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English
Series:
Part 5 of Nora and the Variants
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Published:
2022-02-15
Completed:
2022-02-26
Words:
6,270
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2/2
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70
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73
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Chartreuse and Pumpkin

Summary:

When another Loki gets pruned a newly made TVA analyst is assigned to question him. She's not so sure she's ready.

Notes:

(See the end of the work for notes.)

Chapter 1: Variations on a Theme

Chapter Text



“I think we may have gotten off on the wrong foot.”  

Normally Loki would not start a negotiation whilst visibly armed, yet he approached Odin’s daughter - the idea she was his sister would not quite make itself real within his mind - sauntering slow and steady, with one hand open in friendship and the other holding a dagger. 

For to approach the Goddess of Death otherwise would have been disrespectful.

She raised a perfect brow, “You mean when I tried to kill you and the big one and you ran like dogs?  Not to be rude to dogs.  I’d prefer you to be dogs.  They don’t talk.”  The last word ended on a hard click of the tongue.  

Loki kept his smile easy, open, “I prefer to call it a tactical retreat.  I know War Gods are not generally fond of retreating, but it can have its place in a properly strategized battle.”  

Looking at Hela, Loki had to wonder who her mother was.  Not Frigga, certainly.  The black-haired, angular goddess had none of the warmth and ease that their mother’s Vanir blood had given to Thor.

“Running was your strategy, then?  Yes, the other one of Odin's bouncing baby boys doesn’t seem like the running type.”  She leaned one hand on her green-clad hip and looked at the black nails of the other, blowing on them so they turned to a different shade.  Of black.  

Obsidian in place of onyx.  

Loki corrected her.  “No, it was a tactic.  Tactics are the steps that make up a strategy.  But don’t feel bad about it.  Thor doesn’t know the difference, either.”

For a moment Hela’s eyes left her manicure to look at him and Loki felt his own smile spread just a bit.  This was the moment.  She would either laugh and they might be able to negotiate, or she’d try to kill him.  Based on the amount of power he knew she wielded as, he hoped, the temporary All-Mother he was fairly certain she would succeed where so many other tyrants had failed.

Loki smiled.  Too many teeth and only as much sincerity as was required.

Hella smiled back.  It was like looking into a mirror.  Then she slunk towards a massive, cushion-strewn divan. “Pour some wine for us, little brother.”

There was a carafe of black, spiced wine on a tray with only one goblet.  Loki manifested one to match, and Hella clapped her hands together in a slightly mocking gesture.  “You learned from Frigga, I take it?  I always knew Odin would end up marrying her after my mother was exiled.”

Loki considered if he should answer, but he knew the contemptuous tone she used to talk about his mother was a test and he was determined not to fail.  Instead, he sat down, offering her one of the goblets.  

She drank, looking at him over the golden rim, her black-rimmed cat's eyes blinking slowly.

“You remind me of Odin,” she said slowly, then quickly adding, “as I believe I mentioned, but you also remind me of your mother.  Or rather of ou-”

Which was when the TVA showed up.

 

As a newly minted agent/analyst Amser thought she would be given a soft-ball first for her initial interrogation.  One of the run-of-the-mill cases that made up most of the work the Time Variance Authority did to keep the Sacred Timeline intact.

A delivery person who accidentally dropped off a pair of sneakers to the wrong house, messing up a future Olympic victory.

A bartender that cut off someone who was supposed to be maimed in a drunk driving accident.

Maybe a soldier who refused her orders to commit an atrocity.

Just a few scenes from their life showing how they had stepped out of their pre-ordained role in the flow of time to ensure that they had not been influenced to do so by outside forces and then off to the courtroom to be condemned.

Tried , to be tried, she thought to herself.  They get condemned after they are tried. 

But no.  No such luck.  Not for Clepsydra Amser.  Nope.  Nope. Nope.

“I don’t think I can do this…. “ she moaned, letting her head fall softly to the surface of the cafeteria table.  

A few locks of her hair fell into her pasta salad.  Which was perfectly in keeping with the rest of her day.

“It’s going to be fine.  You can do this!” Casey said, lifting his bottle of Tab to clink on her glass of Fresca.  “You are the first clerk to be made an analyst in … no one can remember how long which is kind of weird when you consider we remember everything … but it doesn’t matter.  You’re the one who discovered that a broken timelooper left behind by one of our extraction teams five thousand years ago was the reason for that anomaly on Titan that kept recurring.  And that report that you filed about the potential problem with the apocalypses that the higher-ups filed unread turned out to be entirely right!  You were clearly created by the Timekeepers for this!”

