Author's Note:

Summary of episode 1: Loki, newly escaped from the Avengers and Thanos, is captured by the Time Variance Authority, who need his help. After failing to negotiate his way out of their grasp, Loki realizes he has jumped from one master to another and he has to give into their demands to stay alive. (gen)

Warnings: TORTURE. The aftermath of torture. Thanos tortured Loki and Loki has severe PTSD about that, dissociation, and anxiety.

! been waiting over a YEAR to finally start this! Should I be adding it to my list of WIPs, nope! :D

Part One:

[19:24; 2012, 06, AUGUST; TERRAN TIME : MONGOLIA - TIMELINE #23FN7765LMF55]

I'm free.

Gods, I actually did it.

I'm free.

A few hoarse, desperate laughs escape him, madness leaking into madness. He doesn't know where I am. For the first time, I have the advantage. The thoughts feel strange and almost childishly gleeful. Loki's head start is scarce little at best and a pathetic, mewling attempt at most, but it is something. It is all he needs. In a few hours, a few minutes, he can vanish.

You cannot get me here.

He doesn't think he made it off of Midgard, but perhaps that was intentional, somewhere within him. Midgard has the most paths between worlds. He can find one and vanish. He doesn't care where as long as it's far away from here. He can hide. Lick his wounds, figure out how to recuperate, and think about what to do. Without the Master there to watch him.

You would dare to disrespect him so? After all that he has done for you, you show your gratitude by running away? The thoughts feel slimy but heavy, and an awkward twist of guilt mixes with his frantic, pulsing desire to flee.

Asgard would have been safer.

Asgard would have killed him.

(That isn't a downside.)

Aching and broken, Loki blinks his raw eyes open, frantic, pulsing energy washing through his entire body. He has to move. He can't move. His chest won't expand, his lungs too rattled by the fall to work properly, but it doesn't matter. Nothing matters. Not anymore. The burning sun is boring down onto his skin, hot, and it's only making him feel sick to his stomach. (He would give anything, anything at all for the fire to cease-)

The Tesseract hums like a rotted, fetid choir somewhere nearby.

Loki exhales sharply, breath pouring across the muzzle. Muzzle. (Talking, yelling, screaming someone shut him up-) Loki's fingers scrabble desperately for the device, suddenly needing it off. He can't remember how to unlock it and a wave of desperate panic crashes into him, enough that it forces him to sit up. His fingers feel numb and broken, but he knows that they're functioning. The Master wouldn't dare to send him anywhere with visible injuries-

His fingers find the right release at last and Loki's slightly swollen tongue immediately drops to the bottom of his mouth.

His jaw won't relax.

His body is shaking. He's going to rattle apart. Loki sits there, gripping the muzzle desperately and trying to stop himself from dissolving into an emotional mess. He has survived the Void. He fell into the hands of the Chitauri and survived the Mad Titan, and sitting here, alone in the middle of nowhere, is what breaks him?

Pathetic.

Loki shudders, fingers squeezing. He wishes desperately for Thor, suddenly, like a gaping hole in his chest. He can't have that. He has done nothing to earn his brother's comfort. He has done nothing at all. He is-

Not alone.

There's a blinding flash of light in front of him and Loki scrambles back, abandoning the muzzle in favor of frantically trying to put as much distance between himself and whatever it is. The color is a strange mixture of blue-green, the sparking magic rolling with enough power that it makes him feel slightly sick. Several figures dressed in black step through the portal.

Loki's first, initial thought fueled by panic is the Black Order.

It's not.

The designs are different, the people are too short. There's a logo on their clothing that resembles an hourglass. They have weapons that have an electric buzz, humming with power. Loki's eyes widen and he scrambles to get up.

The blast of power slams into his back.

He doesn't get up.

[03:33; 2012, 07, August; TERRAN TIME : Time Variance Authority - Outside of Timelines]

The slates between the metal flooring are moving up and down enough that it hurts, bumping into his head and digging painfully into the edges of his back and shoulders as they drag him down the hall by his legs. When he squints his raw eyes open, the world is spinning above him, blinking in and out.

White lights, distant stars, white lights…

The hands gripping him are human, they are Chituari, they are both. He can't tell the difference anymore. His body is shaking.

He doesn't know where he is.

People are speaking above him. Around him. In him?

The world is distorted.

Something is shoved into his skin. A needle. He is injected. He is burning. His skin is ash and fire. He is-he doesn't understand. Something tight and cold snaps around his throat. The world is spinning. Blinking in and out. It's dark. He is cold. He is naked and terrified, he is shoved into something gray. Brown? Everything is blurry. The clothing is rough against him. They don't give him shoes. The metal floor is frigid beneath his bare feet.

