DISCLAIMER: I claim no ownership of Marvel's Loki or affiliated branding (sadly).
SUMMARY: Three hundred and fifty eight TVA cycles after Loki's unexplained disappearance into the Void with the timelines in tow, the universe begins to collapse. Metaphysical horror. A fix-it (of sorts).
NOTES: See end.
Chapter Four: Science and sadness
"Are you absolutely insane?"
Said in O.B.'s voice, the words sound fairly out of place. But, given the circumstances, Mobius is not too surprised by the strength of his conviction. "Why not? Seriously, I've done a vague kind of plan, and if you check it over I'm sure you can iron out any of the risks –"
"Mobius, this is –"
"A good idea?" he interjects, raising his eyebrows in a hopeful expression, but is not the slightest nonplussed when O.B. continues in full alarm.
"No! It's the worst idea I've ever heard!"
"Oh, come off it, you've got to have had people trying at least a few terrible ones –"
"Yes. And this is the worst of all of those!"
A clunk echoes through the room as a task falls down the chute – an old-fashioned communication method they've been trying to phase out in the name of human interaction, but clearly is not entirely of disuse yet – and O.B. responds instantly, darting away to the back, effectively cutting the argument short. Mobius sighs, rubbing his temples.
"If I tried to implement what you're suggesting," O.B. calls, popping open the hatch, "it would likely work."
"So can't we give it a shot? I know there are lots of issues, but –"
"At best, we compromise the entire TVA. At worst, we open it up for complete erasure."
He drops his hands to his sides. "You're really that worried about it?"
"Absolutely." He comes back at a leisurely pace, hands full with the broken equipment sent down – a TemPad – and some tools. "Can I ask you to help me with this? It's going to explode if I don't fix it in two minutes and forty-three seconds."
"... oh."
"It gives us more time to debate, though," he says cheerfully, giving a wide smile. He proceeds to rattle off instructions at a lightning pace and Mobius, who does not particularly want to die via TemPad detonation, follows them as best he can. He's glad for his few months spent on mechanics, because he understands about one eighth of what's being said. O.B., seemingly moving far too slow for the urgency of the task, continues, "What were you saying?"
Mobius blinks at him once, entirely focused on not moving his hands and nicking the power unit. "Uh… no clue."
"Oh, yeah, we were talking about potential problems. I'm afraid it's just too dangerous to implement."
Now he feels slighted, if only because he's fixated on not messing up this wiring removal instead of the debate, giving O.B. a major upper hand in the reasoning department. "You can't even look into it? If I don't come up with an alternative to the timelines dying when we talk to him, I'm gonna be in big trouble."
"I'm working on things myself, and I promise we'll find a solution. Just one that's nothing like yours. You're about to electrocute yourself by the way."
"Ah." He moves his hand back slightly. "Thanks. For both the lifesaving tip and also the overwhelming faith in my plan. I'm bowled over by your gratitude."
"What plan is this?" Casey's voice, sounding from somewhere behind as he enters the room.
Mobius mutters a cursory dismissal of the question at the same time as O.B., very clearly and very eagerly, announces it in detail. "Mobius wants to make the LC-One accessible to Loki when it's in the TVA."
"Woah. What, by giving it a temporal signature or something?" He comes into view to the side of them, absently sipping coffee as he watches them defuse the threat. Which seems to be stressful to nobody else.
"No, he wants to lock it onto branches to give Loki a jump-pad from which he can enter the TVA. He'd still have to disintegrate a branch every time he wanted to reestablish connection."
"Wow. That's a terrible idea."
"Thank you both." Mobius grimaces, voice dry. "I'm so glad we're all friends."
"You're welcome," O.B. answers, more than happy to avert potential crisis. A pleasant chime sounds from the TemPad interface, the screen flashing green and then returning to normal. Mobius twitches back, ready to evade shrapnel, but O.B. gathers it up and hurries away, depositing it in the 'fixed' pile. "Thanks for your help."
"No problem. Look, if you really hate the idea so bad, I'll let you make that call. You're the expert. But you said you have other plans on the go?"
O.B. nods. "Some. Working on a non-temporal based system now."
