Chapter Text
A light but persistent jostling had Loki reluctantly attempting to prise his eyes open, his cheek scraping roughly against cold concrete.
“Mmphh,” he groaned, and the agitation mercifully ceased with a huff of relieved amusement.
“Hey, Loki. You alright?”
Mobius.
What was…
Ohhh, yes, that’s right.
He’d been chasing their person of interest, and gotten separated from the others. Had been… knocked out, somehow?
Ugh, how humiliating.
Regaining his faculties quickly off the back of that realisation, Loki managed to sufficiently crack his eyelids enough to be able to see, blinking rapidly to clear a lingering haze at the edges of his vision. He rolled from front to back, finding Mobius knelt over him, observing him with careful regard. A small pain shot through his neck and the back of his head at the movement, and he winced in reaction.
Mobius gripped his shoulder firmly, the warm touch grounding.
“Are you hurt?” he checked.
“Mm. No. I’m okay,” Loki answered truthfully, the flare already fading.
An acknowledging squeeze, and Mobius released him, offering a hand to help him up. He was a little unsteady once upright, but concealed it as best he could. It was trifling, insignificant… definitely not worth a visit to the infirmary, which Loki was positive would be enforced if he let on at all.
“What happened, did we get him?” he asked of the variant.
“Yeah, ran straight into two of our hunters as he tried to escape out the back.”
Mobius gestured to a rather unhinged-looking fellow being placed in restraints nearby. He grinned maniacally at Loki, wiggling his fingers in a mockery of a wave, a minuteman then yanking his wrist down to secure it behind him.
Loki shook his head slightly, finding it hard to believe that that particular individual had gotten the drop on him so easily. Pathetic, really. He’d clearly been far too complacent.
The hunters opened a timedoor, transporting their detainee to the holding cell facility at the TVA to await processing. Mobius took out his own tempad, producing a ‘door for himself and Loki directly to the main chrono bay floor.
As they stepped through, Loki only just managed to bite back a grunt of pain, another fleeting stab of searing heat passing needle-like through his head, gone again in an instant. He rubbed at it discreetly.
The sensation had been slightly unnerving, though he could only assume he’d simply suffered a very mild injury when he’d been taken down.
A quick debrief later - given they were only assisting in this operation, rather than running it - he and Mobius headed to the cafeteria for evening meal service before they retired for the day-cycle. Inexplicably, Loki found himself becoming increasingly distracted throughout… or detached, even. He was simply going through the motions, picking at something he barely registered, and lacking the capacity to engage much with the colleagues they’d joined at a larger table.
He eventually realised that he was beginning to feel strange, as well. Almost fatigued, but not quite. Foggy, perhaps, like he wasn’t really there.
Not completely, at least.
He frowned, confused by his own perceptions. A hand landed on his, patting it softly to get his attention.
“Loki,” Mobius leaned down, capturing his gaze. He looked puzzled, concerned; his eyes asking the question without any need for words.
“Just tired, I think,” Loki lied, “Bit of a headache. Uh… I might-”
He gestured with a thumb over his shoulder at the exit. Mobius nodded, brow pinched in sympathy.
“Are you sure everything’s okay? You’re definitely alright?” he asked.
Loki thought he sounded unusually… intense? No, that wasn’t right, but something was niggling at Loki, and he felt an unreasonable urge to leave as hastily as he could.
“Yes, fine,” he said shortly, nodding once with certainty. He rose, bidding everyone at the table goodnight as he did so.
Mobius’ face was oddly unreadable in that moment, and Loki’s discomfort spiked a little further at this. But with a blink, the strange expression seemed to vanish, and the familiar kindness around his eyes had returned.
“I’ll check on you when I come up in a while, okay? You were knocked out for a couple of minutes or so today, after all,” Mobius reminded him, “I should’ve gotten you looked at properly.”
Loki made a dismissive gesture, still anxious to get away. He managed a wan smile, but no words, before turning to leave… trying very hard not to rush his steps too obviously.
He felt a lot better once he was alone in his quarters, which was unusual for him.
Perhaps he really was just tired.
The next morning found the two of them working in the archives, poring through files for some old documents that pertained to the arrest they were involved in yesterday. It was a painstaking and dull search, and the information they were seeking may or may not have even proven useful for the analyst coordinating the interrogation.
After the promised visit from Mobius late last night - which felt stilted and uncomfortable to Loki, but was mercifully brief - he had surprisingly slept quite well, given the way he’d been feeling all evening. Yet as soon as he was in the presence of others once more, the bizarre, unnameable tension returned.
Attempting to ease his own suffering, Loki had taken it upon himself to do all the physical acquisition of the records that Mobius requested, shamelessly dawdling by flicking through each file himself whilst standing blissfully alone within the stacks, before hastily leaving it with Mobius and heading off again.
During one of these covert perusals, he came across something unexpected that chilled him to the core.
It was a report submitted by someone from the proclaimed “Department of Research - Mystical and Sorcerous Beings and Artefacts”. There was a mugshot attached of a smirking, conceited-looking young man who was otherwise unremarkable.
Frowning, Loki extracted the papers from the file, skimming over the first page. The subject was a variant whose nexus event had been a simple spell gone wrong; relatively harmless and doubtless one of the less-dramatic branching catalysts that the old TVA welcome video had mentioned, so long ago now.
