Lucky had never felt more exhausted in his life, and he'd only been alive for about two weeks.
He'd been interrogated, stalked, fallen deeply in love, run straight into a shapeshifting Skrull, nearly caught said Skrull, watched Six have a nervous breakdown, had sex for the first (and he feared, last) time, and nearly killed someone, and even through all of that emotion and heartache and excitement, he'd never felt more… undone… than he did at that moment. Every time he looked at Six, it was like seeing her through a frosted pane of glass, like he couldn't make out her finer details anymore. Not physically; physically she looked exactly the same, but after she'd used magic out in the timeline, something intangible inside of her had changed. He saw it in the sharpness of her eyes, the alertness of her face, the strength of her voice. It was killing him inside, not understanding why he felt he'd lost her in that moment.
It wasn't the same kind of surprise he'd had when he saw G. running mostly naked out of the rainforest. He was still himself, just without all of the baggage of the TVA weighing him down. It was like she knew too much, as if she'd ascended above him, to a place he couldn't go.
He hated it.
Every time she tried to look at him, he turned his eyes away. He couldn't stand her face for some reason, when barely a day before he was pining for her. Now it hurt to see her, and he knew it hurt her when he turned away, too.
And yet, of course, it made no sense. Six was there, walking next to him in the middle of the TVA, trying to touch his pinky with hers, like they had in the elevator on their second day. That was what he yearned for, but every time he got close, it was like being pricked with needles. He jerked his hand away and consciously moved faster than her to walk right next to Mobius. At least he hadn't changed. Lucky could depend on that.
"Now, what I'm about to show you, and tell you, is… kind of shocking," Mobius told the trainees, as they turned a corner and went into an unused time theater, for privacy, Lucky assumed.
"I have to see this for myself," muttered B-15. "To make sure you're not just crazy."
He chuckled as he typed a command into his tempad. "Well, I might be, anyway. But it's true."
"What's true?" asked Lucky.
Mobius didn't answer him, but gave him the slightest sidelong glance, and Lucky couldn't help but notice a bit of pity in it. That hurt somehow more than Six's new aura.
Mobius opened a red timecell door and walked through, with everyone else following a moment later.
What Lucky saw made him stumble and stare, feeling as if he'd lost his mind completely.
Mobius had led them into his sunset beach timecell, with the jet ski still bobbing up and down on the fake ocean current, and everything was just as they'd left it… except for one notable addition. Sitting up on one of the beach chairs was Mobius, somehow, wearing plaid yellow-and-brown TVA issued flannel pajamas. He wore a scruffy five-o-clock shadow, threatening to turn into a full-blown beard in a day or two. A medic, the same one who'd been at the fights, and who'd helped Six when she'd had her meltdown, had Mobius' shirt opened and was changing a huge, bloody bandage on his chest. The other Mobius winced slightly as she treated it, then he looked up to see the group coming towards them. With a big smile on his face, he waited a second for the doctor to place a new, clean bandage on him, then stood without bothering to button his shirt again.
"You found them," said the fake Mobius, the shapeshifter wearing pajamas, and the real one answered with a nod.
"How's your arm?" said his Mobius.
The shapeshifter lifted his left arm and winced, but chuckled a bit through his pain. "Doing great. Amazing what Dr. Alltid's stuff can do, huh?"
B-15's mouth fell open. "Damn, it is true," she whispered.
The medic's eyes went wide as she looked at Mobius' face, which was quickly bruising from B-15's slap. She took some sort of plastic device with one wide end from her bag of supplies and came over to him, shaking her head.
"Mobius," she said, clicking her tongue at him, "will you stop getting into fights? How did this happen, now?"
"I dunno, ask B-15," he muttered. B-15 looked away guiltily. "Still no apology?" he added under his breath, as Dr. Alltid waved the plastic wand close to his face, a red light shining over his cheek.
B-15 ducked her head and mumbled, "Sorry," almost too faint for anyone to hear.
Lucky hadn't moved since the moment he'd stepped through the door, despite the fact that everyone else seemed completely unfazed by the shapeshifter's presence. He didn't think he could be more shocked, but then Six covered her mouth with both hands and rushed toward the Skrull.
"Wait, what are you-?" he began, but she was already hugging the fake Mobius, who stumbled back and let out a sharp gasp of pain, which made her let go abruptly.
"Not so hard," he said, still chuckling. "Sylvie? You remember me?"
Six was too overwhelmed with emotion to speak, and could only nod her head, trying not to cry.
As Lucky stood glued to the spot, going numb with confusion and fear, the real Mobius came over to him and put a gentle hand on his back.
"Lucky," he said, "this is-"
"The shapeshifter," he whispered.