Raising her head, she looked at her friend’s sweet, excited smile.  “You’re just as capable as I am Casey.  Maybe more so.  You would be a great hunter, if you got the chance.”

His smile slowly faded, “No.  I’m not cut out for it.  I let that Variant get the drop on me and he almost got away.  I got assaulted right in my own office.”

“Hey,” Amser raised her drink and let him give her a ‘cheers’, “that Variant got the drop on Hunter B-15, AND got away from Mobius, AND ran off with that other Variant they keep missing.  That puts you in some pretty good company, I’d say.”

His smile back, Casey took a big swig of cyclamine and saccarine, almost choking in the process.

It was very rare, almost unheard of, for a clerk to be raised to the rank of an agent in the TVA.  Most of the analysts came from the ranks of the Hunters, or sometimes a Minuteman would skip Hunter entirely if they showed enough investigative skills.  Mobius was probably the most famous example of that.  

And Agent was the only route to being a Justice.  

So among the clerks, for one of their own to become an Agent wasn’t just a personal victory for Amser, it was a victory for them all.

“I was reading his records.  I feel kind of bad for this one.  He was really close to making it all of the way to the end.  Really close.  Like less than a day.”  

Actually, she felt kind of bad for a lot of the Lokis, now that she’d seen their records.  Not that it changed anything.  The Timekeepers knew what was best.  She was sure of it.  Entirely, utterly, sure.

The pocket-watch that she had been given as a symbol of her new authority chimed softly in her suit jacket pocket.  She needed to go if she wasn’t going to be the first agent in the history of the TVA to be late to an interrogatory session.

“Ok.  Right.  I can do this.”  Standing, tucking those few slightly oily locks of hair behind her ear, straightening her jacket, and picking up the many, many files she’d been given earlier, Agent Amser nodded down at her friend and marched off towards the bay of elevators.

Once the doors closed, she slumped, holding the files against her chest, causing the non-regulation good luck charm she wore to dig into her sternum.

She really couldn’t do this.  

Loki Variants were somehow both the most common and among the most dangerous and tricky - “Trickster, ha…” she thought weakly - Variants that the TVA dealt with.  Normally they were taken straight to trial and pruned without interrogation because they were too much trouble otherwise. The last one had proved to be too much even for Mobius M. Mobius, Judge Renslayer’s favorite agent.  

Somehow his actions had led to Mobius’s disgrace and summary pruning, meaning that their greatest Loki expert was gone.  

Judge Renslayer was out of communication and there was something strange going on with the Hunters as well, and all of the other Justices were busy taking up the slack in their courts, leaving a Loki in a Time Theater and Amser the only one free to deal with him.

She had read the files on the Lokis.  

There were a lot of files, but she had read every single one of them.  Even the ones that wouldn’t be of any assistance because there was no such thing as being too prepared.

Nodding at the Minuteman who was guarding the door with what she hoped was calm authority, Amser entered the Time Theater.  Amser had hoped they would have put him in one of the other types of rooms.  The showings of Variant’s life-reels she had observed as part of her training was the part she liked least.  There was a cruelty to it that seemed — unnecessary to the greater mission of the TVA.  How did making people watch their unlived lives help keep the Sacred Timeline safe, she had often wondered as she watched the sobbing and heard the shouting and the rest of the normal reactions.

Still, the Timekeepers knew all, so there had to be a reason.

Seated, wearing a TVA prisoner jumpsuit and a Time Displacement collar the Loki Variant leaned back on his chair and gave her what would have been a terrifying smile if they had been anywhere other than in the TVA where she held the controller to his collar and where his fairly impressive array of magic wouldn’t work. 

During her who knew how many years in the TVA, Amser had seen more Loki Variants pass through than she could count.  They came in a variety of shapes, colors, species, and genders, but the most common ones were of the same type as this one.  An Asgardian and male presenting Jotun shapeshifter with black hair, pale skin, and an arrogant, ridiculously handsome face.

If you were attracted to bipedal, carbon-based lifeforms descended from a branch of Hominidae or their equivalent.  Amser was one herself, so she was.