He's staring into a hallway. He's staring into the Sanctuary.

He feels empty.

They try to make him walk, but his legs are crumbling beneath him. His back is on fire and numb all at once. He doesn't understand. He doesn't understand. He tumbles and falls when they push at him. He can't get himself to walk. His legs are weak. He is empty. His head is spinning.

Far away, someone is laughing. The lost one can't even stand up anymore? How the Master will be disappointed.

He crashes to his knees. Distant pain shoots up to his skull, rattling his entire body, but he feels nothing. He's kneeling before Thanos. He's tumbling in a hallway he doesn't recognize and panting desperately. He doesn't understand anything.

The world is dizzying.

Hands push at him. Pull. He's hauled upright. His trembling increases. He can't tell what way is up anymore. He's lost any orientation in the building. He's going to be sick. His tongue feels swollen. He can't. He doesn't. Oh, gods, what is happening? His breath is faint, wheezing. He's going to choke. He can't focus. The colors in front of him are blurring into nothingness. He can feel his body starting to collapse again.

Hands grip him. He's shaken roughly. He can't focus on his body. He is very far away.

Floating.

Falling.

He's always falling.

Someone strikes him, but it doesn't help him focus. The pain is distant. The world spins again. Small silver room, the cell on the Sanctuary. The hands are black-clad faceless agents, they are the Black Order. He can't breathe. He's not sure that he wants to. He doesn't know where he is. He doesn't-

Where where where?

The question echoes, but his brain doesn't bother to muster up an answer.

They ask him questions. Demand answers from him. He can't hear them, his head is spinning, listening to the daughters of the Master yelling. Tell me Asgard's defenses for the Infinity Stones. Tell me how to slow down Asgard's army. Tell me how to get the Stones. Tell me how the Space Stone works. Tell me tell me tell me-

Someone yells at him, now. He doesn't understand. The words are meaningless. He's struck again. They keep shouting, growing infuriated. He tries to tell them that he doesn't understand the question but the words come out garbled and wrong. He has no idea what language he is speaking. A tall figure, an older man with pale skin-Ebony?-and graying blond hair steps into his line of vision. His eyes are soft. The man says something that he doesn't understand and he stares at him blankly. The man has facial hair.

Thor?

No. That doesn't make sense. Thor hurt him.

No. I hurt Thor. I stabbed him.

The gentle-eyed man hits him across the face. His head swings limply and then drops, but the pain is meaningless. Hands grip his arms to keep him from collapsing altogether. He doesn't know where this weakness came from. He's shaking. He can't stop shaking. He can watch himself breathing in wispy pants.

The man with gentle eyes turns and asks one of his comrades, a faceless figure, about drugs.

He watches with vague interest as the faceless figure shakes their head. They remove their helmet to speak with the gentle-eyed man and he realizes that she looks vaguely like Frigga. His brain, free of filters and meaning, is determined to tell her so. He opens his mouth, tries to, at least, and gags on the words. He coughs, spitting up dribbling blood, but his tongue is too tight to work right.

He can't remember talking before.

Maybe this is why it's so hard to breathe?

Was he screaming? He thinks he was screaming.

The Not-Frigga turns and looks at him, expression blank. He tries to figure out any sort of meaning to that. He can feel himself sliding again. Hands force him back up and he stays there, staring at nothing. Looking into the Void, staring up at the ceiling of his cell while his blood leaks into the drain in the middle of the room for such purposes, wishing he was worthy of death-

Water is dumped over his head.

It burns, it burns burns burns (what I would give for any sort of cold, anything anything at all, oh brother, please help me-)

Loki chokes, writhing, and jerks out of the grip of his captors as he tumbles into the floor, landing in a puddle of water. The choked, hoarse sound that he makes is muffled as his lungs seem to seize up, having long since given up on breathing. Loki frantically shoves himself upright, his body swaying, and forces himself to stay there, his hands trembling so badly that it feels like he's rattling.

He can hear himself choking on sounds of pain.

Oh gods-

He sucks in a desperate breath.

A figure steps into focus. They're all around him, filling up the room. There can't be enough air for them to all breathe. What is happening? Where did they come from? The last thing he remembers is struggling to sit up in the middle of some desert on Midgard, desperate to crawl away from anywhere Thanos could reach him. No. That's not right. People arrived there and they took him with force. He thinks he killed someone.

The gentle-eyed man from before squats down next to him, his head tilted a fraction as he stares at him silently. Loki inhales raggedly. His lungs feel like they're burning. A faint moan crawls up his throat. He swallows thickly.

