempt landed him on another branch where Loki was not adopted; whether it was the same branch caused by the first Variant Odin, the Odin that left the baby to die, or if something else had happened along the timeline that had prevented Loki’s birth altogether, he didn’t know.
He steps quietly through the palace, keeping himself cloaked from Heimdall’s prying eyes. The baby is asleep; he’s been sleeping a lot. He won’t take the formula Loki procures for him. Loki had even, in his desperation, shifted into a woman to try and breastfeed, but, of course, he wasn’t in milk and the baby wouldn’t latch. Little Loki is getting weaker.
Loki winds his way through the palace, searching for his mother like the lost little boy he is, when he finally finds her in her weaving room. He stops at the threshold, hesitant, scared; he doesn’t know what’s worse, a mother disappointed in his actions or a mother who doesn’t recognize him. Frigga must sense a presence behind her, because the clanging slats of the loom stop, and she shifts on her bench. She looks over her shoulder, beautiful, radiant, golden. She stops breathing. In her haste to stand she knocks into the loom, her bench falls over, and she’s racing towards him.
He’s worried this is a Frigga who doesn’t know him, a Frigga who will think he is an intruder come to harm her, and he clutches the baby tighter to his chest, but all she does is grasp his face and stare wildly into his eyes. She runs her thumbs over his cheeks like she isn’t sure the skin beneath them is real. “It’s you?” She asks. “It is you, isn’t it? You’re back? You’ve come home?”
Loki doesn’t know what to say. He’s not exactly sure what she means. He shifts the baby; Little Loki is feeling heavier in his arms. “Please,” he says. “I don’t know what to do.”
Frigga takes a half-step back, one hand still clutching his sleeve, and takes in the sight of him. He’s still in his female body, having not bothered to shift back after that last helpless attempt to feed Little Loki. He’s a woman, his hair disheveled, his clothes wrinkled and torn, there are scratches and bruises marring his skin from the less-than-friendly branches he stumbled onto, and finally the Jotun baby in his arms. He can imagine what his mother must think.
She carefully schools her expression and gently – too gently, like he might break – guides him into a chair. “I can’t feed him,” Loki explains, his voice cracking. “And he won’t drink formula. Please, I think he’s dying.”
Frigga nods and she’s about to run out of the room when Loki grasps onto her dress. “Don’t tell anyone I’m here.” He doesn’t want to complicate things. The fewer that know about his presence, the better.
Frigga takes his hand from her dress, presses it against her cheek and kisses his palm. “I will return,” she promises. “I will not speak to anyone before you are ready.” And then she’s gone.
It takes less than ten minutes, but when she returns, she is carrying a bottle of what looks to be milk. Loki wants to protest, he wants to say that the baby won’t drink milk, but Frigga pushes the bottle into his hands and helps guide him. “Latch,” Frigga commands as Little Loki slowly blinks open his eyes. “Latch. Latch.” The baby is struggling, his movements weak and slow. “You can do it. Take it.”
Loki can hear the thread of magic in her words. It’s the same magic she used on him as a child, the calming command that wiped away his tears and filled him with a sense of love. It spurs Little Loki on and he does it, he latches, and he doesn’t drink much but he drinks and Loki is so happy. His body feels so large, so full of emotion that it is bursting out of him and he grins down at the suckling infant from behind his tears.
He sees Frigga’s pale hand reach out to touch the baby, stroking the thin black fuzz that covers his blue forehead. “I went through the same thing with you,” she says. “Until I finally figured it out: sheep’s milk. It has a very high fat content and it’s the closest thing to Frost Giant breast milk I could find, next to a Frost Giant herself.” She’s throwing him little glances and trying to be discreet about it. Loki lets her look all she wants; he only has eyes for the infant resting in his arms. “Did your milk not come in?”
She thinks he birthed this child himself, and of course she does, what other conclusion could she possibly come to? Not the truth. Loki doesn’t bother to explain, and just shakes his head.
“That happens sometimes. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. Is it a boy or a girl?”
“A boy.”
She smiles. “I have a grandson! What did you name him?”
It’s funny how such a simple question could spring new ideas in his head. Since taking him, Loki has been calling him Loki. It was the name Odin saw fit to give them. Except that Odin didn’t name this child. This child is not yet a Loki. He can be anything, anything at all.