Mobius let out the smallest chuckle, like Lucky was an idiot child who didn't understand anything. "No, no. This is… well, he's me. He's actually me, from a different universe. You can call him Variant Mobius, if it's easier to remember."
"It's a Skrull," Lucky repeated firmly, making everyone turn to look at him. Lucky couldn't take his eyes off of that fake Mobius' gray-blue gaze. He couldn't help his voice from wavering a little as he continued. "It's a Skrull, and he's lying, and you bought it. How could you be so stupid, Mobius? How could-" He cut himself off abruptly, then started to pace back and forth on the sand, his mouth going dry. "How could you believe this? It's wrong, it's obviously wrong. Everything is wrong. Six isn't a different person. She's Six, she's just… just sick, that's all, and nobody wants to help…" His path was taking him in wider and wider circles as words fell out of his mouth like vomit. Everyone's stares transformed from shock to concern. He didn't care.
"Didn't you tell him about me?" asked the fake Mobius.
The real one let out a deep sigh. "Look, man, we've had a really hectic day-"
"You're all sick!" Lucky exploded suddenly, getting everyone's attention again. He pointed accusingly at the fake Mobius, looking a little like Rasputin preaching his mad gospel to the crowd. "You're a liar! Show me your real form! Show me!"
The shapeshifter put up his hands defensively and slowly stepped forward, his head tilted, confused.
"Hey, hey," he said quietly, coming closer. Lucky backed away, ready to bolt, though there was nowhere to go. "Just calm down-" he looked to the real Mobius, forgetting his name for a second, "-Lucky? Right? Let me explain everything. It's okay…"
Lucky shook his head, stumbling backwards. "It's not okay. You've tricked everyone. You won't trick me, though, you bastard. I know what you are."
"Lucky, please, listen…" it was the real Mobius coming towards him, now, and for some reason, seeing both Mobiuses at the same time sent him completely over the edge of madness.
"Leave me alone!" he screamed, falling into the sand, scrambling backwards. They did. They only squinted at him, with the exact same expression of concern etched on their faces. Six was crying openly now. She rushed to him, but he pushed himself back even more and shook his head.
"Don't touch me," he muttered, as he felt his body unconsciously shrivel up into a fetal position. "Don't touch me… don't touch me."
"Good god," whispered Mobius, the one Lucky knew, as he brushed the edges of his mustache with his fingers. "I had no idea he would react like this."
The other Mobius answered, "Well, Lokis aren't the most… stable people, usually."
Lucky could barely hear the two Mobius' speaking to each other. It was as if they were talking into a tin can from a mile away. He desperately wanted to push Six off of him as she slowly came and wrapped her arms around him, but found that he couldn't. His muscles were so tight, they were locked in place, unable to move at all. Her warm touch did nothing to penetrate the cold, angry terror rushing through him, like lightning, all up and down his back and limbs. All of a sudden, it stopped, and he felt as if he wasn't even there at all, like his mind and soul had gone blank.
Despite the pain, he was… free. Absolved. There were no more terrors to plague him. It was done.
"I… I have to be good," he whispered to no one in particular. "I have to tell Miss Minutes."
Everyone, even the doctor, whipped their heads around to look straight at him again, this time in horror.
"It was my fault for not telling her everything when she asked," he continued absently. "I should have told her. I should have been good." He stood up and stiffly wandered away from Six's embrace.
"Lucky?" she asked, but that wasn't his name. He had no name. How could he respond to her if he had no name?
He was no one.
"I'll tell her. I'll tell her everything, and then she'll make me an agent. I'll be good again. And I'll know who I'm supposed to be. I… I'll…"
With that, his knees gave out, and he sank again into the sand, in a kneeling position. Dr. Alltid came over to him with her bag, then shone a bright light into his eyes, one that he could somehow barely see.
"His pupils are dilating like crazy," she said, turning to one of the Mobiuses. He couldn't tell them apart anymore. "Did he have some head trauma recently? Did he consume something psychoactive? Drugs? Some weird plant?"
The Mobius wearing a suit squinted incredulously. "What? No!" He paused then, and added, "Well, he did come out of the Amazon rainforest, recently… he could have eaten something then."
The pajama-clad Mobius rubbed his hands against his face and groaned, "I wasn't planning on him becoming a liability."
"He's not."
Lucky's gaze, hazy and weak, flickered to Six, who knelt down beside him again, putting his cheek in her hand. Some warmth melted through, then, but not enough to comfort him.
"Do you remember the song you sang to me?"
"Karaoke?" he asked, his tongue suddenly feeling like a lead weight in his mouth.
Her smile trembled, but held. "No. On the train. On Lamentis-1. In Asgardian."
He shook his head, which made his world swim for a moment.
She leaned his head on her shoulder. Her scent, her touch, hit a brick wall inside of him. He longed for it so much that it hurt.
