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 Six: Reunions (five feet apart au)
Upon Mobius' return, they host a very small, very subdued meeting in O.B.'s lab down in R&A.
Mobius takes about ten minutes to fully recover from the drop back, wincing his way through unfastening all the radiation-proof locks on the suit, an unshakeable ache still vibrating through his muscles. In this time, O.B. manages to gather the department upstairs, all of them torn from their duties by the promise of something far more urgent. Mobius is beyond glad that B-15 had the foresight to bring coffee on her way down, because he feels about two steps away from collapsing into a heap. She hands it to him as he enters the room, probably not hiding the stiffness in his limbs particularly well, and looks him up and down in place of a check-up. He waves her off, shaking his head as he takes a large mouthful of the hot drink, the disposable material uncomfortable against his lips.
"What do you mean, absorbed?" Clearly O.B. has already made headway with the problem outline section of the meeting, because L-23's voice is dark with tempered devastation. Beside her, A-145 narrows his eyes, working through the situation in his head.
"I mean the universe is literally enveloping him." O.B. waves his arms in a wide circle to illustrate his point, linking his fingers together. "And his body is equally trying to envelop it back."
"But what does that mean?"
"Means the timelines are digging into him," Mobius cuts in, weary even to his own ears. "I guess it's more like they're becoming him. And he's becoming them."
"Exactly." O.B. snaps his fingers.
"How much does that explain?" B-15 asks, her eyes wide. "Does it tell us about the branches dying?"
"Not on its own. But one of the timelines had, ah –"
He looks at Mobius. Because of course Mobius would really love to regurgitate that vivid imagery. "One of the timelines has grown into his head. I'm guessing that's gonna have a whole load of issues in itself."
"Yeah," O.B. continues. "If he'd – not to throw out a horrible theory – but if the branches had absorbed him in a way where his body had given up on him, and he'd died, we wouldn't be having this problem. Though arguably him being dead is worse for us, so it's good we're not in that reality."
"Arguably?" Mobius mutters, with raised eyebrows. Only B-15 hears him, and presses her lips together so she doesn't laugh. He smiles.
"The issue is," O.B. continues, "that the timelines have merged with him as he's living. They've effectively become interlinked."
"Loki was saying something about the multiverse death happening at the same time he was beginning to... what was it again? The same time his mind started breaking apart."
"That's likely." O.B. puts the palms of his hands on the desk behind him and hops up to sit, glancing at each room occupant in turn. "If anyone is familiar with branchside science-fiction, there's a concept called 'eldritch madness' that seems apt."
"No I am not," L-23 replies, when it's clear nobody else wants to answer him, "and I do not like the sound of whatever that is."
"Loki's mind doesn't have the capacity to understand everything he's seeing. All these strange concepts, billions of realities, all the knowledge of the multiverse: imagine it confined to one person's mind. I'm guessing the fact he's a god has protected him from the brunt of it, with the extended lifespan and all. The usual metaphor I'd go for doesn't really work given he actually is one, but it's the equivalent of one of us suddenly seeing at the same level a god does. He's trying really hard to grasp it, but he just physically can't." He rubs his forehead, notably more erratic than usual. "While this wouldn't usually have a physical effect, my guess is his brain is trying to prioritise the unaffected parts."
"Alocasia," Casey murmurs, brows raised, eyes fixed on the middle-distance.
"Hm?"
He refocuses. "Alocasia plants. They have about four leaves, and when they grow a new one, the cells of an old leaf are dismantled to remobilize nutrients."
"Sepsis, too," B-15 offers. "Blood flow is redirected to vital organs only, which can kill off the extremities."
A-145 pipes up, voice quiet. "There's a technique from early artificial intelligence programming. Heuristics. To try to solve a problem the AI just prunes any thought branches that are unlikely to lead to solutions. Something like that maybe?"
The amalgamation of proffered processes settles somewhere in Mobius' head, and dislodges the obvious answer. "It's the Loom," he whispers. Everyone turns to look at him. "It's just the Loom, all over. Scaling problem."
"Oh." O.B. considers this. "Yeah. It is. He's basically the Loom."
"Except he's linked with the universe," Casey adds, "so it's not just killing the branches. It's killing him. Then it becomes a self-feeding cycle, because the universe is dying because he's dying, and he's dying because the universe is dying. It's like an –"
"An ouroboros," Mobius finishes grimly.
"Isn't that going to have a medical impact on him though? Psychologically?" B-15's forehead is lined with concern.
"Probably. We're actually in the early stages of the multiversal decay, in the grand scheme of things, so it's not apparent on the smaller scale of Loki yet."
Picking absently at a thread on the hem of his jacket, eyes on O.B., Mobius shifts. "What's that gonna look like? Will he get worse?"
"There's a few different things we could see. General issues with focusing on the present. His consciousness might scatter. Some forgetfulness."
"Forgetfulness." B-15 repeats it in a whisper, echoing what Mobius is thinking. "Like –"
"The memory wipes," he says. "That explains the feeling of the empty branches then." He inhales. "O.B., how soon until this starts getting bad?"
He hums in thought, pulling a notepad closer and scribbling a few numbers down, brow drawn in concentration. "Five years? By that point we'll be on about ten percent of the universe gone, so we'll probably see the signs start to appear in Loki too."
"So we gotta get this sorted in half a decade." Mobius exhales. This is going to be difficult.
"I didn't account for additional absorption either. Given the growth rate of the Tree, the branches will eat at him a lot quicker than that. That's going to be a real problem in about… a linear six months?"
Scrap that. This is going to be impossible. "Okay, so we gotta get this sorted in half a year. What's the plan?"
"Main goal is to get Loki out somehow. If we can do that, then the universe should stabilise, and Loki should stabilise too. Both will need a lot of patching up to fix the breakpoints, but that's doable. Hopefully."