Despite this type of Loki being all but identical, there was something different about this one. She just couldn’t put her finger on what and there was nothing in the files.   

His eyes bored into hers.  They were a venomous, yellowy-green that reminded Amser of something.

“Hi,” she put out a hand.  Mobius had always been friendly with the Variants.  The contrast between his genial behavior and the rude authoritarianism of the Minutemen and Hunters could be a useful tactic in an interrogation and frankly, having never been a Minuteman, Amser had never learned to be scary.  “I’m Agent Clepsydra Amser, but you can just call me Amser.  Clepsydra is a bit of mouthful.”

The Variant looked at her hand as if it was filled with dog droppings.

“I don’t care who you are, or what I am supposed to be doing here, but I think you should know, I’m going to burn this place to the ground,” he said with a bit of a laugh, crossing his arms over his chest.

His impressive arms over his impressive chest.  

“Can you wait until I’m on assignment somewhere nice?”  She took the seat across from him, “Paris in the 20s?  Or maybe the fourth moon of Grava-Martre in 84941?  I wouldn’t mind being stuck there for a while.  They have great pastries.  Nothing like a properly made fastnacht, am I right?  And there is this amazing bar where they have this drink made with -”

 

Loki raised a brow as the latest, undistinguished would-be authority figure snapped her fingers, pointing one close to his nose, “Chartreuse!”

A quick, silly smile crossed her face and for that moment she seemed less beige and functionary.  Then just as quickly she was a grey, badly fitted suit, blandly pleasant expression, and nothing else. 

He could tell she wanted him to ask what she meant by that outburst.  

He refused.

She lowered her hand, looking slightly embarrassed by his bored silence.  “Er.  Your eyes.  I couldn’t figure out what shade of green they are.  All of you Lokis have slightly different coloured eyes, sometimes it's the only way to tell you apart if we have a few of you in all at once and you're in the jumpsuits.  Yours are chartreuse.  It’s a really disgusting liquor made on Earth.  Pretty colour, though.”

That was true, but Loki wouldn’t grant her even that much.  

“Now,” she visibly recentered herself, trying to look like a figure of authority, flipping open the top file of the large stack she had come in awkwardly carrying, for a moment, he thought she was going to drop them when she first entered, “let's get started.  You were apprehended for crimes against the Sacred Timeline.  Specifically for approaching Hela, the Asgardian Goddess of Death, in an attempt to ally with her, which was in fact a part of a larger strategy that would have, if successful, led to Thor, the Asgardian God of Thunder, taking his place as All-Father, thus delaying Ragnarok by an untold number of millennia.”

Loki said nothing.  She was beneath his consideration.  This whole place was.

“If it makes you feel any better, from what I’ve read here, I am sure it would have worked.”

“I KNEW IT!”  Loki slammed a palm to the table, jumping from his chair.  

The agent laughed.  A ridiculous, small snort of a laugh, that for a moment made her dull brown eyes bright and cheeks flush a little pink.  As if she were a full and actual person rather than a component in a machine.  “I mean, it would have taken a bit of luck.  The timing of the arrival of the Hulk.  But you clearly accounted for Professor Banner’s reluctance to transform.  And then the business with the fish was really clever.”

“Yes, well, that related to an instance when my brother went diving when we were supposed to be studying Dark Elvish runes,” he leaned on the table.  “Now that was a story….”

“I know!  I read it in your file.  Especially the part where -”  

Loki frowned at her excitement over invading his privacy.  Sitting down, he sniffed hard, “Why do you smell like vinegar and oil?” 

The smile stopped.  Tucking a stray, greasy strand of short hair behind her ear, after softly brushing the front of her blouse where he could make out something beneath the cheap cotton.  A piece of jewellery, perhaps. 

She took a controller out of her pocket and Loki stiffened, already having experienced the joy of the Time Displacement Collar and did not wish to repeat the experience.  Even though as he had waited it had occurred to him that there were more amatory uses for the infernal contraption that he might want to explore later.  

Once he freed himself, destroyed the TVA, and saved Asgard.

A screen lowered from the ceiling.  “Let’s look at your history, shall we?  I think there were a few questionable style choices in your past we can enjoy together.”  

For a few seconds, she fiddled with the controller, aiming it towards the projection device.  Then stopping, and starting again.  Finally she pocketed it and stood, pacing back and forth, fiddling with whatever was hanging around her neck.  