"You got a timescale on that?"
"We're looking at… fifty three years?"
"Fifty!" His mouth falls open. "The entire universe will be gone by then. And I'm gonna be in trouble if I don't have something by next week."
To his credit, O.B. gives a valiant attempt at a compromise. "If I cut a few corners, I could maybe get it done in thirty."
"Are we still talking about years?" At the answering nod, he grits his teeth. "I have a feeling we can't wait that long. Any other possibilities?"
"Mobius, we're discussing systems based on technology that doesn't even exist yet. I can't do this any faster."
He drums his knuckles on the worktop. "There's got to be something. We're missing something."
Casey, still hovering nearby and watching the debate as if it's a badminton match, clears his throat. "If there's really no other way to contact him, surely we should just pour all our effort into actually getting to him."
"You think ripping open time is going to be easier than setting up a literal phone link?"
"Well, no, your idea is really easy to implement in theory. It would just make the TVA very unsafe. But actually finding Loki is the end goal, right? And we've not explored that as much as we should."
Something occurs to Mobius. He eyes Casey with renewed interest.
Outwardly, he sighs, yielding. "Fine. O.B., downgrade the communication issues to non-vital. You can work on pinpointing wherever the hell Loki is."
He receives a cheerful nod. "I'll get right on that."
He means it quite literally, because he hastens to the opposite end of the room, selects a handful of books from a pile, and makes for the exit, off to one of the side rooms. The door swings shut behind him with a clunk.
This works in Mobius' favour.
"Huh," Casey says. "Guess he really wanted to be working on that all along."
Mobius forces a short laugh. "Yeah, guess so. Anyways, what were you saying about implementing my idea?"
Casey gives him a sideways glance. "Uh… that it's pretty easy. If you swap a couple of basic system concepts up, you could even make it work without the timeline disintegration. Probably."
That sells it enough to dispel any lingering apprehension.
But how best to approach?
An idea flickers into life. "Hey, Casey?"
"Yeah?"
"You ever heard of a garden centre?"
Loki's grip on long-distance illusionary magic strengthens with each visit – going from an odd, flickering conjuration that silently tails after Mobius, conversation too difficult to maintain, to something that looks almost entirely solid so long as he doesn't catch the light in the wrong way. With the visible improvements comes an increase in the time between contact and the timeline disintegration. Whatever he's been doing to minimise the issue, it's beginning to work. It's still inevitable, of course, but the time between his appearance and the void chasing his heels has increased to nearly ten minutes – enough time for them to talk properly.
Talk about everything that happened, in theory.
In reality, they don't broach any topics of the sort. Maybe it's the looming time limit, larger though it may be, and the fear of leaving any meetings off on the wrong foot. Mobius pokes at a few mysterious gaps in his side of the story, usually dancing along the lines of a certain disappearance-without-explanation, but Loki just gives him a forlorn sort of smile and slips into a new subject before he can probe too deeply.
He's otherwise entirely happy to go into great detail on a number of things, which is massively helpful considering how little information they have on where he currently is. O.B. goes on his first ever field mission to interrogate him properly, which is horribly nerve-wracking for everyone back at the hub. Not that Loki would let anything happen to him branchside, but if the extraction technology fails on the hub's part while O.B. isn't there, nobody is exactly equipped to fix it.
But the mission is a success, with Loki proving suspiciously knowledgeable on the exact parameters of spacetime he currently occupies. Even filtered through a deafening layer of static in the comms, he sounds far too excited as he rattles off words that only bring about a similar level of enthusiasm in O.B..
Mobius files this quirk away for later examination.
One thing growing dark in the back of his mind is the real fact that they are running out of justifiable empty branches. A universe growing from shards of one Sacred timeline isn't exactly infinite, exponentially getting there though it may be, and so far it's birthed surprisingly few truly lifeless timelines.
They're burning through them quickly.
"What are you thinking about?"
Mobius breaks free from that grim train of thought and turns to face Loki, sitting with his arms folded over his knees, absently staring into the middle-distance of the lake ahead. "Oh, god, sorry," he says, "I'm wasting time –"
"Mobius, it's no issue. I'm simply wondering what's so interesting. You've been quiet."