"I'm better at Allspeak than Asgardian, but…" she sighed, took a deep breath, then started to sing, soft and throaty, barely on key.
"I stormsvarte fjell, jeg vandrer alene
Over isbreen tar jeg meg frem
I eplehagen står møyen den vene…"
She grimaced and couldn't help the sob that shuddered through her. He wanted to meet her there where she was, to hold her, soothe her, but he was like a blind man, fumbling against the wall in his mind, trying to find an exit. He didn't know the song, but it felt so gentle, like watching the white birds soar freely through the sky in Rio de Janeiro.
"Haven't you tried enchanting him?" asked Variant Mobius.
"Of course I have." She was firm, on the edge of angry. "That's the first thing I did."
"I didn't realize he'd be immune to your magic."
Lucky could barely understand what anyone was talking about, but vaguely grasped that everyone was now kneeling down, staring at him. As he drifted back into his conscious mind, his tongue was so dry, it felt like he'd tried to eat cotton.
"Thirsty," was the only thing he could say. Dr. Alltid immediately rummaged around in her bag and brought out a small bottle of water. His fingers felt stiff and cold and swollen as he twisted off the cap and gulped down as much as he could. The water seemed to help bring him fully back into the present. Finally, he could feel Six's arms around him, allow her warmth to soak in. He laid his head back down on her shoulder and heaved a deep sigh. She wasn't herself anymore, somehow, but at least she was physically there, and that was better than nothing.
"Six," he croaked. "Why are you different? Why did the shape-why did Variant Mobius call you 'Sylvie'? I'm so confused."
Variant Mobius shifted to sit cross legged in the sand. "Are you ready to listen to me, now?"
Worn out, and knowing he didn't have much choice, he nodded.
"Lucky, everything you've been taught about yourself is a lie. You weren't made in the TVA in a little pod. You were stolen from the timeline."
"All of us were," added the other Mobius. "Everyone." Learning the truth was almost as surreal as hearing both the Mobius' identical voices right next to each other.
Variant Mobius continued. "We were variants, the same ones that I… that agents catch and turn in for processing and judgment. You following?"
Lucky nodded slowly, though he still kind of wanted to bolt.
"You and Sylvie… Six… are very special, though. Do you know why?" Lucky opened his mouth to answer, but then Variant Mobius shrugged and sighed, "no, of course you don't. The rest of us are human. But you guys are Asgardians."
Lucky blinked, his stare flickering to Sylvie, this stranger holding him close and warm, then back down to the sand, feeling almost guilty, somehow. "How did we get here?" he asked.
Variant Mobius smiled sadly. "You guys were captured by a different TVA. Mine. In another universe. I was tasked with capturing you, Loki, and I convinced you to help me capture her." He gestured to Sylvie, who didn't seem to be angry over the whole thing. "And… well, a hell of a lot of stuff happened. We all figured out that everyone in the TVA were actually humans, and we got pruned into the Void, and then you two somehow got through the creature that eats everything at the end of time-"
Lucky's mouth fell open. "The… what?"
"I know, crazy right?" Variant Mobius' grinned and let out a single chuckle. "That was wild. Anyway, I don't know what happened to you guys past that point. That's when I went back, looking for my TVA, trying to take revenge like a lunatic."
"We found the citadel at the end of time," Sylvie continued without missing a beat. "We found the Timekeeper. He tried to convince us to take control of the TVA in his stead."
"What?!" exclaimed everyone, even B-15 and the doctor.
She only shrugged. "He said he was tired. I called his bluff and you… Loki… wanted to take him up on his offer. So we fought. And I sent you back into the TVA. This TVA, not the one we came from."
His universe's Mobius suddenly sat up straight, his eyes wide. "That's it! That's what he was talking about! 'The citadel at the end of time'! And then he followed me into the timeline, and we found Sylvie… I remember!"
"He went straight to you?" said Sylvie, and Mobius nodded. She smiled and said to herself, "He would, wouldn't he?"
Lucky really didn't appreciate being spoken over like he was some stupid child. He released himself from Sylvie's embrace.
"So why don't I know any of this?"
Everyone went quiet and looked at each other, before Sylvie finally broke the silence.
"Because the TVA's brainwashing worked on you, just like it was supposed to. I happened to make sure not every bit of those chemicals got into me. I… I don't know if there's a way to get people's memories back completely."
"But you helped me remember Roberto," said B-15.
"That was only a little piece of your memory," Sylvie replied. "I'm not a powerful telepath. My enchantment can only bring back tiny snippets."
"The only reason I know much about my life is because I found my own life reel here," said Variant Mobius. "I don't think anyone's files are kept, once the TVA turns you into an employee."
B-15 blinked and stared at the sand. "So, what are we supposed to do?"