Cocking his head, he saw that it was a pendant shaped like some manner of gourd, covered in shining, deep orange enamel.  She twisted the chain it hung from in her long fingers.  

Though it was a tiny thing, the size of a pea, the shock of its colour in the grey chamber, against the grey of her blouse, was like a firefly, or rather a spark rising from a bonfire - warm and beautiful, giving off a brave little light before turning to ash.

“I recognise that the functions of time are arrested in this place, but can we get on with whatever this is?”  Loki waved a hand at the screen.

Amsar turned on the heel of her ugly, very sensible shoe and came back to the table, her pendant tucked away.  “Listen, I don’t want to show you this.  And you don’t want to see it.  It’s what was supposed to happen to your life.  You summon Surtur, and he fights Hela to the death but Asgard is destroyed in the process.  You and Thor and your allies help save the rest of the Asgardians, but before you can get to safety your ship is captured by Thanos.”

Loki wondered if he threw up on those sensible shoes of hers if she had another, identical pair.  

He was certain she did.

“He kills -”

“Half,” Loki knew.  He remembered the Mad Titan’s teachings.  

“Half,” she nodded in agreement.  “You try to stop Thanos from killing your brother, you give this really pretty decent speech and then try and stab him-”

“Stab?  I try to stab Thanos?  With what?  An iceberg?  An irradiated spike the size of a not especially small house?  I might as well have tried satirical verse or looked into his food allergies.  Stabbed him?  What nonsense is that?”

With a shrug, she gave him a sheepish look, “Well, we’ve had to prune a lot of you to get to that result.”

“Why would you want….” Then it dawned on him.  

Of.  Fucking.  Course.

“He kills me then, does he not?  He kills me and Thor has so many feelings about it that he does something stupid, because that is what all of our benighted family does when we have feelings, and that is what your Timekeepers are trying to make happen, yes?”

“Yes.  Exactly.  Right.  You are really smart.”

Loki crossed his arms, stared at nothing, and muttered, “Yes, I know.”  

They were killing him because he refused to do what they needed him to do to die an entirely different, equally stupid death.  

The whole point of his existence was even more disappointing than he’d always feared.

They sat in silence for a while.  Agent Amsar didn’t seem to know what to do next.  She opened her mouth to speak when a bang, something between the sound of a heavy piece of metal falling and a crossbow bolt slamming through a breastplate, echoed outside the room.  

Then again.

Then shouting.

Then silence.  An impossible level of silence.

“What-”

“What-”

They spoke at the same moment, and at the same moment were cut off by a klaxon roaring through the room, accompanied by blinking red lights.

Amsar surged to her feet, knocking her chair over, “Stay here.”

Loki rolled his eyes, “Certainly.  Whatever you say.”

She ignored him, slamming out the door at speed. 

Those shoes really were quite practical.

Almost as soon as she had left, she returned.

Behind her, through the open door, Loki could see chaos.  Agents fighting Minutemen.  Clerks throwing boxes of paper into the air so they drifted like snow.  Prisoners ran, were caught and stuck, their existences stuttering as their collars looped them in the same moment over and over.  

Screaming.

Fires.

Two Hunters tossed their weapons aside and kissed like their salvations were to be found in each other’s mouths.

A cow ambled by, looked in the door, and lowed softly before walking in, happy to have found a safe haven.

Five different alarms sounded at once.

Delightful.  Loki silently promised to send the cause of madness a gift.  Fruit perhaps.

“Problems, Agent Amsar?” 

At least, he assumed it was her.  The dull, grey jacket of her suit was gone, the top two buttons of her blouse were unbuttoned, and its sleeves were rolled up to her elbows showing off her long forearms, the pendant was no longer hidden, and her dully neat bob was a mess.

Not a stylishly so, merely a mess.  

But the difference was not so much to her dress as to her demeanour.  Her expression, the way she carried herself, they were of a different woman entirely.  

Reaching into her pocket she pulled out a Temppad and the controller for his collar.  Loki jerked his chin towards her with a sneer, “As to be expected.”

Instead of unmooring him from the moment, with a snap the collar came off.

“Here,” she tossed it to him, and in his shock, Loki bobbled it in the air a few times before catching it.   

 “I’m getting the fuck out of here,” she said, her voice even sounding different.  Angry.  But musical.  She punched a setting into the ‘pad and a glassy door appeared. 