"Yeah, no, it's just – it feels like I should be leaving the thinking for when we're not visiting. It's rare enough as it is." For the first time since the initial illusion projection, his job here today is to take readings for O.B., rather than cross-examine Loki for the answers to the universe. The suit does all of that for him, which means, for once, they can sit together without a carefully structured list of requisite topics jammed into the little time provided.
They can have a normal conversation.
Except it's been strangely subdued.
"Our time together has been blissfully frequent, as of late." Latched onto the train of thought Mobius definitely hasn't voiced, Loki tilts his head to the side inquisitively, eyes searching. "How long can we keep this up? How many timelines are viable options?"
Mobius narrows his eyes. "How'd you know? You haven't enchanted me have you?"
The answer comes with a droll twitch of his lips. "Please. I wish I could say I had the power to perform to that standard, but I'm afraid not." Still, an odd expression paints the contours of his face, an analytical furrow to his brow.
Oftentimes Mobius feels like this Loki is not quite the same as the one who left. Which tracks, but doesn't mesh well without an explanation.
Once he gets everything implemented, and they can talk for real, it's going to be one hell of an interrogation.
But for now he won't initiate a push of that form. He shrugs, breaking eye contact, and then struggles to his feet, pebbles sharp on the palms of his hands. He stoops to pick one up absently, dropping it when he finds grooves on one side. Picking through the collection, he's aware of Loki's gaze following him in mild intrigue, piquing when he finds a flat rock and gives a noise of success.
On the horizon, dim behind a sheen of fog, it's a little too white. A brightness piercing through the grey. But the cloud cover makes it forgettable. Mobius makes his way to the water and, toeing the edge, flings the projectile horizontally. It skips once, twice, and then a third time, before finally succumbing to gravity and sinking below the surface with a ripple.
"Is this a strange mortal magic I am unaware of?" Loki calls, still sitting further back from the shoreline.
"What, you can see every timeline and nobody has ever explained how skipping a stone works?"
"I can see every branch," he replies, ascending to his feet with far more grace than Mobius had, "but that does not mean I retain specific information unless I search for it. What did you call it?"
"Stone skipping. Or skimming. Whichever."
Briefly, Loki's eyes flutter closed. Half a second later, they reopen. "I see." He lifts a hand, a glimmer of green particles forming and evaporating from his fingertips, leaving in their wake a small disc-shaped stone, perfectly flat. He takes the few steps to join Mobius in the ankle-deep water – which doesn't part in his stead – and bends his knees. He slings the stone in an arc. It catches the still water flawlessly and bounces without resistance, continuing in gradually decreasing skips until it vanishes into the mist, leaving no ripple in its wake.
"Cheater," Mobius huffs. "That doesn't count."
"Or you can assume that my throw was in-fact perfect, given my infinite access to knowledge on the subject, and I simulated exactly what would have occurred had the rock been real."
"Yeah, but did you do that?"
"No." Loki gives a faded grin. "Despite a genuine attempt at imitating the multiverse's best, it would have plunged straight into the water."
"Knew it," Mobius replies, returning the expression with greater enthusiasm. It dissolves into something curious, a mild apprehension settling in his chest. "How… how does it feel? The whole universe thing?"
Loki puts his hands in his pockets, watching the water pass straight through his ankles. "In general? Or more recently?"
"Either."
"It's hard to describe. Everything that ever occurred or will occur happens instantaneously for me, and continues to happen without fail. It feels as if I have a fifth limb – if the fifth limb consisted of everything in existence." A ghost of a smile. "Perhaps an infinite amount of limbs would be more apt."
"I'm guessing this whole multiversal collapse doesn't feel too good then?"
If anything, Loki's expression grows into a doleful mirth. "Imagine your fingers being severed. Very slowly."
"Ouch."
"And although I am barely adjusted to this omniscience, it is… it's not a pleasant experience to feel it slipping away. It's as though I'm losing part of myself with it."
"That sucks."