“I don’t know,” he says, a little bewildered. “I-I mean, I didn’t, I haven’t--”
Her hand leaves the child and reaches up to stroke his hair. “Loki, it’s alright, you're home now, nothing will ever harm you again.” Her hand is shaking, and she tries to bite back a sob, but it tears from her throat anyway. “I’ve been waiting twenty years for you to come back to me! And you’re here, you’re finally here— when they told me that you fell from the Bifrost, they said you were dead. That no one could survive, but I didn’t believe it. If anyone could find a way, it would be you. What happened? Who did this to you?”
A Variant Thanos might have created this branch, a Thanos who tested Loki and found him wanting, a Thanos who did not bother breaking him but killed him outright. Or perhaps it was a Loki, a Loki that finally found the courage to kill himself instead of spending one more day in the Mad Titan’s clutches. He wonders if Mobius apprehended that Variant Loki, if he dragged the poor creature, on the verge of suicide, into the TVA and dumped him at the end of time.
Thinking of all the ways this timeline could have been created just reminds Loki that this is not his mother. He wants to leave. He wants to get away from her hands that touch him too softly, too gently and run. “I have to go,” he says, standing abruptly. “Thank you for telling me about the sheep’s milk, but I... I have to go.”
She grabs onto him, clings. “No! I just got you back, I’m not losing you again!”
Loki pulls, his heart beating too fast. He feels caged in, he needs to get away, and he struggles against this stranger’s grasp. The baby is jostled, and he starts to cry. “I can’t stay! Let me go!”
“Loki,” she pleads. “Whatever it is, we can fix it! You don’t have to run away, darling! Please! It is the child? There’s no shame if you were forced, no one would think any less of you! If you want to keep him, we will love him, your father, your brother, and myself! If you don’t then we will find a good family to take him in! He will be loved, well-cared for! Whatever you want! Please, let us help you!”
“No!”
The door swings open and there is Thor, golden and radiant just like their mother. He is staring at the scene in front of him: his brother, dirty and hurt, in the shape of a woman, curled protectively around a squalling blue infant. Frigga, holding onto him by the arm, pleading for him to stay. And it’s too much. The love and fear and hurt and want that is pouring from both of them is overwhelming, made worse by the fact that it isn’t for him. All that love is for another Loki. Not him. Not him.
He wrenches free of Frigga’s gasp and the force of the momentum nearly sends him into the wall. Thor has his hands up and he’s making quiet noises, like he’s trying to calm a spooked horse. Loki barrels straight for him and if he hadn’t been holding the baby, he has no doubt Thor would have just grabbed him, but instead he jumps out of the way and Loki is gone, careening down the halls at full speed. He fumbles for the TemPad and in front of him appears a Timedoor.
He’s gone.
Loki spends the next few months in Constantinople, under Emperor Justinian. He’s got easy access to sheep’s milk and the baby is thriving. He shifts back to his default male form, because this century is not kind to women and he’s not looking to make things harder for himself.
He hates himself for doing it, but he also casts an illusion on his mini-self, turning the blue into pink. He doesn’t want some ignorant peasants trying to burn them at the stake. And Loki was just starting to like the blue, too.
Loki still hasn’t decided on a name, other than Not Loki. “Well, we are in the East Roman Empire,” Loki says to the child, who gurgles up at him. He smiles at Loki, he always smiles at Loki, happy to have his attention, and Loki could love him for that alone. “How about a good Roman name? Maybe Cornelius? It means horn.” He brushes his fingers over the child’s head where two little nubs had formed, before Loki’s magic hid them away. The baby laughs and kicks his feet. “No? Hmm, alright, what about Livius? It means blue.” It also means envious which is not something he wants to saddle this younger, vulnerable version of himself with. No Livius. “I think I’ll go with Felix. At least for now. That one means lucky and, frankly, we could use a little bit of luck.”
There’s a knock on his door. Loki picks the baby — Felix, he tries, testing the name out — up from his cradle. “Bia is here,” he says to him. “Let’s go open the door for her.” He’s been living in an insula—a Roman-era apartment block. He keeps himself to himself, going out only to buy necessities. His coin is good — even if, technically, it’s only an illusion, but what the merchants don’t know can’t hurt them — and he knows he’s the subject of much gossip among his neighbors. He doesn’t work, but he’s got plenty of money, and yet he lives in a cheap, one-room insula with a baby and no woman to care for it.