But as he read on, his insides knotted with unease… and soon enough, downright fear.
As it turned out, this apparent subset of the TVA was in the business of exploiting magical variants, supposedly in the name of furthering their knowledge of the mystic arts, in all of its forms. Practices within this mysterious department that Loki had never even heard of seemed questionable at best. Judging from what he was reading, they apparently included extended solitary confinement, experimentation, startlingly inhumane testing, and interrogation using methods that trended towards torturous.
It was shocking, and for himself personally, terrifying.
Is this why the TVA continued to keep him around? Was he just something to be studied, dissected? Was he nothing but a curiosity to them? To Mobius?
But that made no sense. He’d been there for ages now, and even if a lot of people didn’t necessarily like him or trust him, for the most part he’d felt genuinely welcomed. No one had ever done anything remotely sinister to him, and even as their prisoner, what he’d been subjected to was tame compared to this.
And as well as being his dearest friend, Mobius was his rock, his anchor. He’d always made Loki feel safe and secure. He had never truly doubted Mobius in their partnership, ever.
Until now, his inner voice whispered harshly. He tried to ignore it.
Surely this one particular variant had been an outlier or anomaly? Maybe they were more threatening and dangerous than the report suggested, and the intensity of the practices employed were at least somewhat necessary?
Or perhaps the head of this supposed ‘research’ had just been having a really bad week, and got carried away…
Loki came back to himself as two archivists walked past, chatting and laughing. He could have sworn the one with her head turned towards him had flicked her eyes up to his, glaring with unwarranted hatred.
Wait... What was that about? He didn’t even know her!
Progressively disturbed, he slipped the report into place amongst the rest of the papers, stalking back to the table he and Mobius had claimed, and flopping down in his seat with a shaky exhalation.
Mobius held out his hand wordlessly for the file, eyes not leaving the document in front of him. Loki hesitated for a moment, the urge to question him about what he’d just read completely overwhelming. But as soon as Mobius looked up at him inquisitively, he knew he couldn’t. That strange hint of- of wrongness he’d noticed at dinner last night was back… and just like last night, it was gone again in an instant.
Gods, this is so unsettling.
Loki drew the conclusion that he didn’t feel remotely certain of anything right now. The previous evening’s mind-fog had slowly crept back up on him as the day wore on. The one thing he could be sure of though was that he needed to sit on this knowledge he’d gleaned from that cursed report, observe things closely to work out where he stood, and whether there was something devious going on.
He slowly slid the file across the table.
“Thanks, Loki,” Mobius said casually, already back to scanning the paperwork.
“Any others?” he asked, realising too late how his voice quavered.
Mobius fortunately didn’t seem to pick up on it.
“Not right this minute. Take a break.”
Loki leaned back, trying to relax, or at the very least pretend to. He couldn’t help fidgeting nervously though, which only worsened when another analyst walked past and looked back over their shoulder, casting a hostile glance directly at him. A beat, then they turned away again.
Why was he suddenly garnering all of this unpleasant attention?
… Or maybe he always had, and just hadn’t noticed?
Too wired to enact any semblance of patience, Loki pushed his chair back and got to his feet hesitantly. Mobius glanced up.
“Where are you going?” he asked, and Loki felt his heart rate rising, although he couldn’t tell why. However, there was again something in Mobius’ gaze that made him uneasy.
… No there wasn’t.
This was getting ridiculous.
“I… uh, I’m just getting some water,” he supplied, trying valiantly to cover his nervousness with an unconvincing smile.
Mobius gave a slight nod, but frowned, eyes narrowed in what could only be described as blatant scrutiny. The sudden air of apparent distrust was almost palpable.
Loki swallowed hard, chilled by his unfriendly demeanour. He quickly turned and strode away, feeling eyes burning into his back as he left.
Halfway down the corridor outside, a further tingling of his senses had him glancing over his shoulder. A hunter was walking behind him, at a distance… and was looking right at him. He turned around and picked up his pace, doing his best to project nonchalance. It was just a coincidence that they’d made eye contact. It didn’t have to be menacing, for goodness sake. But after a few more seconds, he couldn’t resist chancing another peek.
The hunter was gaining on him.
Panic spiked, and Loki strode faster still. He wanted to flee, but he knew that it wouldn’t do him any favours.
He wasn’t guilty of anything, after all.
So why? Why was he being followed, pursued even? Had Mobius set a hunter on him? That made no sense, unless…
Unless those things he’d seen in that report really did apply to him as well. Mobius and the TVA could easily be toying with him, making him feel safe, luring him into a false sense of security before cruelly betraying him…
Breath quickening, Loki reached an intersecting corridor which he darted into, then with stealth, slipped inside a nearby stairwell. He pressed himself back against the wall, panting near silently as he anxiously strained his hearing.
The hunter’s footsteps were so close now, unnervingly loud as they approached. They turned into the same corridor. Loki held his breath, a ripple of genuine terror passing through him.
There was a brief pause. Then the clomping boots continued on their way, gradually fading into the distance.
Loki almost melted against the wall in the wake of an adrenaline rush.
What was going on?