ꜰᴏʀ ᴀʟʟ ᴛɪᴍᴇ

Chapter 4: Suck on That, TVA!

Chiquitita: ABBA

     "Would you look at this!" Loki says, reading a case.

      I sit up worn out from the piles of files. "Wait, don't tell me. The Variant ambushed and killed another team of Minutemen!" I act surprised.

     Loki gasps. "And he stole their reset charges as well!"

    "Who would have thought?"

     "Shh." A voice from behind us says.

      Loki looks around confused and I roll my eyes. Turning around, we see a woman sitting at another table. "Shh." We shush her back.

     She gives us a disapproving look causing us to do the same. Eventually, she rolls her eyes and gets back to work.

     Loki and I turn around and give each other a look before losing it. I manage to stifle a laugh as Loki tries his hardest to laugh silently. He covers his face with his arm in an attempt to calm down and I lean over the table getting his attention. "Shhh," I whisper jokingly, causing Loki and me to burst out laughing. The old lady grumbles and eventually leaves, not happy with our teasing.

     Once we manage to calm down, we return to our work with a smile leftover. "By the way," Loki says leaning back in his chair, "your...walkman, why do you have that?"

     "Because it's awesome?" I say as if it isn't obvious.

     "Yeah, I suppose it is." He chuckles. "And those songs, they're rather nice."

      "I know right! Honestly, I'm lucky whoever previously owned it had good taste." Loki agrees with me. "You know, Mobius would always tell me about all the dumb things that people made in history saying how 'everything gets ruined eventually' but I don't think he really believes that; nor do I. He dreams of riding a jet ski and I get taken away by earth's music."

     "Ah, so that's what the magazines were." He says chuckling.

     "Yeah, and trust me when I say nobody wants to get in between him and his jet skis."

      "Well," Loki leans in, "why don't you guys just go down there? He could ride a jet ski, and you could listen to the music in person." He offers. "I mean, you guys got the tools."

      I let out a breathy chuckle and slouch forwards, picking at a dent in the table. "If only it was that easy. I don't think the Sacred Timeline would appreciate that."

      Loki nods, watching me pick apart the poor table. "So," He clears his throat and grabs another file, "find anything useful?"

     "Nope." I sit up and push aside my last case. "I don't know, I feel like we missed something." Loki shrugs as I grab the case on him once again. Scanning through everything looks the same as it did the last ten times I've read it. "Nothing I didn't see before," I comment, putting loose pages to the side.

    Loki glances over but puts his case down when doing so. "Wait. What's this?" He asks.

    I look up to see him grabbing a paper, looking intently as he reads the title, The Destruction of Asgard. I don't answer as his eyes scan the page thoroughly. His furrow then gets wide as tears start welling up. Working at the TVA, I've never had to think about my future let alone my death, so I can't imagine the pain for someone to read about theirs. He purses his lips together then swallows, adjusting in his seat. Leaning forwards, I reach my hand out and set it on top of his for comfort. Loki then quickly pulls away and sits up with his brows furrowed. "This says 'zero variance energy detected'."