"Can you understand me now?" the man asks. The words don't feel faint or distorted. Loki flinches at them. The man bobs his head a few times, then presses his lips together and pats Loki on the shoulder. He flinches again. "Good."

The room is small and gray, the lighting poor. There is no furniture, only a single bench along the back wall. When he inhales, it's to the scent of sweat, faint blood, and clothing. There are six people in the room, excluding him. Two of them are behind him, two at the door, and the remainder in front. Loki swallows thickly. He reaches instinctively for his magic and only feels the growing anxiety spike when he feels nothing. It's there, but out of his reach, slipping from his fingers like sand.

Soaked, terrified, and wishing desperately for a weapon, Loki forces his eyes on the man who spoke, assuming him to be the authority.

"What is this place?" his voice sounds strange to his own ears. Faint and desperate. He resists the urge to wrap his arms around his stomach but sits up a little straighter when a spike of pain lances up his spine. His entire back is aching. It always does since he fell.

"Who are you? What do you want with me?" he breathes.

"We're here to save you," the blonde woman says, as if it's that simple, and he's stupid.

Thanos will save you. He is merciful, our lord, you will see.

Loki's throat is tight. "From what?"

The gentle-eyed man smiles tightly. "Death."

Loki blinks heavily, trying to understand. Everything feels out of reach. He's so slow. "I don't understand," he admits, which is the instinctive answer, rather than the smart one. There's something about this man's eyes that makes Loki feel like he can trust him. Thanos was the same. Men who have kind eyes but black souls.

"You don't have to," the man promises. He's kneeling in front of Loki, one elbow propped on his thigh, head tilted. "In fact, it's probably better that you don't. I'm M0B-1US," he says the string of letters and numbers like it should mean something. "And you're going to help us."

M0B-1US.

Mobius?

It's not meant to be phonetic, Loki thinks. He doesn't have a name. Just a code. Gods, no. Pseudonyms are dangerous. Loki has learned that much from the Other. Names have power, and he can't have that power.

"Why would I help you?" Loki asks, leaning back a fraction. The water is dripping down the bridge of his nose. He doesn't touch it. He's terrified of the half-second of blindness and opening that would provide.

"Mostly because you don't get a choice. Come on, get up," Mobius says, standing up.

Loki doesn't know if he can, but the opportunity is too precious to pass up. Tentatively, with effort, he manages to get himself to his feet. A sharp, sporadic stab of pain rolls through his spine.

He only has vague memories of the clothing change, but the sight of the jumper still makes his skin crawl. Gods, they stripped him. They stripped him. The mortifying intimacy of it makes his stomach roll.

Mobius moves toward the door, and the blonde woman follows him. Her blue eyes are piercing. Loki lingers behind, not sure what sort of game they're playing, but determined not to lose. Mobius must recognize this, because he rolls his eyes a little and makes a follow gesture. "I promise not to bite you too hard," he promises.

How can he be casual in this?

Loki tentatively follows after him, barely breathing as the rest of the guards start to follow him. There are no restraints, no cage, but there doesn't have to be. Thanos never restrained him outside of the cell. He knew Loki was too broken to run.

This must be the same.

Loki, breathing quickly, scours the space for any form of an escape anyway. The hall is large and open, but a blandless gray. The floor is patterned with orange strips beneath his bare feet, the metal slats cold beneath his feet. The ceiling is familiar.

Mobius and the woman take him to another room. He sees a few others in the hall-guards. Dressed in black with the orange insignia on their shoulders. All of them are wearing tags with some sort of number stamped onto it the Midgardian alphabet.

All-speak provides some translation, but not enough.

Is he in some sort of Midgardian facility? SHIELD wasn't this advanced when he was there several days ago. If he is in the SHIELD facility, where are the Avengers? He remembers they were in Stark's tower. But if this isn't SHIELD, why is it written in English?

The air is cold, almost biting. It doesn't bother him, but Loki is very aware of it.

Mobius takes him to another room, which has a single table in the center. TIME THEATRE is written in silver plates above the double doors. Loki swallows thickly, but says nothing, following after Mobius. The blonde woman remains outside the door, and the look she gives Loki is dark. Something about it is intimately familiar. It reminds him of Thor.

Mobius gestures for him to take a seat. There are only two, and they're both made of flimsy red plastic. Behind the chairs is a large, empty wall. It's painted white. There's something about this room that reeks of stale magic and misery.

Mobius slides down into his own chair with a sigh, looking worn. Like he's the one who's been dragged into unfamiliar territory, stripped, and beaten. Loki's jaw aches from the abuse. Mobius makes another gesture toward the chair.