Crinkles form in the corners of Loki's eyes as he smiles, holding his gaze in unblinking rapture. "Yes, it does rather. But the burden has become markedly easier to bear in recent times. However long recent times may be on your end."
"About a month since first contact. I'm guessing it doesn't work like that for you?"
"There is a fixed timescale where I am, but it does not align with yours." When Mobius continues to stare at him, he refuses to relent, but his breath comes in a short sigh as he looks at his feet. "I'll save you the exact details of how long I've been here. O.B. is already aware."
"Loki –"
"It serves no purpose for you to know, not at this time." He nudges his shoe into the sand, which remains unmoved. And then, "I don't need your pity. I don't wish for it, either."
"Is it pity if it's warranted?"
"Is that not the literal definition of the word?" Loki retorts, eyebrows raised. "Nonetheless, it's an unfortunate fact that it is not a pleasant emotion for either cause or bearer, so is best left avoided."
Mobius watches a far-off sand dune succumb to the void. No less terrifying for all he's seen it recently. "You have a bad habit of tiptoeing around anything even vaguely negative. Sometimes you've just got to face it head on, you know?"
He turns back around to find Loki gone.
A wry sense of achievement blooms, despite his better nature. "Way to prove a point," he says to the sky.
He's not too worried – vanishing is just Loki's way of telling him to get out via TemPad while he still can, to save the excruciating other option for necessity-only occasions. But the timing is definitely intentional.
As he loads up the recall – which he finally convinced the team to add a branchside function for – he considers the water ahead of him, fraying into nothing at the nearing horizon. "When you get back, I'm going to teach you how to skim a stone properly."
The sky doesn't answer.
He's awoken by an insistent chirping, his TemPad ringing through a full cycle of an alert and then half the next before he's aware enough to untangle himself from his sheet and reach for it. "Hello?" he says, clicking open the call line.
"Agent Mobius. There is a Loki Variant currently attempting to locate you."
"There's – there's a what?"
"A Loki Variant, loose in the central building."
This ignites a flare of hope inside a greater bubble of confusion, but it's soon smothered by a lack of realism. He's fairly certain that Loki isn't able to return right now, and if he were, he'd be knowledgeable enough about the hub's layout to find his way straight here, not waste time communicating through a middle-man. So what –
A short, indiscernible cursing from across the line. "She is quite insistent."
"She –" Oh.
Sylvie.
What the hell is she doing here?
"Give me ten minutes," he replies, voice heavy with sleep. He receives an affirmative and the line clicks off; he lets his head fall back, a small ugh at facing the cold of the corridors. But he clambers up anyway, managing to knot his right shoe as he laces it, too tired to bother with fixing it. On his way down he grabs a coffee, fairly sure it will not combine well with the faint creeping of panic growing in his stomach – because the only reason Sylvie would be here is if things are bad – but also sure that once he knows why she is here, he will absolutely need the caffeine. A simultaneous win-lose situation.
He takes the entrance to the central hub carefully, just in case an enchanted household item just happens to fly towards his face. But he's nodded towards a sidedoor by the on-duty supervisor, opening into a largely empty control room, save a familiar face glaring daggers at him from the opposite end.
Mobius stares at her. "Uh… hello?"
"Mobius." Her hands on her hips, posture still stuck in that ramrod-straight facsimile of vigilance: the way she carries herself is the most recognisable thing about her. Everything else has dissolved into a fragmented puzzle of parts from before. Her hair is longer, tinted a deep brown, clothes typical of her time period – a light green jumper pulled over some dark jeans. Her expression, however, is as friendly as it tends to be whenever she's in the TVA.
"Not that it's not great to see you, but what –"
"My timeline."
The words hit him in the gut. Because of course, there is literally one singular reason she would come back here. He senses the next words before they come. "It vanished," she continues. "I managed to get here, but now I can't lock back on. Tell me your infernal TVA has not been messing around with the universe, because I –"
"We haven't," he cuts in, though it comes out weak, and more audibly defeated than he'd like. "It's a long story."
"Well, this better just be a blip in your transport system –" she breaks off into a short, manic laugh, face vicious, "– because I would very much like to get back there so I can finish clocking out from my shift and go home."