Bia clucks her tongue as she takes the baby. “You need to get yourself a wetnurse.”
“The child requires a very special diet. He needs to be fed only sheep’s milk.”
“Hmm!” The old woman doesn’t sound convinced, but her roving eye checks the baby over and can find no fault. “And have you picked a name yet?”
“I was thinking Felix.”
“Ugh!” She speaks. “I knew a Felix. He cheated me out of an amphora of wine! It was so old, it had turned into vinegar!”
Maybe not Felix then. This baby was going to be a different kind of Loki. A Loki that didn’t need to rely on tricks.
“I’ll keep thinking about it,” he says. “I’ll be back within the hour.”
“Yes, yes,” Bia waves her hand. “Go. Get some sun. You spend too much time in this room.”
Loki climbs down the stairs and steps out into the street, his long tunic kicking up the dust behind him. The market is packed with carts and animals and the press of bodies. It reminds him of Pompeii, which, in turn, reminds him of Mobius and his heart tugs with that ever-present feeling of loss.
He’s haggling with the baker over a loaf of bread — not that he has to haggle with a purse full of conjured coin that will disappear by the end of the day, he just finds it fun to out-maneuver and out-think this puny human and come out on top with a loaf of bread that only cost him half the price — when he sees her. A girl — in that awful stage of puberty where you are neither a child nor an adult and you feel so much and you have no idea what to do or how to live your life but damn your parents, you’re going to live it how you want to anyway — pockets a fig. She does it so cleanly, so neatly, with a flick of her wrist in the same way Loki flicks his when he’s pulling out his daggers.
This girl is him. He recognizes himself in her black, curling hair and those blue eyes and her sharp, pointed features. Yes, he would be about that age at this point in Midgard’s history, wouldn’t he? In two more centuries, he and Thor will have reached their majority and spend the next hundred years or so kicking around Scandinavia and causing so much trouble that the Norsemen will create a whole new religion out of their exploits.
What is she doing here, and why is she a she? Loki learned the very basics of shapeshifting by the age of ten; he couldn’t make himself taller, or turn into a snake yet, but he could change his hair color, his eye color, or – more importantly – his genitals. He started experimenting with his gender and liked being a girl when the mood struck him, but he got so much teasing from Thor and his friends that he stopped doing it and didn’t try changing genders again until he was much, much older. Loki suspected that was Sylvie’s Nexus event. She had always been braver than him; he could see her standing up to Thor and saying, “I like being a girl, and I’ll be a girl whenever I want!” A Loki unafraid to be herself was not a Loki that could be tolerated.
Is this Sylvie? On the run from the TVA? She looks thin, and haggard. Not a pampered princess, not like Loki. He pulls his magic around him, and the eyes of the Midgardians slide right past him, allowing him to move unseen through the crowd.
“That was a very neat trick you just pulled,” Loki whispers into her ear after suddenly appearing behind her.
She nearly jumps out of her skin and there’s a blade suddenly pressed against his stomach. “I’m not going back,” she hisses.
Loki holds up his hands. “The TVA wants me just as much as they want you.”
Little Sylvie scowls up at him. “TVA? What is that? What are you talking about?”
His heart sinks a little. Not Sylvie. Or, at least, this version of Sylvie is so wildly off-course she might as well not be a Sylvie. She’s looking him over, taking in his hair, his eyes, his face, his green tunic, and then back at the top again. It must be like looking in a funhouse mirror. Here’s what you will look like as a grown man. He thinks, come on, figure it out, you’re clever, you can do it. “You don’t look like one of the Einherjar,” she says, cautiously.
Loki’s eyebrows shoot up his forehead. Now, why would a Loki – who is only maybe thirteen or fourteen in Midgardian years – be on the run from Asgard? “Hah! No, I am most certainly not that! I’m afraid I’m not suited to Valhalla. No Valkyrie will carry me off when I die.” He opens his palm, let’s the fireworks dance along his fingers. “We always took more after Mother.”
He brings her back to his apartment and Bia grunts when she sees her. “Pick her up in the slave market? It’s good you got someone to take care of the babe, but she looks scrawny. I hope you didn’t pay too much for her.”
Loki is offended on behalf of his younger self. She is a Princess of Asgard, not a slave! He decides to leave Constantinople. He’s spent too long here anyway. He was getting comfortable, and he didn’t like that feeling. He takes the girl with him.