Variant Mobius answered, "I was hoping both Loki and Sylvie could figure out how to get their memories back-"
"Did no one think to ask me what I wanted?" Lucky blurted out suddenly, startling himself as much as everyone else. They stared at him. "What if I don't want to be this other person, this Loki? It's a stupid name, anyway…"
"You're not even curious?" asked his Mobius.
"No," he answered without thinking. "I know who I am, okay? I don't want to become someone else."
An unnerved silence spread through the rest of them as they gave each other disconcerted glances.
Mobius continued. "This is the biggest news any one of us could get in our lives. I don't get it. Why? Why don't you want to know?"
"I don't need to," he said. He put his arms across his chest, shrinking inward protectively, as if part of him wanted to curl into a fetal position again. "I'm not repeating myself."
Variant Mobius pulled a small square of paper out of his pocket. Lucky suppressed the urge to take a swing at him, to get him to go away.
"You recognize this?" he asked softly.
He did. It was his temporal soul scan, the one he'd given to his Mobius, with creases where Variant Mobius had folded it up. Lucky nodded, and Variant Mobius smiled.
"I knew it was yours. You see this transparent cloud of red? In your file from my universe, your temporal scan was just a big red blotch. A lot of active, passionate, unruly energy in your aura. And this blue in the center?" He pointed at the spot of opaque color right in the middle of Lucky's chest in the photo. "This is what they distilled out of you. They did that to all of us. They somehow picked out the traits that they wanted-meekness, obedience, ability to play nice with others, et. cetera-and shrank our personalities down into that little splotch. They didn't just block us from our memories. They're blocking us from ourselves."
"If we can't get ourselves back, then why does any of this matter?"
Variant Mobius' smile disappeared suddenly. No one could answer him. It gave Lucky a small sense of satisfaction to see their shocked expressions, but it secretly hurt to know he was right.
"There has to be a way-" started his Mobius, but Lucky cut him off.
"There isn't, though. Whatever Six… Sylvie… did, she can't do it to anyone else. Not enough for it to matter, anyway." He looked up at Variant Mobius. "Do you feel like you're actually a different person, now that you've seen your memories?"
Variant Mobius opened his mouth, then closed it again, and solemnly shook his head.
"No, actually. I know who I was, but that's different from being Jeff Boyd."
Lucky sat up in the sand. "So you're all just torturing yourselves with this knowledge, this tiny taste of forbidden fruit that you'll never have again. You can't do anything about it. You'll only ever have the smallest window into who you were." His gaze flickered pointedly to B-15. "And even if you remember your loved ones, they're gone anyway, aren't they? Aren't those timelines all reset?"
B-15 held in a gasp and bit her lip, turning away from everyone. Sylvie's glare turned fiery, but he couldn't have cared less. He continued.
"If you leave, the TVA captures you. Silences you. Kills you. So someone please tell me why any of this will make a difference?"
He paused to give them a chance to answer his question, but none of them dared speak.
"It won't. The TVA already won. It has to win, or the timeline loses."
Sylvie, furious, stood up with a growl and pounded her boot into the sand, her fists clenched at her sides.
"Coward!" she screamed. "You filthy, craven coward!"
Their Mobius stood, too, and tried to calm her. "Sylvie, he's afraid, okay? I'm sure he doesn't mean-"
"Oh, but he does!" she said, with a mirthless bark of a laugh. "He does mean it because he is afraid! He's pissing himself with fear! He's so afraid, that he wants to be kept a stupid, simpering slave for the rest of his life!"
At that, and to everyone's sheer surprise, she kicked fake sand in his face that vanished the second it hit him. He didn't get up, refused to move. That somehow hurt worse than any slap or punch he'd ever gotten. He worked his mouth silently for a moment before words came to him again.
"I want Six back!" he exploded at her, making everyone jolt with shock. "I don't want you! I want to be able to understand my life! I want to know what I'm supposed to be!"
"You want to be stepped on, you boot licking-!"
Mobius gently grabbed her shoulder and led her a little ways away from the group. Lucky couldn't hear what they were saying, but Sylvie's face grew redder by the second as they spoke.
Variant Mobius shook his head and gave Lucky a pitiful look, one that he hated to his core.
"I get that you're freaked out by all this," he said, "but that's no reason to immediately give up hope."
"I'm not giving up hope because there was no hope to begin with. This is folly. It's idiocy."
Variant Mobius' blue eyes turned icy and stern. "Wanting your freedom is the farthest thing from idiocy that there is. In the end, it's all we have."
Lucky pulled his arms tighter across his chest, so tightly he could barely allow himself to breathe. "If that's what freedom is supposed to be, then I don't want it. I'd rather life be simple than knowing a secret that will get my brain scrambled."