Mobius takes a step forward, and it's in the hesitant quiet of this movement that she seems to realise the magnitude, retreating back rather like a caged animal, not settled by the words that follow. "Sylvie, your timeline is… it's gone. I'm so sorry. We've been trying to stop it, but –"
"Gone?" A pause. "As in actually gone?"
He breaks eye contact for a fleeting second, looking down to the beige carpet as he fumbles for the right words. This is enough to tip her off to the validity of the claim.
"Is it permanent?" A deathly whisper.
He nods. "Yeah. Seems to be."
Her eyes, wide a moment longer, look startlingly bright. Then she spins in a laboured half-circle, grabbing onto the back of the nearest office chair, dusty with disuse. Her fingers form deep imprints on the material, clutching at it tight enough for her knuckles to turn a sick shade of grey. An unsteady breath. Followed by another.
"Sylvie –"
"Don't," she snarls. "Just… don't." This time her tone disintegrates into desperation.
Mobius itches to handle this in the same way he would most other Lokis, by utilising the method he's spent years studying to perfect. A soft, firm approach. But he's all too aware that Sylvie is not like any Loki anymore. She stopped being that the moment she was plucked from her timeline and dropped into apocalypse after apocalypse – a unique experience, throwing her far off course in terms of character development. Everything he's a theoretical expert in is void.
Footsteps from behind. A breath of shock-mingled worry. "Sylvie." B-15 joins his side, looking across at the hunched form over the chair, a worsening tremble in her back. The dim lighting doesn't help the image, casting dark shadows over her face. She looks more and more wounded – and all the more ready to lash out for it.
"What…" B-15 murmurs.
He waits a beat before replying. "Timeline."
As if the air is knocked out of her, she exhales. "Oh god." She takes a hesitant step forward and turns back to face him. "Go tell O.B.. We should – we should've had some sort of warning system in place." At his look of unease, she continues. "I can handle this. Trust me."
A final glance towards Sylvie. "Okay," he says. "I'm on it. Regroup soon?"
A nod of agreement.
He withdraws, but halts in the doorway, throwing a glance back at the pair. B-15 has stationed herself a metre away, stature relaxed, well within Sylvie's eyeline. She's saying something too gently for him to hear. If nothing else, Sylvie seems to be listening, frozen still.
It's a strange image. A familiar one, in a different font.
A wave of remoteness hits him like the roll in of the tide.
His TemPad beeps again, throwing him a lifebuoy before he can sink too low into the depths of isolation. He fishes it out of his pocket as he heads towards the elevator to R . "Yes?"
"Mobius, hi," O.B.'s voice rings through, a tinny quality to it. Loud with urgency. "I –"
"Just who I was looking for. If you're gonna break the news about the branch disappearing, you can save it," he says. "I've already got Sylvie up here –"
"What? What branch? What happened?"
Mobius falters. "Woah, okay. I'll tell you in a minute. If not the branch, what were you gonna say?"
"I've just found something. Something huge."
Pausing in the corridor, to the side so he can rest one hand steadily against the wall, he takes a slow breath in. "Please tell me it's good. Please. I don't think I can take anything bad right now."
Silence as the message transfers.
And then O.B.'s voice, weighted with an unusual level of sincerity. "It's good. It's great, I promise."
Lightheaded with relief, a fraction of panic uncoils from his lungs. "Man, am I glad to hear that. Maybe there is a god."
"And you might be about to meet him."
If not for the universe-shattering implications of that statement, Mobius would have laughed at the insinuation that whatever O.B. has found is going to kill him the instant he gets downstairs.
As is, he arrives in record time. "Explain," he says, walking as briskly as respectably possible, and probably a bit over that.
O.B., straightening with some excitement, hops down from the workbench and immediately grabs the sleeve of Mobius' jacket, pulling him along to the room he'd vanished into all that time ago and hadn't reappeared from since. "I've got something." Scattered across the floor, pinned to cork boards, a thin sheen of sellotape that's definitely peeling some of the paint off the walls – the room is entirely drenched in notes.
"Woah. You remember that one meeting we had on normal working hours?"