Loki keeps standing.

It gives him some advantage, weak as it may be.

But Loki knows better now. Any advantage is an advantage. He keeps waiting. He doesn't understand, but he knows he will eventually.

"Not a sitting guy, okay," Mobius says at length, adjusting his position in his seat. He pulls some sort of device closer to him. A tablet, maybe. "That's fine. Sometimes I'm not always feeling it myself."

Loki bites the inside of his cheek. "What do you want from me?" the words are soft. He wants to yell them, but he has no idea what the repercussions would be. Thanos hated yelling. Loki remembers at first being surprised by how rarely the Black Order shouted, and only at each other.

"We're getting to that. Are you sure you don't want to sit?" Mobius asks. Loki shoots him a scathing look, which Mobius rolls his eyes to. It unnerves him, how calm Mobius is. He can't imagine the level of violence Mobius experiences daily to be so numbed to this.

"Okay. God. I will remember you hate it when people are polite. You'll have to forgive me, I haven't dealt with a lot of Lokis."

Lokis.

Plural?

What the hel?

"Right. I'm sure you have questions, so I'll just get the most obvious one out the way. This is the TVA-the Time Variance Authority. We're in charge of maintaining timelines for the Time Keeper, you're here because we have a problem that we need you to fix."

Loki stares at him blankly for a moment.

TVA.

He rolls the name over in his mind, but nothing comes up. How has he never heard about them before? Loki has scoured Asgard's libraries. Timelines are an accepted part of Asgardian science, but there has never been any sort of mention of keepers. Wouldn't Heimdall have seen this? And why Midgardians?

"Why haven't I heard of you?" Loki asks. He takes a tentative step closer.

Mobius shrugs. "The Time Keeper-they're extremely good at staying out of sight. Have been for centuries, and always will be. That's all the questions you have, really? No accusations? Nothing? I was told you'd be a lot more chatty."

"I don't like to talk," Loki says flatly.

Told by who?

Mobius levels him with an impassioned stare. "Sure."

Loki bristles with frustration. Who does this man think he is, to claim to know Loki better than himself? Loki doesn't like to talk and just because this man believes otherwise doesn't make it so. But he doesn't have time to be frustrated, because a realization is slowly beginning to settle.

This was intentional. They knew where Loki would land with the Tesseract. Loki didn't even know that. He had no plans on where he was going to land, only that he was going to get away. But they knew. They still knew, because they took him on purpose.

"What exactly do you need my help with?" Loki asks at length.

Mobius gestures for him to take a seat again.

Loki doesn't move.

"Fine," Mobius says, throwing up his hands. "The TVA's mission is to protect reality from collapsing in on itself. We need your help to find some people who are threatening it. After that, you can be on your way," Mobius promises. "It won't be more than a few days."

Loki stares at him, breathing in slowly.

It won't be more than a few days. Loki's mind may have been torn apart and is crumpling at the seams, but he's not an idiot and he can still see a lie when he hears one. There's something permanent about this place. Like the Sanctuary. It's the place where you go to rot.

"No," Loki whispers. He takes a step back.

I have to get out of here.

"No, I won't help you. There is no deal." Loki says. "You intend to keep me."

Like a plaything. Like a pet.

Like Thanos.

Loki reaches for his magic instinctively, and a hot rush of nausea pushes up his throat. His arm is burning. Loki falls to his knees, clawing at his arm in desperation and a keening sound escapes him. His nails scrape over something underneath his skin. It's some sort of metallic implant. He can't get off the floor. He lets go of his magic and the pain stops, but his body is throbbing.

White.

Everything is tinted white.

They've cut off my magic. I'm going to die here.

Mobius sighs, getting up from the table. "No, Loki," he says softly, "you don't understand. We don't do 'no's."

He jabs some sort of blunted weapon into Loki's arm and the electricity coursing through his veins sends him tumbling into blackness.

[10:24; 2012. - TERRAN TIME : Time Variance Authority - Outside of Timelines]

The water spills from his face as his face is pulled from the small tub and he chokes, heaving, desperate. His entire body is shaking. He can't breathe. He can't move. His limbs feel swollen, his body twitching desperately in an effort to escape arms that feel like iron, but he can't.

Gods…

He coughs, wet hair sticking to his face. He spits out what water he can, but it feels like it's a living entity inside him.

When Loki manages to get his raw eyes open, Mobius is staring at him from the other side of the tub. His expression is completely blank, but it seems more like a mask of desperation than indifference. Loki has watched it crack further and further every time Loki is dragged out of the tub.

Mobius holds his gaze. He doesn't even need to ask the question anymore.