Variant Mobius blinked, squinted at him, silently thinking for a long moment, then nodded. "That is simpler, isn't it?"
Lucky looked up in surprise. He wasn't expecting him to agree. "It… it is, yes," he stammered.
Variant Mobius stood up slowly and put his hands in his pockets, not quite speaking directly to him.
"Is that not your natural state? It's the unspoken truth of humanity, that you crave subjugation. The bright lure of freedom diminishes your life's joy in a mad scramble for power, for identity." Variant Mobius looked down on Lucky sitting in the sand, who was utterly dumbstruck by his new, almost frightening tone. The look in his eye was somehow knowing and haughty at the same time. "You were made to be ruled. In the end, you will always kneel."
A deep silence followed, until Lucky issued forth the only word he could muster.
"Huh?"
Variant Mobius let out a long breath, like a balloon losing air, his icy stare melting away in the process.
"Well, I was hoping that might dislodge something in your memory," he mumbled. "No dice."
"What did any of that mean, though?" asked Lucky.
"You tell me. Why do you think someone would say something like that?"
Lucky let his mouth hang open for a second, then replied, "Because they're insane?"
Variant Mobius rolled his eyes and nodded at the same time. "Okay. That's a fair guess. Why else, though?"
Lucky thought hard about it for quite a long moment as he sat there on the sand.
"Perhaps… perhaps whoever said that was really insecure," he ventured. "They sound like they're trying to cover up how they feel with bravado, or something."
To his surprise, Variant Mobius smiled slyly at that explanation.
"You're still in there, Loki," he said softly.
"Wait… do you mean to tell me that I said that stuff?"
Variant Mobius nodded. "It was an important moment in your life, when you just started to realize you were fucking up big time. Plus it was a damned eloquent speech, too. Very memorable."
"I thought you were trying to get me to want to be Loki again? I'll tell you, you're doing a really bad job."
"We all have good and bad that we have to deal with. Some have a little more baggage than others, but you still-"
"I told you already," spat Lucky, lunging forward a little like an angry cobra, "I'm not him. I won't be him. I won't let anyone screw with my head."
"They already screwed with your head, though!" His universe's Mobius came back to him, leaving Sylvie to stew several yards away. "We deserve to know the truth about ourselves, you included. Lucky, the worst way to get an identity is by letting someone else make it for you."
That stung deep, but Lucky stubbornly pressed his mouth shut. He couldn't lose this argument. Refused to.
"Do you think Six is just dead, or something?" Sylvie came back to the group, calmer, but with a lingering waver in her voice. "Do you think I just forgot everything we went through? She's not dead. She's in here. She just isn't in the foreground."
"Are you happy she's in the background, now?" he grumbled at her, without looking up at anyone. "Aren't you glad you don't have to be a little mouse anymore?"
"Bloody wretched twat," she spat right back at him, then turned around and crossed her arms in front of her, just like he was doing.
Both Mobiuses looked at each other hopelessly and shrugged in unison.
His Mobius scratched his head. "So, is there a plan B?"
"If I'm being completely honest here… there wasn't that much of a plan A to begin with."
Lucky, still kneeling there in the sand, feeling small and weak, refused to look his Mobius in the eye as he crouched down and put a hand on his shoulder.
"Do you remember when I told you that you couldn't trust Miss Minutes? Even if you called for her right now, told her everything, led her to this other Mobius' hiding place, she'd treat you like she treated those people that got busted for fight night."
That made Lucky meet Mobius' gaze, and Mobius nodded.
"That's right. She'd still interrogate you, maybe even silence you. You know how I know?"
He paused, while Lucky froze in place.
"Because it doesn't matter how honest you are. If she thinks there's something you know and aren't saying, you'd get interrogated. It happened to me, after I… after I brought you in for processing."
He looked down at the sand, then, the guilt obvious on his face.
"My actions are the reason you're here. I didn't know, though. I wouldn't have done it if…" he took a deep breath and closed his eyes. "It didn't matter that I honestly didn't know you when you got here. She still interrogated me, almost scrambled my brains. Made me forget about capturing you two, until now. My point is, Lucky, that the TVA will throw you away just as quickly as they can replace you. You don't matter to them. You know that, right?"
"I know," Lucky whispered. But, he thought ruefully to himself, it wasn't the TVA who'd named him Lucky. That was his name, and no one else's.
"We need Loki," said Variant Mobius, making Lucky's soul sink. "We need his cleverness, and probably some of his ruthlessness, too, if we want to get out of here in one piece."
Lucky was about to tell them that he didn't want to be ruthless, but it was a moot point anyway, and he kept his mouth shut.
Variant Mobius scratched at his rough, unshaven chin, squinting as he thought hard. "I have an idea that might help all of us… if there are no objections."
