Family is for all time, always [1]

My family

~~~Loki's pov~~~

I sat at a small table with a projector on it with Agents Mobius and Catherine, while Linda sat in the corner with a pad of paper and crayons.

Catherine reached over to the projector, and pixels started to form on the screen.

"What's this?"

"New York. A sampling of your greatest hits." She smirked at me as a picture of the Avengers was shown.

"If it's all the same to you, I'll have that drink now."

Mobius tried to hand me a drink.

"No. And I remember. I was there an hour ago."

"It's funny. For someone born to rule, you sure do lose a lot. You might even say it's in your nature."

I didn't respond to that.

"Phil Coulson said that to you, right? Those were his words to you before you killed him." The projector now showed the man's death.

I winced as I watched the scene unfold.

I didn't want to kill him. I had no control. But the event on the screen told a different story entirely.

"Do you enjoy hurting people? Making them feel small?"

"No," I answered honestly.

They both looked at me, confused.

~~~Catherine's pov~~~

Hold up.

What does he mean, no? He killed 80 people in two days.

"You realize you killed over 80 people in two days, right?" Mobius asked him.

"I didn't mean to." He said quietly.

"What do you mean, you didn't mean to? How does one accidentally kill that many people?"

"Never mind." He shook his head, not bothering to elaborate.

But somewhere, deep down, I felt like he was telling the truth.

"Okay, sure. Let's say you accidentally killed all of those people. How?" I asked, going along with him.

He was about to answer, but Mobius interrupted him.

"You're gonna start taking things seriously."

What did he mean? From what I could see, he was taking this very seriously. He seemed genuine about what he said.

At the same time, I can see where Mobius is coming from. Did Lokis usually say they didn't want to hurt people? It's kind of their whole thing.

Mobius took control of the video player and fast-forwarded it to...his mother's death.

He was starting to take this too far.

But before I could stop him, he played the clip.

The variant looked at the screen in confusion.

"What is this? This never happened."

"Not to you, not yet," Mobius answered before pausing the video. "The TVA doesn't just know your whole past. We know your whole life, how it's supposed to be." He played the video again.

"Then I'm not your mother?"

"You're not."

I saw the change in the variant's expression. He was slowly breaking.

"If you hadn't taken the Tesseract, you would've been taken to a cell on Asgard," I said quietly, knowing what was coming, and then Mobius took over.

"And then, the Dark Elves attack the palace. You think you sent them to Thor, but instead, you sent them to..." He stopped, watching as Queen Frigga was stabbed through the back and killed.

I looked over to Loki, only to see him start to tear up.

"No... That... I wouldn't-" He struggled to speak as he shook his head in disbelief.

He looked so heartbroken...

"Mobius, maybe we should-" I tried to interject because this was getting out of hand.

"That's the proper flow of time. And it happens again, and again, and again, because it's supposed to. Because it has to. The TVA makes sure of it. Now, why don't you tell me, do you enjoy hurting people? Do you enjoy killing?" He pressed.

"I'm-" He tried to say something, standing up, but Mobius cut him off again.

God, man! At least let him answer your damn question!

"You're gonna what? Kill me? Like you killed your mother?"

I gasped in shock. He went way over the line.

I was about to scold him when Linda came up and stood in front of Loki, crossing her arms and glaring at Mobius.

"Linda, you shouldn't be here while we're working." He said to her calmly.

"And you shouldn't talk about things you don't understand." She glared at him with a wave of anger I didn't know a five-year-old could have.

I side with her on this one. That's right. The grown woman is siding with the kid.

He stared at her in shock while I resisted the urge to give her a thumbs-up.

While I was proud of her, she's never stood up for a variant before. What's different about this one?

What she did next just added to my confusion.

She turned to face Loki and hugged him.

He looked as equally surprised as us and even more so when she handed him a picture she drew.

He knelt at her level and thanked her for the picture, asking what it was.

I didn't hear her answer because she whispered it to him, but he looked as confused as I looked shocked.

What could she have said?

~~~Loki's pov~~~

"Thank you, Linda. What is it a picture of?" I asked the young girl.

She leaned over and whispered, "My family."

I looked at the paper again to see a well-drawn picture of the Avengers, but not the ones I knew.

They were there, but it wasn't just the six of them. There were many others. A woman with red magic, a sorcerer with a cloak, one with wings, one that was as tall as a building, and another who was the size of an ant and was flying. Like a wasp. And one that looked like her mother but with black magic surrounding her hands.

But what perplexed me most of all was that I was there as well.

Why would she include me?