Loki, broken and half insane, spits at him. He can't manage anything more than that.

They shove him back into the tub.

Loki passes out before they pull him out. He wakes with aching ribs and lungs that feel sliced to ribbons. He's laying on the cell floor, which has become his only reprieve in days. Weeks. He's not sure how long he's been here now. It doesn't matter. He's just going to keep going until he dies, and even the walls won't remember him after that.

Freedom is life's great lie.

The words mock him.

A prisoner of Asgard, then Thanos, now the TVA. He will never truly be free because freedom doesn't exist. It's just one captor to another.

Eventually, the door opens. Loki tries to brace himself, but his body is spent, and his mind splintered. He prays they have weapons. Maybe he can kill himself before they can drag him out of here. His family isn't waiting for him. Not anymore. Thor hates him. Loki stabbed him.

Thor had reached for him instinctively at that moment, in pain, and in that pain, his body knew that Loki should have helped him. Loki had to shove him off before he tumbled back. But he'd still stabbed his brother, and Loki had meant it.

Not in anger, but fear.

Thor had to leave.

The Other's fingers were reaching into his mind, listening, always listening, and Loki had to be careful. Thor always dragged down all his defenses and destroyed his walls. Thor was the one safe place he had left in the universe, and Loki shoved him off.

There's a set of footsteps, singular, instead of the usual gathering of them. Loki's brow furrows a fraction, but all he can manage is dread.

A woman sighs before a figure squats down in front of him. She's holding food. Some type of grayish bread. Loki hasn't eaten since before he invaded New York. He raises his eyes to her for a moment, trying to gauge the trap.

Her blue eyes just stare back.

It's her.

The woman who looks like Frigga, but doesn't. Blonde hair, blue eyes, she has her nose. Loki hasn't seen her since that day Mobius talked to him in the Time Theatre. She has several markings on her shoulder that indicate she must be someone of some standing inside of the TVA. The footsoldiers Loki has become accustomed to don't have it.

The woman gestures impatiently with the bread. "Are you going to take it or not?" she asks sharply.

Loki shifts his aching body and reaches for the bread. Their fingers touch for a moment, her warm skin against his frigid, and Loki cringes, expecting something sort of retaliation. Gamora hated it when he touched her, even on accident.

I've been here before. I've been here so many times.

Loki starts eating. The food is tasteless but has a texture that reminds him of gruel.

"You're only making things worse for yourself," the woman says after a moment. "Everyone complies eventually. We all break here. That's what the TVA does, Loki."

Oh, he thinks weakly.

"Not again," Loki whispers. His hands clench into weak fists. "Not again."

The woman stares at him for a long moment. There's something about her that's so familiar that it hurts, but Loki is positive he's never met her before in his life.

"They're coming for you soon," the woman says. "You need to give up. Stop fighting this. You're going lose your mind or they're going to kill you."

Loki swallows. "Why do you care?"

"I don't," the woman says bluntly. "I want your help with our problem and I'd rather do it with your brains mostly intact. Consider this your official warning."

Loki gives a dry laugh. "So incredibly gracious, thank you."

The woman scowls. "You're an ass."

"So I've been told," Loki assures, finishing off the thick slice of bread. It's sitting in his stomach strangely and making him nauseous. He's probably going to vomit it back up. Her blue eyes flicker for a moment, an emotion Loki can't read racing across them.

"What Thanos did to you will be nothing like what we will," the woman says softly. "Which is why you need to stop while you still can."

Loki's mouth goes dry.

They know.

Of course they know

Oh gods.

The shiver of apprehension makes his bones ache. He can hear the guards approaching. You think you know pain? He will make you long for something sweet as pain…

Loki does. He longs for Thanos, because at least then he knew what the Mad Titan wanted. The TVA is nothing like him. Nothing but the same. It's all the same. There was never going to be a different way this story ends. Just Loki, broken on the floor, defeated. Over and over again.

He always loses.

The door opens, and Loki looks back at TVA agents. Their faces blur, but they're emotionless and promise pain. The thought of the water makes his chest squeeze with dread. The bread threatens to come back up.

He tries to scramble away as they move toward him, but he's too weak. They grab his arms and start to haul him forward. Mobius is in the doorway, and the woman is behind him.

Loki breathes in a gasping sob.

We all break here.

"Don't!" Loki gasps, wrenching his arm. "Stop! I'll help you!"

Mobius gives him a faint smile, but his eyes are dull. He'd clearly been expecting nothing else, just waiting for Loki to realize it was all a charade. "Good. We have a lot of work to do."

Author's Note:

Next chapter: ...May. (Tentatively)

please leave your thoughts if you're comfortable with that.