Stepping through, she said, “My name is Nora.”

Grabbing the collar and pocketing the controller, Loki ran through the closing time door even as behind him the multiverse’s bonds were cut by sword’s thrust and TVA, with a bit of irony that he would have appreciated if he’d been there to witness it, found itself reset as it has reset so many worlds before.





Chapter 2: Time Standing Still Does Not Mean We Do As Well

Summary:

Nora monologues and Loki listens. Also, a cow.

Chapter Text



In the same instant when reality was resetting itself after a unique - in the actual definition of the word as opposed to its so often misuse as a synonym of ‘unusual’ or ‘something I am unfamiliar with’ -  series of events occurred simultaneously, thus causing the artificial constraints holding the Multiverse in place to shatter, Loki was stepping through time with a recently resigned TVA agent.

Later they would discover that being essentially nowhere at no time in that moment meant that they were amongst a handful or so of creatures who were immune to the effect that the rebirth of the Multiverse had on those within it which caused them to all have been in essence remade into that new reality.  

Or , possibly, theoretically, the universes of the Multiverse were destroyed as they had been and exactly except as free agents in that time it took to step through a doorway.

Or , rather, perhaps, maybe, it meant that the Multiverse was returning to its proper series of realities.  

Even Loki found it confusing, and thus exhilarating, as confusion and chaos were kissing cousins and both his life’s blood.

The entirety of reality had been tossed up in the air and then crashed and shattered like it was made of porcelain and almost no one knew it had happened because for them the state of things was like water to a fish.

Thus all was chaos.  

And there was a cow.  

For the cow being arguably the most intelligent creature Loki had met since being captured by the TVA had followed him through the Time Door.

Before them, a damp field of prairie grasses and wildflowers, muted and dying in what seemed to be the late autumn, tilted to the side as if being blown by a breeze that did not move. The sky was frozen in the gloaming and that breeze that was caught in place was cold and of all of the strange things Loki had seen this was amongst the strangest.

Reaching out, he plucked a curled, half-withered yellow leaf from the air where it hung with dozens of others, like a scarf woven of faded reds and oranges and yellows and browns, stilled and resting on their path upon the air.

Loki could smell rich, dark soil beneath the flimsy plimsolls that had been supplied along with the terrible jumpsuit the TVA had uniformed him in.  Wet seeped into their white canvas.

He hated having wet feet.

The agent waded into the stillness of the flowers and grass and from under her sensible shoes there rose, despite the unmoving air, scents of late-year phylox, columbine, and the pure, pure chlorophyll of the broken flora.  

 

“Time is probably going to start again any second.  Or maybe it has and we just haven’t caught up with it yet so we can’t see it.  I read about that phenomenon as one of the possibilities if the Sacred Timeline is endangered while an agent is in the field. We have sort of a grace period before everything goes to hell.  Where we can return to the TVA and await instructions.”

The agent’s voice was colourless as she spoke to him, facing away, looking towards the horizon where a near-perfect sphere of incandescent plasma hung unmoving.  Because his sight was that of a god he could see other stars, other worlds, through the pale atmosphere.  Some planets belted with rings of celestial debris, others massive hulks of cold or burning, none with any appreciable life upon them.  

What the Humans called the Milky Way.  

Loki did not hate the name.  He’d heard far uglier and more arrogant names for other, less lovely galaxies.  

There was a soft sound that had elements of a whine, and birdsong, and that wind that was frozen in place.  It was what a slice of the living noise of this place was when it was not moving on.  The hair on the back of Loki’s neck stood up as his brain fought to make those entwined sounds move.  

She was still speaking, “-if you want to you can use your magic to go somewhere else.  Wherever that might be.  I don’t even know if this is the right strand of the Sacred Timeline for you.  I should remember from your file but right now I can’t remember a fucking thing other than I was -”

Loki stopped listening as he realised she was saying his magic would work.  And though he had no reason to believe her, this Amser, this Nora as she claimed, he did. 

Through those thin, rubber soles he’d been subjected to, Loki could feel the world they stood upon was equally still.  Neither of those things should be possible. 

The music of the spheres seemed to be stuck between notes.  

With a half shrug and a bit of justified concern that it wouldn’t work, Loki let his arms dangle loosely at his sides and then made a small gesture, a simple gesture, with both hands.  Technically he did not need to have a physical motion to go along with his use of seidr, but he found the muscle memory meant he could do a spell whilst still being fully aware of and engaged with his surroundings.  