He gave a pointed stare to Lucky, who didn't make a peep. He was outnumbered, outvoted, waiting quietly until they figured out how to push him into the background and bring out someone else he didn't even remember being.
Variant Mobius motioned for Mobius to come over and spoke quietly to him, said something about gathering as many Loki variant folders as he could find, though the reason escaped him. Were they just going to go through files until part of Loki's memory came back? That didn't seem to be at all what happened to Six back in Russia.
His Mobius nodded, then opened a timedoor, and Lucky sprang up out of the sand.
"Wait, Mobius, let me come too!" he begged, but to his disappointment, Mobius shook his head.
"Nope. You stay here. They still think you're with G., remember? Gotta keep up that ruse for as long as possible."
"Where are you going?"
"File archives. I'll be back soon. I'm sure you and Variant Mobius have lots of stuff to catch up on."
Lucky opened his mouth to object, but Mobius had already stepped through the timedoor and was gone. He gave an unsure glance to Variant Mobius, as if he was a newly introduced uncle at a family reunion that he didn't particularly want to talk to.
Sylvie and B-15, on the other hand, couldn't seem to wait to speak over each other, to his vague disgust.
"I have to know if your B-15 is like me at all," said B-15, with a big grin. "Does she look like me? Talk like me?"
"Exactly like you," said Variant Mobius. "To a tee."
Sylvie grabbed his arm gently and led him back to the beach chair, where he sat down with a little wince.
"What in the world happened to you? Did you get in a fight with a bear?"
He leaned back and chuckled. "No, worse than that. In fact I could barely see what it was…"
As Variant Mobius continued his tale, Lucky wandered off and sat down in the sand, grabbing handfuls of it and watching it slowly disappear as it trickled out of his fist. He remembered that flash of the stranger in his mirror when he'd gotten angry at Miss Minutes and screamed at the walls. That had to have been Loki. Who else would wear a two-foot-tall golden helmet that looked like it weighed fifty pounds, if not for some insecure narcissist who insisted that humanity should be enslaved?
As Variant Mobius and Sylvie went on and on about everything they'd gone through since they'd gotten to the TVA, he was sure they'd simply forgotten he existed, until a burst of laughter from the group made him turn his head. They were looking at him, now. Making fun of him, probably. He scrunched himself down as far as he could.
"Hey, Lucky," Variant Mobius called out to him, looking ridiculous in his plaid pajamas. "Come over here and sit with the cool kids."
"No," he mumbled into his knees.
"Come on, I've got a story for you."
After a moment, Lucky let out a low groan, stood and dusted himself off, then came to sit next to the beach chair, across from the three women who were crouched in the sand.
Variant Mobius stretched out his legs and began. "So, this happened a bit after I met you, and while we were still trying to catch Sylvie. I was in a little spot off of the cafeteria in my TVA, eating my salad in peace and quiet, when you rushed in to tell me that you knew where the variant was hiding."
Sylvie grinned and stifled a chuckle, which earned a slight glare from Lucky. Variant Mobius continued.
"You said that you figured they were hiding out in apocalypses, because the timeline wouldn't branch after an apocalypse… you ended up being right, by the way… but anyway, to illustrate your point, you decided to completely ruin my lunch." Variant Mobius, barely holding back laughter, started miming pouring things into an imaginary bowl in front of him. "You were like, 'I could go down before Ragnarok and push the Hulk off the Rainbow Bridge,' all the while pouring an entire shaker of salt into my salad-"
He cut himself off, chortling, and B-15, Dr. Alltid, and Sylvie followed suit. Lucky was the only one who wasn't laughing.
"And then you took the pepper shaker and you were like, 'I could set fire to the palace,' and I'm like, 'What the hell are you doing? I get it. You already ruined it with the salt.'"
Lucky grumbled, "I fail to see how that's so bloody hilarious. Loki sounds like an asshole who likes destroying things."
That wiped the smiles off of everyone's faces for a moment. He caught Sylvie rolling her eyes at him.
"Well, he had christened himself as the God of Mischief, after all," said Variant Mobius. "Prince of Chaos. From what the other Mobius has told me about you, Lucky, you don't seem to have fallen too far from the tree."
Lucky sat straight up in the sand. "I'm not like that at all!" He turned to Sylvie imploringly. "Tell him! I don't ruin people's things just because I can."
She shrugged at him. "Do I have to remind you of the whole fight night fiasco? You just sort of decided to volunteer even though you had absolutely no idea what you were getting yourself into. Oh! And you punched Mobius in the head!"
Lucky's mouth fell open while Variant Mobius doubled over with mirth.
"Oh, ow… don't make me laugh too hard," he snickered through gasps of pain.
"That was an accident!" Lucky exclaimed. "I don't hurt people because I want to! Not like him, apparently."
