The Variant's Shadow - LokixOC - ONGOING

* Gods *

📍OKLAHOMA, 1982 - BRANCHED TIMELINE

Ophelia smiled as soon as they walked through the door. She didn’t even need to look, she would’ve recognized the smell of McDonald’s fries anywhere. What she was failing to understand however, was why they were trying to find the supposedly angriest woman in the universe in a parking lot, in the middle of the night. 

A blonde woman walked out of the already closed restaurant and froze when she noticed Loki and Ophelia standing there. 

“This is gonna sound strange,” Loki warned her. “I know you don’t know who I am.”

“Loki,” she replied. “Of course I know who you are.”

“What ?”

“How ?” Ophelia asked, a bit jealous that she didn’t get to remember the future. Surely only Gods were allowed to.

“Why wouldn’t I ?”

“Nobody else did,” Loki replied. “Their lives were reset.”

“I know, I was there.” She looked at Ophelia and frowned. “Of course you remembered, too.”

“I don’t.”

“Why are you here, then ?”

“I…” Ophelia stopped herself and crossed her arms. “You were there ? But you escaped the explosion… by yourself ?” 

Next to her, Loki started disappearing again. OB had never thought about this. There was no protocol about what to do if Loki tried to teleport again. Instinctively, she took his hand, pulled on his arm, and ended up slapping him. It seemed to work, since he stopped doing his thing, but a wave of guilt ran through Ophelia. She’d just slapped a God. 

“Sorry,” she quickly said. 

She looked back at Sylvie, sure that it wasn’t anything new to her since her memories of the future were intact, but she’d clearly never seen that before. She looked like she’d just seen a ghost. The same way they’d all stared at Loki when he’d told them about a magical police of Time they’d all been working for. 

“Ok,” Sylvie finally said. “Get in the car. I’m buying you two a drink.”

As much as Ophelia wanted to take part in the conversation happening in the front of the car, she was forced to realize that Loki and Sylvie shared a lot more than she’d thought. There had been an attack on the TVA that she didn’t remember, no more than the explosion Sylvie had mysteriously escaped without taking anyone with her. She’d never met that ‘He Who Remains’ they were talking about, or any of his variants. 

Nothing was making any sense, and in the end she simply sat back and waited for that very annoying ride to end. Each time they’d mentioned her, or even looked at her, Ophelia had been the only one to notice that they weren’t talking to her, or about her. Only someone who looked like her, and that was one of the worst feelings. 

Sylvie stopped the car. Ophelia jumped outside almost immediately. She didn’t even want to listen to them anymore. Loki would take care of everything and she’d wait for her time to go home, wherever that was. She stayed behind when they sat at the counter and looked around, for her first time visiting the 80s. 

She smiled at the arcade game by the door. OB and her had watched the old Zaniac movies not so long ago, except they weren’t that old now. Ophelia took a coin from the bottom of her pocket and played, trying not to think about another version of herself that would one day understand how Time worked. A version who would see more of it than she ever would. A version who would be living things for herself instead of desperately trying to be someone else. Ophelia gave up on the game, since it had failed its only purpose, and joined the others at the counter.