A flash of golden-green rolled down his body, leaving properly cared for hair, suede and wool clothing fit for the outdoors with only a few metal embellishments, properly waterproof boots, seven blades that could be accessed without seidr, and another forty that could be accessed with it.  

Drawing one, with two long, silent steps he had the agent’s arms locked behind her back, held in one hand, the blade all but kissing her throat.  Under the harsh, detergent scent of what was obviously the TVA’s soap of choice, her skin smelled of warmth and salt and for a moment Loki let himself close his eyes, mildly overwhelmed by being close to someone for the first time in he could not remember how long who he was not fighting or being questioned by.

She didn’t move, or even go stiff and alert at his touch.  

Loki couldn’t decide if that was an insult or a compliment, so he moved past the moment.

“Now, Agent Amser -” he started to hiss into her ear, when she cut him off.

“Nora.  I told you my name was Nora.”

The motion of her neck meant it nearly scraped her skin.  “Do you really think that is relevant at this moment?”

“I think it's the only thing that is relevant.  To me, anyway.  The first thing the TVA does when they decide to make a Variant into a… into a cog in the machine they take your name.  They take your name and then they take everything else and then they replace it with whatever they need at the moment.”

“Are you claiming to be a Variant?”  With disgust, Loki shoved her away.  She stumbled a few steps and turned around, walking towards him, “What ridiculous nonsense is this?  I wasn’t in your … keep long but certainly long enough to know that you are all creations of your Timekeepers.”

He backed away, something in her expression giving him the first case of the shivers he’d had since leaving Thanos’ care.  Something determined and knowing and infinitely sad.

At the same time, he found himself not raising his blade.

When she was close to him, very close, closer than Loki usually allowed a stranger to come, she stopped.

“I was singing ‘True’ at a karaoke bar about… I don’t know… a few miles that way.”  She pointed at nothing in particular, and Loki sensed she wasn’t sure herself.  “It's an old song.  You probably don’t know it.  You probably don’t know any of our songs.  Why would you?  I was visiting a friend from college who lived on a farm here and her husband was visiting family in Minnesota. Even if you are from a city if you are in the Midwest you have a few farmer friends. They were about to lose everything and I came to get her drunk and distract her.  Not because I had anything else to offer, just that.  She had … has?  Maybe.  A cousin who lived nearby who didn’t drink and she came over and brought … really crappy pizza.  God, that was the last fucking real pizza I had in my life and it was terrible and right now I can taste it and it was amazing .”

She turned back to look at him and Loki thought about the grapes he ate on Asgard.  They were not quite at their peak and perfection and they were still the best grapes he ever had.

“It was late October, and they were selling pumpkins at the bar for some school band or theater production or I don’t know.  There were pumpkins on all of the tables, and on chairs, and there were people drawing faces on them with Sharpies, or trying to carve them with the shitty knives on the tables.  I think I remembered those pumpkins even when I didn’t know I remembered them.  I think we all remember something that we don’t know we remember when they make us over.”  She absently pulled out the necklace she wore, and played with it, looking at nothing but smiling at a memory.  

“My boyfriend,” she snorted, she snorted so hard, “I can’t believe I am calling him that, came with me.  He was as out of place as a Faberge egg at a 4H Club Easter egg hunt.  He pulled a knife out of where he kept his knives and he waggled his eyebrows at my friend and he went to fucking town on that pumpkin.  It looked like some kind of troll monster with horns and everything.”

For the first time, Loki noticed that if Agent… Nora was not beautiful, was now radiant.  When her bright eyes met his, and that smile grew wider.

“I sang fucking, stupid Tubthumping , which I don’t even like, by the way, at the only bar in anywhere around that had a karaoke machine and then they took me.  And they pruned him when he tried to stop them.  Of course, they were there for him as much as me, more than me.  You know I don’t even like that song and it was the last one I ever sang?” 

There were tears in her eyes, as frozen in place as everything else in this moment between moments.

“I think time is about to start again,” Nora added not wiping her eyes, which Loki found very dignified.  

There was a sound, the sound of everything, coming closer and closer to them.  Loki took a step back, ready for he did not know what.