"He didn't want to hurt people, either." Variant Mobius had stopped laughing, a more somber tone taking over his voice. "I had assumed that about him, too. That's what seemed obvious to me, from looking at his life reel, his file. That he was just a dangerous psychopath hellbent on destruction. He wasn't. He isn't. He's funny, and fun, and charismatic, and loyal to a fault, if he's your friend. And he is my friend, Lucky. I'm certain it's not a mistake that you found me in another universe and clung to me like glue. You remembered, somehow, deep down, everything we'd gone through together. Not to mention you found Sylvie, too…" His sad, knowing smile ventured over to her, who looked away, embarrassed. "So, before that fight you just had, were you guys a fully-fledged thing? You know what I mean?"
Sylvie blushed angrily, which somehow made her look adorable. "We-that's not-"
"Yes," Lucky answered simply for her, and she flushed even harder. "We were."
Sylvie didn't offer a rebuttal, only sat there biting her lip so hard it looked like she might make it bleed.
"I see," Variant Mobius answered quietly. "I'm surprised they put you in the same division."
"We were in the same dorm," said Lucky, which made Variant Mobius' eyebrow quirk.
"They must have a hell of a lot of faith in their brainwashing techniques."
"He thought it would be funny to bully me," she mumbled.
"Only on that first day," he added quickly.
"And after that… well…"
She didn't finish her sentence as their eyes met again. A flash of that giddy feeling came back to him, the same rush of emotion that had overwhelmed him when he first saw her, so scared and timid, trying to make herself invisible in the elevator. There were other women in their class, ones that gladly would have talked to him more than she did, but he'd gone straight to L-63-to Six-and wouldn't leave her side.
Did he know it was Sylvie, all along? Was that why he wanted Six back so much just then, because it had been Sylvie he'd wanted in the first place?
Sylvie took a deep breath and fiddled with one of the shin guards on her hunter uniform. "I guess I'm sorry I called you a coward."
"And a twat."
"And that, too," she added. "You're not really going to tell Miss Minutes, though, are you?"
"God, no! I was kind of out of my head, for a moment. I'm sorry, too. I'm just…"
"Scared." Her voice was no more than Six's mousey whisper again. "I get it. But we'll die if we stay here, as we were. Things can't be the same anymore."
Lucky nodded, listening to the fake ocean tide, remembering the smell of the real one he'd seen in Brazil. Even the impressive technology of the TVA could never reproduce the real thing. Their fabricated world held nothing for them but lies, but those lies were all Lucky knew.
The timedoor suddenly opened again into the cell, and Mobius stepped through, his arms full of manilla folders. With a mighty grunt, he hefted them all onto the sand. Lucky stared at them, fascinated. They all had the same first name-Loki-though the last name varied between Odinson and Laufeyson... and one or two Odindottir's, too.
"Okay gang," he sighed. "Let's do some research. Take a file, any file, but keep them neat, and don't mix them up. I have to put them back later."
"What are we looking for, exactly?" asked B-15 as she tentatively picked up a file from the ground. Lucky did the same, very gingerly, afraid to open it, fearing what he might find inside.
"We're looking for a Loki with a scepter," said Variant Mobius.
It took a long, long moment for Variant Mobius' meaning to seep through Lucky's bewilderment, but when it did, he felt his stomach drop to the floor.
He knew about the scepter in his dream?
"W-why do we need something like that?" he stammered.
"Because it has the mind stone inside of it," said Variant Mobius, flipping through a file without even looking up, as if he'd said nothing more disconcerting than what he'd just had for dinner.
Some of the chocolates Lucky had eaten earlier came bubbling back up his throat, but he swallowed them back down. He took several deep breaths, then shakily opened a file, reading about a version of himself that was as alien to him as the timeline had been only a few days before.
It didn't take them long to find the right candidate. After only a few minutes, Variant Mobius held up one of the files with a triumphant, "ah-ha!" which made everyone stop what they were doing. "This one's perfect," he said.
Lucky snuck a peek at the mugshot and had to look away. It was him, precisely, but ancient and wrinkled, missing several teeth, eyes somehow cloudy, rheumy, and glowing an unnaturally bright blue at the same time.
"This guy was in possession of the scepter for years, before it killed him."
"Killed him?!" squeaked Lucky.
"Right," Variant Mobius replied cautiously, "but of course, you'd have to have a connection with an infinity stone for a long time for it to do that. We don't need it for long."
"Mobius-I mean, Variant Mobius-I can't do this," Lucky said breathlessly.
"Why not?" asked both of the Mobiuses together.
His answer stumbled out of him clumsily as he spoke. "B-because… I stole a mind stone here, once, in the TVA. I could hear it talking to me, or something, and it was just awful. It was horrible! I can't use it out there, or… I mean, what if it won't let go of my brain?"