"No," comes the reply, exuberant.
"Doesn't… doesn't seem like it." He watches O.B. cycle through the roller whiteboard they stole from a twenty-first century classroom. "What did you find?"
"I think I figured out where Loki is." Before Mobius can acknowledge this statement with any level of celebration, O.B. continues, "I think. Think."
"Think is good. How much is thinking and how much is knowing?"
"The basis is solid. I've only got a little more success criteria to check out before we can determine if I'm fully right, but it's looking really hopeful."
More than a little overwhelmed, Mobius waves him onwards. "Go ahead. And keep it simple, otherwise you'll lose me."
"Got you." He taps the board, gesturing at nothing in particular. "When Loki left, he effectively ripped open time to get to where he is now. Kind of like how He-Who-Remains protected himself beyond time, and the TVA is out of time. Right?"
"Right."
"But what Loki did, is he's removed himself from space too. That's why he's not physically at the centre of the Tree. He's out of sync with us on both planes."
"And the TVA isn't removed from space?"
"We operate on the same kind of space as everyone else in the universe. The only reason it seems like we're not is because we're also out of time."
"But Loki is both at once."
"Yeah. He didn't rip open space-time and simply move locations in the multiverse. He's effectively created his own space, slightly out of phase with everything else."
Mobius nods. "Got it. How do we get there?"
"You'd have to unsync from time, and then unsync from space. Basically removing yourself from the universe entirely."
"That sounds… interesting."
"Think of it like timeslipping. But you're also break apart physically."
Not for the first time, Mobius wishes he was not so invested in this god. "Oh. You reckon anyone else might volunteer to test run it first?"
The look O.B. gives him does not provide much hope.
"Anyways, the main issue is, we've got to figure out how to reform you wherever Loki is," O.B. continues. "The only reason I figured this all out is because of the timelines collapsing. You'd think if they're all reversing, they'd point to the centre right?"
"I guess so."
"Well they do. But always slightly wrong. It's like they're reversing back to a centre that's shifting a little bit every time. Out of sync. And every time a new branch dies, it shifts again. I think if I trace that, and figure out the function that's shifting it, I can reverse it to figure out how much I need to unsync you by. You'd start off on a branch and then, as it's dying, basically shift with it. Should hopefully take you right to the real heart of the Tree."
As much as some of the explanation is flying over Mobius' head, it sounds… solid. Well-rounded.
An actual chance.
"How… how soon can we get that implemented?" he asks, fighting not to lose his words in the deluge of hope.
"Well, I've got to test linking the destinations up, and obviously revamp the suit completely to cope with everything, but… a week or two?
"Oh god."
"Is that a good response or a bad one?"
Torn between an airy laugh or simply letting the wave of lightheaded relief overwhelm him, Mobius shakes his head. "Good. Been a long time coming."
O.B. gives a firm nod, already turning towards his engineering equipment. "I'll get started on it right away. If we're lucky, and all the tests go smoothly, I genuinely think we finally have this."
As much as he wants to allow it, concern fights off the desire to make progress. "Okay, slow down a second. You've literally not stopped to have a break for way too long to jump back in."
O.B. opens his mouth to object. Mobius holds up a hand and continues, "Nope. Not a word. You're going to have a nap."
"But the universe –"
"It can wait. You're no use to us if you work yourself to death."
He puzzles over this, face scrunched as if physically catching up with this notion, mind adapting to the change in plans and lagging behind. The expression fades into acceptance, then rebuilds into his initial contentment. "Okay! I'll go do that." He sets down the variety of pieces he's holding, then gives a nod. "Thanks, Mobius."
"No worries," he replies, waiting for him to retreat from the room, out towards the elevators, towards… wherever it is that he lives.
Mobius looks downwards, exhaling in one long breath.
They're so close.
Soon.
He finds Sylvie in the atrium, after a fair amount of time trawling the furthest reaches of the central hub to locate those empty, immutable sectors – with no success. Clearly his initial judgement in her preferences was misguided, as he so often finds with her, and her preference for solitude manifests as a mental barrier, rather than a physical one. Although not turbulent, there is a definite level of foot-traffic in this area, washing about where she's sat. Maybe that's the point. Isolation in plain view.