“I remember him and that means I remember you .  A Variant that you are a Variant of, with a strand of Variants going backwards and forwards who knows how long.  And you don’t remember me but I remember you.  A you that is long gone.  So very long gone.  Gone into the Void thousands and thousands of what would be years ago if we had time there and in the TVA.  We knew each other.”

She reached out and grabbed his hand.

He didn’t know why he let her except Loki had never seen anyone so alive as she was that moment, and when they were a few inches apart she raised that hand and kissed it.  “Your hand feels like his. But your eyes are …

“His eyes were sea green.  And much softer than yours.  And they took him from me.  They took us both and kept me.”

“I don’t understand.”

Although maybe he did.

He did.  Though he didn’t know how.  

She, Nora, this woman who looked at him and seemed to see him in a way he’d never been seen - which should have made him angry but rather unlocked something and loosened his shoulders for the first time in years - said, “I’ll explain it to you.  If you like.  But it may take a while.  Years maybe.  I don’t remember everything, but I know so much.  You remember plenty, but don’t know about any of this.  Maybe, together, we can survive what is about to come.”

“Why,” he stepped back, again, away from her, the sound of time restarting now all but roaring in his ears, but he didn’t drop her hand, “would a god need the help of a … functionary?”

With a small shrug, looking up and up at him with those extraordinary brown eyes, she again stepped to him, “Novelty?  Curiosity?  But before you make up your mind, can I kiss you?  Please say yes.  Please, I haven’t kissed anyone, been kissed in thousands and thousands of years and that is all I want right now, in all of time and creation just a kiss.” 

And the cow again lowed, raising her head from the perfectly still plant she was eating and Loki looked at the agent’s bright brown eyes and not pretty but so very desirous face and the laugh on her lips and felt the way she touched his cheek with her long, cold fingers that made his blood sing, and he wanted to lean into her to wrap an arm about her waist, to laugh against her lips and by all of the Nine Loki wanted a kiss, too.  

How long had it been since last he had kissed?  

Not thousands of years, yet still it had been years.  Since before he had learned the truth of his birth.  Before Thanos.  Even in his time as All-Father after the last fall of the Dark Elves, he had not kissed for being in Odin’s skin made that idea too perverse for even Loki’s most outrageous fantasies.  Of which he had many.  

The most outrageous of which might be that maybe he and this woman that he had only just met and knew not at all might -

He stopped himself.

“Why would I want a stranger’s kiss?  A stranger who clearly wants to be kissing …another?”

He did want the kiss, but he wanted her answer nearly as much.

She raised a brow at him, matching the smirk he could feel on his own lips, “Because the universe is starting all around us and you and I are about to be the only people that we aren’t strangers to within it.  And because he would understand, because he loved me that much.  As much as I loved him.  I’d want him to have a kiss after so long.

“Also, why wouldn’t you?”

Why wouldn’t he?

Loki kissed her before she could kiss him.

Her lips were cool, the delicate, sensitive skin within them was warm and when he brushed there with his own lip she gave a shiver that made him pull her against him.  Made him gather her up so her toes brushed the broken grasses, so he did not need to bend to her but so she could still push her mouth up to his, seeking him, pulling him towards her even as he pressed her to him and they breathed into each other and their tongues coyly touched, like a young sweethearts’ kiss and then less coyly as they tasted and her hands coiled in his hair as if she had done it a hundred times before and she kissed him as if they had just met, and he spread his hands on her back and then snarled softly into that kiss, grasping fistfuls of her tacky jacket.

When a few of the tears frozen in her eye rolled down his cheek, Loki felt the relief of it as if he himself were crying for what they both - what so many - had lost, and for the hope of finding it again.

They kissed past breathlessness and around them the multiverse in all of its iterations - sacred, profane, and otherwise - finished shaking off the last of its constraints and roared to life.

The leaves that had been sitting on the air all about them fell on to them.  They did not notice until well after the fact when they walked down the road, laughing and picking leaves from each other's hair, and clothes, blowing them into the air and in Loki’s case tucking one away for safe keeping.  

They kissed for the lives they hadn’t lived, and for the lives that they would.  

The leaves fell onto the cow, as well.  

She didn’t particularly care either, and many of them were still on her back and between her ears, and they plucked them from her, too.

Though Loki didn’t keep any of those. 

Even he wasn’t that sentimental.



Notes:

So for anyone who has read my other Loki and Nora stories they know that having random, never explained references to pumpkins is part of their lore.

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