Chapter Text
Loki walked aimlessly along the covered balcony of the motel, past the rows of rooms, a bowl of pomegranate and berries in his hand. The rain drummed on the roof above him as he picked at the tart fruit. After his defeat in New York, there was nothing to do except lie low and eat puddings in a nowhere motel in a nowhere metropolis in the grey afternoon rain. It was the sort of place runaways and criminals came when they didn’t want to be found. There was probably more than one dead body or wanted assassin hiding behind these anonymous doors; but out here, there were only pomegranate seeds and an empty grey future yawning before him.
He’d never felt so lonely.
The sound of running feet startled him out of his reverie. A woman with short blonde hair and a headdress of small broken gold horns was racing along the balcony towards him, looking back over her shoulder as if for some unseen pursuer. Loki realised too late that she hadn’t seen him. She barrelled straight into him, sending them both crashing to the ground. Red pomegranate seeds went everywhere. The pot smashed and berries and juice smeared all over his white shirt and her black jumpsuit.
She half got up and grabbed his hand with wide eyes. “I’ll never be sorry enough, but you look so beautiful!” she said.
Then she jumped up and raced off along the balcony again as if her life depended on it.
Loki flipped his hair out of his face and stared after her, utterly startled. One moment he had been eating pomegranates and the next a shooting star had crashed to earth on top of him. And in that moment he would have done anything for that star. He would follow her to the end of all worlds, covered in red juice.
He jumped to his feet and started to run after her.
He had not gotten two paces before he was tripped up by a squad of four uniformed people, unlike any police he’d ever seen in Midgard. They were all in black armour, with ‘TVA’ painted in orange on their helmets.
“Where did the girl go?” the leader said, shoving a baton that looked like a very large black pencil in his face. She wasn’t pointing the sharp end at him for some reason, but the glowing eraser end, which must by conclusion do something worse than poke you.
“She vaulted off the balcony!” Loki panted, pointing over the edge of the balcony at the torrential rain.
The squad unceremoniously dropped him and made off along the balcony, looking for a way down.
Loki ran in the opposite direction. The balcony ran right around the whole rectangular building. If she didn’t leave the balcony he’d be able to meet her running in the other direction.
He skidded around to the opposite side of the motel, identical to the near side. And there she was, running towards him at top speed, hair flying in the wind, the TVA squad in hot pursuit and gaining. If she wasn’t his destiny, Loki decided in that instant that he would write her into his destiny. There was nothing in his future but her.
He dashed straight towards her, setting a collision course. They slammed into each other, and he caught her up in his arms. In a flash of his green magic, they vanished, leaving nothing but a swirl of dust and the lingering scent of pomegranates.