The girl – who is Loki and has no other name – could very well be a Sylvie who was never picked up by the TVA, a Sylvie allowed to grow free, and it breaks Loki’s heart that she still ended up all alone and on the run. “I like being a girl, and I wanted to stay a girl,” she says as she grabs a box of Lucky Charms off the shelf of a Kroger grocery store. “But Father—I mean, All-Father, I mean-I mean Odin.” She struggles to find the right name for Odin, and it’s a struggle that Loki knows all too well. “He didn’t like that, and he wouldn’t tell me why. Not for the longest time. He just kept saying that I was destined to be a king. And I kept on asking, why couldn’t I be a queen instead? Well! I wish I had kept my mouth shut, because I guess that got him thinking. He told me everything. That I was a Jotun, and that I was Laufey’s only child, and that he planned to give me Jotunheim when old Laufey kicked the bucket. Except Jotunheim doesn’t let girls take the throne; only boys, which is dumb. But if I really wanted to be a girl, then he would accept it because my sons could still inherit Jotunheim. Can you guess who he wanted to marry me off to? Can you guess?” Her eyes were glittering in a dangerous way. Loki clutched the box of diapers. He could guess, and he really, really hoped he was wrong. Not even Odin could be so thickheaded—
“Thor,” she said, her voice low, and sounding too old for a child her age. “He wanted to marry me to Thor, and that would solve all of his problems, wouldn’t it? Everything wrapped up in a neat bow. The thrones of Asgard and Jotunheim uniting under one, legitimate ruler. It’s not like Thor and I were really siblings.” She sounds like she’s quoting someone. Odin, probably. “I wasn’t going to do it, so I ran away.” She shrugs like it doesn't mean anything. Like the man she had known all her life as her father hadn’t told her that she was an adopted Jotun runt that had been taken for political gain. Like she hadn’t been pressured to marry her brother. Like she hadn’t lost everyone she knew and loved and spent the next few years of her life living a piteous existence as a street urchin on Midgard.
He pulls her into a hug. He wishes he had gotten more these when he was her age. He wishes he gotten more of these, period. It feels nice. This little girl Loki gives him token protests: his sweater is itchy, people are watching, she’s not a baby. But she doesn’t pull away either.
Loki doesn’t start hunting down alternate versions of himself, but he does keep on the lookout. Jumping around as much as he does, he’s bound to run into a few. He tends to steer clear of any adult Lokis—with two kids in tow, he can’t trust himself not to hurt them. Maybe they’re good Lokis, maybe they’ve picked the right decision every time, but he’s not willing to take the chance. And, if he’s being honest with himself, he doesn’t think he could stand the sight of a perfect Loki. A Loki that got to live the life he always wanted, a life where he was loved and appreciated and unharmed.
The third Loki he takes is very, very familiar. He knows this Loki, he met him at the End of Time where he was king. They are on Vanaheim, the homeland of their mother, Frigga. The still unnamed baby Loki is toddling now – and, really, he has got to find a name for the kid – and more or less walking. Loki thinks he will take his first steps any day now, he just needs the confidence to let go of Loki’s hand. Loki lets him hold on for as long as he needs to.
He’s pointing out the sights to his teen Loki, telling her the stories their mother once told him. They’re not far from the palace Frigga grew up in, and he describes it to her. She has vague memories of visiting it as a child, exploring the woods and mountains with Thor by her side. They take one of the hunting trails that wind between two cliffs, re-visiting all of their favorite sites and trying not to think about Thor or Mother or even Father who, despite all the pain and anger they still somehow love, and wouldn’t it be so much easier if they could just hate him completely and forget all about him? But they’re forcing themselves to laugh anyway as they climb and that’s when they see him.
There is Loki, King at the End of Time, wailing over the broken body of Thor. He’s clutching Thor’s red tunic and shaking him, calling to him over and over to wake up, to stop playing, that he’s sorry, he didn’t mean it, it was an accident.
Loki hands the baby over to Girl Loki and walks up to him. He remembers this—or, at least, a variation of this. He had been climbing over the mountains with Thor, and roughhousing. He had been getting ready to push Thor when he noticed just how close their playing had taken them to the edge and managed to pull back in time, at which point Thor had promptly pounced on him and then they had rolled in the opposite direction, away from the drop. This Loki... this Loki did not stop in time. The TVA should have come and taken him, but there is no one here. Or, rather, the TVA had come and taken him, and Loki had met that variant, but this is a variant of a variant and this variant wasn’t taken and— stupid time travel, Loki really hates it sometimes.