She's sitting with her legs folded neatly on the bench, her hands forming rests for each elbow, face carefully neutral. Unfocused.
Across the hall, those colourful delineations of the Tree remain cast in soft yellow, and her eyes remain on them even through the apparent haze of inattentiveness.
Mobius crosses the hall carefully, shoving his free hand in his pocket to avoid any nervous fidgeting, and does a slow spin to follow her gaze. The Tree looks far more menacing than usual. "They did all this –" he gestures, the movement gentle to avoid spilling coffee through the lid of his cup, "– without me. Just so you know."
It seems as though she won't grace him with a reply. But then, "I did wonder." There's a faint raspy quality to the ends of her vowels. "It was a toss-up on whether you were really that recklessly devoted to him you'd have all this commissioned or not."
"Yeah, not quite at the religious worship stage yet."
Her face twists into disbelief, muttering, "Bloody seems like it." But it's fairly heatless, and even if said with all the malicious intent in the world, he can't entirely refute it.
He perches lightly on the opposite side of the bench, leans forward, and places the warm cup in-between them, nudging it in her direction.
Gauging his intentions, a veiled intensity to her eyes darting about his person, she settles on an impersonal glare. "A coffee will not make up for my entire universe being erased from existence."
"I know," Mobius replies. And he does know. "But it's still a coffee, so it'll still make your life better than it was two minutes ago."
She doesn't take it.
He sighs, clasping his hands and looking back across the open space. "How much did B-15 tell you?"
"I was aware of certain parts already. She's been visiting."
"Yeah, she was saying."
Sylvie shoots him a scowl. "Speaking of, you really need to get someone in here who can take actual care of your agents. She was in a right state when she asked for my help. I'll do it for her, but I can't be an on-call therapist for everyone."
He raises his eyebrows. "It's on the to-do list. The high-priority one, which has a lot more high-priority tasks on there than recruiting a mental-health coordinator. But I'll relegate it. Find someone who can do it quick."
She doesn't thank him, but some of the hostility drains out of her barred limbs. After a stilted pause, she tilts her head to half-face him. "She told me you lost your branch too."
Mobius gives a weak shrug. "I did. I only really lived there occasionally, so it didn't exactly feel like my branch with any emphasis on the my, not in the same way yours probably does."
"Did," she cuts in. "It did feel like that." Another stretch of silence. "I thought you were on my branch anyways, what happened with that?"
"Nah, I spent a couple of weeks moping about but then felt too weird with Don and the kids right there. Hopped over to a timeline where there wasn't such an obvious variation of me."
"How was it?"
He turns the question over in his hands before he answers, the answer surprisingly slippery. "Lonely."
She doesn't reply.
He lets out a breath. "I am really sorry. We should've had you on our system so your branch got flagged when it first started going. Given you more time to get out."
"I got out fine. But – but I guess nobody else did." Her voice wavers, hardly detectable, and it's the closest to breaking he's ever seen her. "I had… I had friends there. Or I was starting to have friends. Took me so long to figure out it really wasn't going to be like the apocalypses, I… I left it really late to start seeing it as permanent. But this past year I was finally getting out there. Living." A thin smile, pained around the edges. "Moving on. Guess I got to do that all over again now."
Her words hang in the air for a while.
The atrium lights flicker to a lower setting, leaving the dim golden panels casting grey shadows. Sylvie shifts in the darkness. "If you've got a track on all these timelines, can't you do something? Relocate people to different branches if theirs start to die?"
Mobius shakes his head. "They're dying too quick. We get about thirty minutes TVA linear time from early warning to full disintegration, and don't have anywhere near enough hands to migrate universal populations. Just have to… watch it happen."
"So they really are vanishing with no interference? I'm sure here of all places, you must have about three thousand corrupt employees." Her tone suggests she'd not begrudge said corrupt employees their agenda, despite being caught in the cross-fire, hatred for this place too deeply ingrained within her bones.
"Probably. But whatever they're sabotaging, it's not this. The universe really is collapsing inwards of its own accord."
