Unlikely Allies

Chapter 1

He has to find the Tesseract.

That's the only thing going through Loki's mind as he twists time around, sending himself back to the halls of the TVA. He has to find the Tesseract. It's the only way he can get out of here. It's the only way he can return to Midgard and finish what he started.

He stumbles a bit on his return, and it takes a moment to catch his balance, and he's ready to take off. He has no idea where he is, but he'll figure it out. He has to.

"Loki?"

Loki whips around. He'd like to think it's a safe assumption that the Minuteman wasn't calling his name, so it must be the girl he's dragging by the forearm. He furrows his brows. Does he know her? She doesn't look familiar. Maybe they meet in the future? Or maybe them meeting was a cosmic mistake in her timeline and shouldn't have happened? He's not quite sure what to do with that information.

It's unclear whether the Minuteman recognizes him or just sees a Variant roaming free and deems it a problem, but he drops the woman's arm and pulls out his pruning stick. Maybe Thor had a point when he said all that magic in his fights would be to his detriment one day. He'll have to win this fight like an ordinary Asgardian.

The Minuteman jabs his pruning stick forward, and Loki jumps back out of the way. Before the Minuteman can pull it back, Loki grabs it, careful not to touch the end. He shoves it back towards the Minuteman, hitting him in the throat. He stumbles backward, and Loki tries to pull it out of his hand, but the Minuteman just pulls him back, too.

Loki pushes the pruning stick to the side and steps in towards him. He hits the heel of his hand against the Minuteman's throat, and, while he's recovering from that, Loki puts his hands behind the man's head and pulls it down, raising his knee at the same time. It doesn't kill him, but he does drop his pruning stick. Loki immediately crouches down to get it, and he stabs it right into the Minuteman's abdomen, watching with smug satisfaction as he disintegrates right then and there.

"Oh my god," the woman whispers, slapping her hands over her mouth in horror.

Loki turns to face her. He's not actually sure what to say — his mind is a little preoccupied at the moment — so he just says an awkward, "Hi."

She stares at him, frozen in place. "You're dead."

Loki scoffs. "I beg your pardon?"

"You're dead!" she says again, more emphatically this time. She takes her hands away from her face and gestures to him. "I saw you die!"

"I doubt that very much," Loki says. "I don't die."

"Yes, you do!" she says. "You just did, like, six hours ago!"

He shakes his head. He doesn't know what she thinks she saw, but he did not die. Not unless she comes from very far in the future. "Who are you?"

"Who am I?" She looks at him incredulously. "I just broke you out of prison! How do you not remember me?"

"You what?" Now it's Loki's turn to be incredulous, but it occurs to him that this is the worst possible time and place to be having this conversation, so he shoves that feeling aside. "Are we friends?"

"What?"

"Just answer the question," he says, rushing his words now. "Are we friends or not?"

"I don't think so?" she says uncertainly.

He should have suspected that. He doesn't really have any friends. "Allies, then." That sounds more like him.

"I don't know!" she says. "I mean, you saved my life a few hours ago so I guess...?"