King Loki clutched at his arm. “Help him, please, help him! We can take him to the healers! Please, sir, please!”
Thor’s eyes are wide open and unseeing. His neck is twisted. What a stupid way for the God of Thunder to die.
Loki opens his arms and King Loki folds into them. What else can Loki do but take this Loki too? He can only imagine what life would be like for him in Asgard, blamed for Thor’s death. Odin and Frigga, they might stand by him, defend him, but they’ll start to wonder— is it just in his nature? He is a Frost Giant. They’re cruel and vicious and they cause nothing but pain. He was always destined to cause pain.
The fourth Loki is not a Loki he could ever have imagined existing, not in his wildest dreams.
His collection of little blue orphans seems to be getting along, even if he does occasionally look at them and think: we are all very fucked up. Girl Loki is using King Loki as a replacement Thor; she pranks him, teases him, and all around tries to play with him like they used to do with their brother. She misses Thor, and Loki thinks, she's also a little afraid of Thor. Afraid of what might have happened if she had stayed. And King Loki is too traumatized with how his own Thor died to prank her back, worried that he might overdo it and kill her too. Loki is feeling out of his depth; he's barely in control of his own issues (he thinks Mobius might have words about that, since kidnapping alternate child versions of himself probably do not fall into the realm of 'keeping control'), he has no idea how to help these Lokis.
But they’re trying and, anyway, no matter how bad it gets, no matter how many feelings they all step on, or old wounds they open, or nightmares they have—at least it’s better than where they came from, and that’s something. Loki is going to hold on to that.
So, it’s very strange to meet a Loki who is... almost well-rounded.
She’s another girl, but younger than both Girl Loki and King Loki – seven maybe, or eight by Midgard’s standards – so she must have learned shapeshifting at a younger age. But the fact that she is a girl isn’t what catches Loki’s eye at first, it’s the horns. Curved horns, like a goat’s, jut from her forehead. He knows he has horns in his Jotun form, but they’re blue and white, not brown and ridged like hers. The rest of her is mostly Asgardian. Pale skin, blue eyes, black hair that falls to her waist, a green dress. "Hello,” she greets them, holding a doll in her arms. “Have you come to pay tribute to Mother?”
Loki had let the TemPad pick a random place and time, and it took them to Alexandria, Egypt, during the reign of Cleopatra VII. Loki had expected an ancient metropolis, was prepared to take the kids and flee in case they landed on a branch where something had gone catastrophically wrong and the Earth was in its death throes, but not... not this. Alexandria was a thriving metropolis, alright, but a thriving Asgardian metropolis. Asgardian tech is everywhere, for all the streets are filled with Midgardians.
Well, his curiosity won’t let this go until he finds out what Nexus event has caused this, and so he heads in the direction of Cleopatra’s palace, hoping to get some answers. He gets them, Valhalla, does he get them. Carved out of solid onyx there towers a statue of the Queen—not Cleopatra, not Frigga, but Hela. This is a Hela who won the civil war against Odin. This is a Hela who conquered Jotunheim. This is a Hela who found a baby abandoned in a temple and raised her in her own image. Loki never actually met his own Hela, having been taken by the TVA while still in New York, but he saw her on the Chrono reel. He saw the kind of monster she is.
Horned Loki is seated on the steps of the palace, playing with her dolls. She is obviously doted upon, spoiled and well-loved. She is aware of her true heritage, picking and choosing which Jotun traits she wants to display and which traits she models after her own beloved mother. She’s all sweetness and smiles; she’s the apple of her mother’s eye, Hela’s only child. There is no Thor. Odin and Frigga were murdered before they could beget their second-born. This Loki runs up to them, eager to meet new people. She has no fear. “Tribute?” Loki asks, his smile strained.
Horned Loki nods. “Oh, yes, everyone loves Mother so much that they give her such pretty things!”
“And... where is Her Majesty?”
“She’s helping the Skrulls. Mother says they’re a savage people and they need our help. Sometimes, people just don’t know what’s good for them. That’s what Mother says.” Horned Loki shrugs, but then brightens. “Mother has promised to bring me along to the next planet. She says I’m old enough to learn. I’m going to be Queen someday.”