His Mobius' mouth fell open. "You mean, you could sense its magic, even through the TVA's inhibitors?"
Lucky shrugged. "I guess that's what it was. But it felt like it was trying to strangle me!"
"And you used the Eye of Agamotto out there in Brazil like it was no big deal, right?"
"Yes, but-"
"Lucky, you have innate magical abilities." Mobius sounded somewhere between astonished and making an attempt to console him. "You did the exact same thing with the time stone, and you can do it with the scepter. I know you can. If you're an Asgardian, then magic should come as easy to you as breathing."
Lucky couldn't offer a rebuttal, there. It was true; it had felt as easy as anything to use magic out on the timeline. But it wasn't the time stone, or his own magic, he was afraid of.
Variant Mobius slapped the file shut and held it under his arm. "Okay, here's the plan. We all go out on the timeline together and get this guy's scepter, use it on Lucky to get his memories back, and then-"
He was interrupted by Mobius and B-15's tempad pagers going off at the same time.
"This isn't good, is it?" B-15 asked Mobius, to which he shrugged. They looked at their tempads and their eyes seemed to pop out of their heads.
"Ravonna?!" they said in unison, giving each other panicked glances.
"She's asking me to her office, ASAP," groaned Mobius, running his hand through silver hair.
"Me too," said B-15, "and she wants me to bring L-63."
Sylvie looked as if her heart had dropped out of her chest. Instinctively, Lucky reached out and grabbed her hand, as if he could protect her from anything at all. She squeezed his hand in reply.
"Sylvie," said Mobius, panic seeping into his voice, "you have to go with Variant Mobius. You can hide here after-"
"No. I'm not hiding."
Lucky stifled a gasp and brought her close to him. "Six-Sylvie-they'll hurt you!"
"If I don't come with B-15, then she'll be in a lot more danger than I will, for insubordination. I can't hide from them forever. I'll play dumb and take whatever punishment they give me."
"But-"
"Even if they demote me, or interrogate me, or prune me, or chop the very tongue out of my mouth, I'll fight them."
Mobius shook his head. "You can't fight if you're dead."
A little grin twitched at the corner of her mouth, though Lucky felt more like crying. "I'll fight until I'm dead," she replied, then turned to Lucky. "I'm not the only person who can help this gods-forsaken place. You'll have the scepter. I know you can figure out what to do… Lucky."
Her smirk faltered, lip trembling, then she brought him in close and kissed him on the mouth. He felt her urgency through her lips, his chest tightening with the fear that it might be the last kiss they shared together.
"You're the bravest person I've ever known, Sylvie," he whispered back. "If we don't see each other again, then… I'm sorry you didn't get to kiss Loki instead of me."
She made a noise that was somewhere in between a scoff and a laugh. "I love you, too, you dope. I don't know if I would think of Loki the same way if you hadn't barged into Six's life the way you did."
Lucky smiled then, too. "You know, that's just what I was thinking a moment ago."
They kissed again, softer this time. Lucky closed his eyes, taking in the feel of her embrace, the scent of her skin, burning them into his brain so he would never, ever forget them.
One of the Mobiuses, he didn't know which, said softly behind him, "Pure chaos…"
They had to let go of each other, eventually, and stood a little ways apart. Lucky felt as if there was another ocean between them, wider than he could even imagine.
"Good luck out there, brother," said Mobius, patting Variant Mobius on the shoulder.
Variant Mobius' eyebrow twitched. "Brother?" he said, but didn't complain. Mobius shrugged sheepishly, then brought Variant Mobius in for a hug, too, which he reciprocated.
"Good luck, yourself," said Variant Mobius, before letting go. "You're gonna need it with Ravonna."
"You don't have to tell me," mumbled Mobius. "If we all get out of this in one piece, can we agree to meet here again?"
"Sure. I already copied the access code to this timecell from Dr. Alltid's tempad."
Mobius chuckled as he tapped a few buttons on his own tempad to open a timedoor. "Three steps ahead of me, as usual."
The medic, Sylvie, B-15, and Lucky's Mobius all stepped through the timedoor back into the time theater, one after the other. Lucky couldn't help but notice the rueful, frightened glance that Mobius threw back over his shoulder before the timedoor narrowed and shut.
"Ready for this?" asked Variant Mobius.
"No," he replied. "Not at all. But I don't have a choice, do I?"
Variant Mobius' expression softened into sadness as he squinted into the fake sunset.
"Don't let anyone make you believe you don't have a choice. You always have a choice. Always."
"Then I suppose I choose to get dragged along to wherever we're going."
Variant Mobius' face brightened and he gave him a hearty slap on the shoulder. "Atta boy."