A flicker of triumph sparks in her eyes, like he's fallen into a pitfall she's intentionally set in his path, muted behind suspicion, faint in the dark. "When I asked B-15 the same thing, she mentioned Loki. Said you knew more, so I should ask you instead of her."
"'Course she did," he mutters. "Okay, I told a little bit of a lie. The universe is collapsing of its own accord. But whenever Loki tries to interact, it speeds the whole process up."
An eyebrow raise. "Loki is destroying the universe?"
"Unintentionally. Which is terrifying." He grimaces. "He knew it was happening, but had no idea he might be causing it until he tried to contact us. Almost disintegrated me twice before he got the hint that the timelines were collapsing because of him."
"That's… scary. Sounds like he's accidentally treading on us. Like we're ants."
"Given he's holding the universe together, it probably is literally like that. I guess if you've got that much power, any misstep is gonna be catastrophic."
Her eyes find the horned figure imprinted on the wall opposite. "How's he taking it?"
"We kinda mutually agreed to put off the hard-hitting topics, at least until we can find a more stable communication method. Can't imagine he feels great though."
"Do you… do you know why he left yet?"
He inclines his head in a strained shake. "Haven't asked," he says hoarsely.
When he glances up at her again, her face has cracked into a startlingly open concern, eyebrows drawn together in commiseration. "So you're just taking all of this in your stride? Him leaving? Your whole timeline collapsing? The universe dying?"
"What, like you're not?" Mobius retorts, shooting her a look.
"Of course I'm not! I had a complete breakdown when I first went branchside, and I've had about three today. Besides –" she breaks away, face calculating, "– I've been grieving everything in my life for pretty much as long as I've been alive. In –" her voice cracks, and she coughs hurriedly to cover herself, "– in the grand scheme of things, this one barely scrapes the commendation list of places I've lost. But it's different for you. You've never had anything to lose before. And then you lost it all in one go."
Mobius gives a low sigh, fighting to keep the tremble out of his voice. "I know you hate being called a Loki, but you guys are all really good at spinning the conversation back on the instigator. It's annoying."
"You came here to give me some motivational speech. I'm not having any of it." Her tone is muted, but brutally honest underneath it all. "But I'm serious, how do you have the energy for that? To be so positive, all the bloody time?"
"Well, I got some good news today, so my motivation metre got kicked up. But I don't know. Just have to keep going, don't you?"
"But doing it like you do? You're so calm. It's off-putting."
A dull laugh slips through the cracks. "My timeline did actually die as I was having a bit of a breakdown, so I think my body has decided we'll hold that off entirely until this is all over."
"And after that? When you've sorted all this out, and saved the universe or whatever it is you do. Loki's back. What then?"
The question stabs him in the chest.
What is after this?
"I haven't… I haven't really thought that far ahead," he murmurs.
Sylvie seems to understand. Of all people, she understands.
Reaching into the middle, she finally takes the cup of coffee, wrapping both her hands around it as she unfolds her legs and brings them up closer to her torso. "Something to think about. Kept me going through it all."
"Right," he answers, voice barely over a whisper.
They sit wordlessly until Sylvie finishes her drink. It takes Mobius about that long to come back to himself. He shifts, circling around to the initial topic. "You can stay here until you get your feet back under yourself. Or however long you want."
"I never want to be here," she mutters, tone murderous. She straightens, then launches the empty cup across the room towards the bin. It lands perfectly. More tentatively, she adds, "But thank you, I suppose. Though if you ask me to help with any of the multiverse stuff I will kill you."
"Noted," he says, shooting her a small smile.
She does return it in her own way, eyes softening. The expression vanishes instantly, replaced by determination. "Right, do you have any combat facilities around here? I need to beat something up before my urge to strangle someone gets any bigger."
The statement rings of gratitude, however smothered by lingering resentment it may be. He smiles wider. "I'm sure I can find a place."
A/N: I am uncertain of whether there will be an upload next Sunday as of yet, because I have an entire website due on Friday that I have not even begun programming. I wish I could say I was making this up for a funny author's note. But, gods help me, I am not.
Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed! :D