Oh, and what a Queen she would be, learning at the feet of Hela. Loki isn’t going to let that happen. He does something that he promised not to do way back when he first took his infant self. He lies to the girl. He lies like Odin. “Your Mother has asked me to tutor you—”
Horned Loki frowns. “But I already have a governess. She’s a witch. She knows lots of stuff.”
“I know more than your governess. You’re a very smart little girl, look at you knowing how to shapeshift at your age!” And like every Loki he’s ever met, this little Horned Loki preens at the compliment. “Your Mother says it’s time for you to learn more advanced magic. Come along, I have a special trip planned for you.”
One day, he’ll tell her the truth. He’ll tell her that Hela was a tyrant. He’ll tell her about the cowed and frightened faces of the humans he saw walking through Alexandria. He’ll tell her that they were not meant to be God-Emperors. Later, when she’s older, and he hopes it won’t shatter her like Odin’s lies shattered him.
It’s 1992 and they’re at a beach on the Gulf of Mexico. He doesn’t know why he chose this year, or why this place, except maybe he was feeling a little nostalgic. He doesn’t know if his Mobius ever got a chance to ride on a jet-ski, but if he couldn’t then Loki will do it for him.
Girl Loki and Horned Loki are laughing as they ride the waves back onto the beach on their pink, inflatable raft (and, honestly, he’s got to come up with a new name for Girl Loki—there are two Lokis that are girls now, she’s got to be something other than Girl Loki). Loki has King Loki by the arm, and the boy is putting up a valiant effort, but Loki isn’t letting him squirm out of his grasp. “You. Need. Sunscreen.” He all but hisses. “We burn very easily!” He slaps another dollop on the boy’s back, who bellows at the sudden cold.
Baby Loki is digging in the sand and looking very blue. They’re alone on the beach, no one is here to see them, and the baby needs to keep cool. He can do that much better when he’s blue. The little nubs on his forehead are growing bigger every day and the skin is soft, almost velveteen and Loki is amazed that something so soft could belong to a Frost Giant.
“This is... this is very you.”
Loki freezes at the sound of Mobius’s voice. It’s not his Mobius. It can’t be. The odds of re-uniting with his Mobius are astronomical and he’s already given him up, he’s moved on—
Mobius, in a Hawaiian shirt and cut-off khaki shorts, plops into the sand next to him. “Look at you, doing the family thing. Granted, it’s a bunch of yous, but your missus is also a you—”
“There is no ‘missus.’ It’s just us.”
Mobius gives him a piercing look. “What happened to Sylvie?”
Loki shrugs. “She decided there was something out there more important than me.” It happens. Lots of things are more important than Loki, he understands that now. He’s learning not to be so bitter.
“I’m sorry.”
“I’ve moved on.”
King Loki is side-eyeing Mobius and makes a break for it the moment Loki slackens his grip. He runs to his sister-selves who are creeping back onto the shore and dragging their raft behind them. They’re eyeing Mobius and whispering among themselves. And giggling. That’s probably not a good sign.
Only Baby Loki remains oblivious. “Hey, buddy,” Mobius says and holds out his hands to the baby, trying to get him to walk toward him. “Want to come see me?”
Baby Loki pretends to be shy, smiles, and ducks his head.
“He’s not actually a Loki, you know,” Loki says.
“No? He’s just another Frost Giant runt you happened to pick up? Or—” Mobius doesn’t say it, but Loki can tell by his expression that he’s wondering if Loki fathered the boy, or birthed him as the case may be.
“He’s a me, but he isn’t a Loki. Odin rejected him, so he was never named that.”
“What’s his name then?”
Loki sighs. “It’s a work in progress. Nothing seems to fit.”
“You can always name him after someone you know, maybe after the kind, handsome man you met at the TVA?” Mobius nudges him.
Loki grins and scoops up Baby Loki. “That’s perfect! I know just what to call you!” He tickles the baby and proclaims, “I shall name you Casey. Casey Lokison.”
Mobius barks out a laugh. “You little shit.”
Loki doesn’t know if this is his Mobius. There are so many mundane decisions people make throughout their lives and there’s no telling which decision might have created a branch. Maybe this Mobius wore a gray tie instead of a beige one. But he feels like his Mobius. He feels like comfort, he feels like home. And for now, that’s enough.