"Right. Okay. I guess… I guess we'd best get chopping."
Nobody moves. A downcast hush takes the room.
Where do you even start with that?
"On one positive note," Casey puts forward, "the power source guys finally came through with an option. I know that's not exactly helpful for us right now, but we can keep it ready for when we do extract him. It looks really good."
"Well that's some nice news. What is it?" Mobius asks.
"Someone branchside has been melding infinity stones together. They're pretty sure it's a Richards variant, but not definite. It's too dangerous to extract easily so they're keeping an eye on it for us."
"What if the branch dies before we get there?"
Casey shrugs. "Dunno. Probably they'll have to find something else."
Mobius files this information away for later inspection.
"If you want, I can spend some time breaking down the main issues, then send out a task list to everyone?" O.B. offers. "I don't think we'll get far if we individualise like before."
Muted agreement from the group. This seems to conclude the bulk of the group meeting.
Mobius waves O.B. over as smaller discussions begin to populate the background. He attempts to keep his voice as laid-back as he can stand, but it comes out accusative even so. "Loki said that you knew about this? The timeline absorption thing?"
O.B. visibly gulps. "Uh – sort of. It was a hypothesis. A very likely one."
He draws his brows together. "Why didn't you just tell me?"
"I didn't… I don't know. I didn't actually think of it myself. It was A-145. He proposed it after he saw something like it in an old case file."
Oh. So that's what he'd wanted to tell him. Mobius finds him across the room – standing with his hands in his pockets, alone, trying very hard not to look as though he's anxiously eavesdropping on their conversation. Mobius sighs. "And I'm guessing you told him not to tell me in the time between me getting caught up in that mission."
"Yeah. I'm sorry, I just… didn't want to scare you."
It's very hard to be mad at O.B. for any length of time, given his heart is pretty much always in the right place, and he's put far more work into this than all of them combined. "You know what? Don't worry about it. Just… keep me in the loop next time."
A hasty, earnest nod. That's good enough for Mobius.
He makes sure to give A-145 a friendly wave as he leaves the room, to alleviate any lingering worry. Judging by his relieved smile, it was more than welcome.
The moment he gets out of Repairs and Advancement, he feels himself crumble a little.
He needs to grab some food, cry his eyes out, and then sleep for a full cycle.
And probably repeat that a few times.
Or a lot of times.
There's a sentence in chapter thirty-eight, section 4.5A, in the TVA Agents' and Analysts' General Rulebook, that Mobius has spent a large portion of his life mulling over – taken as given that a large portion is probably an accurate description, considering that however many years he'd spent in his actual life on a branch are inconsequential in comparison to the time spent here.
He can't exactly remember it as well as he used to, now they're so deep into this new, far more libertarian system. It was a, something something, bribery is forbidden, kind of statement. Fairly throwaway in the grand scheme of enforced guidelines.
But he used to think about it a lot. For one thing, nobody ever had anything to bribe with. Meal tokens, sure, you could grab a quick favour if you donated your lunch, but never anything beyond that. There was inevitably a vying for items stolen from pruned timelines, but all the exciting ones went to lockup (or, in his own personal case, Ravonna's trophy cabinet). Even ones which were of minor intrigue eventually lost their value as duplications popped up from additional vanquished branches.
All-in all, the system didn't lend well to bribery. Adding to that, he couldn't think of a reason any TVA employees would use it. Everything they needed was provided, and if it wasn't provided it wasn't needed.
Mobius spent many boring office cycles wondering why they'd bothered to even include it. He's not sure why that one in particular stood out to him, amongst a host of arguably stranger rules, but it did.
Then again, stood here now, watching Casey quite cheerfully splice two wires together in a definitely-not-O.B.-approved and also potentially TVA-destroying piece of technology, all because he showed him the garden section of a Home Depot, he's wondering if they should add that old rule into the new guidebook too. And if he should then immediately hand himself in for breaking it.
"All finished!" Casey pushes the back of the device shut with a grin. It clicks into place, nondescript and small in the palm of his outstretched hand.
Mobius takes it. "Thanks. You happy this'll work?"
"Should do. I had to reshuffle things around, obviously, but I think it turned out better for it."
"Nice." He flips it over. And flips it over again. "How do you turn it on?"
"That would be the big button that says 'on'." Casey, testament to a level of long-burning self-discovery, says this with more than a little exasperated wit. "You sure you want to do this now though? Won't Ouroboros –"
"He'll probably get about fifteen alerts the moment this thing boots up," Mobius replies, with a raised eyebrow. "Might as well see how it goes and explain later."
An answering shrug. "Cool. Make sure he blames you though."
"I'll tell him I threatened to prune you or something."
"Right. Because you're well known for your violent methods of employment."
Mobius ignores this comment, and instead moves to stand in the centre of the Observation Room. Darker than usual, most of the illumination comes from the recently installed strip of muted yellow lights along the bridge to where the Loom stood, casting dark shadows across the floor. This sets the lights on the control panels apart, brighter in colour than usual, and, as he flips the switch of the new device on, makes it seem glaringly bright. It gives a chirrup and whirs into life, the screen flashing a dim green, text reading: WELCOME.
Navigating through the start process using the keypad, he types in the code and then waits as the loading icon cycles through five turns. Upon completion, it beeps once, high-pitched, and then falls silent. And then the screen goes dark.
Mobius turns to shoot Casey a questioning look, and is met with sheepish wince. "It is working, I promise. I just couldn't be asked to program an animation for this part."
"So I just –" he motions to the void with his hands.
"Do whatever you normally do, it should pick it up."
He exhales in one long breath. "Okay." Back to face the boundless nothingness. Looking for something within it, no matter how much he knows that whatever was there is now far removed from this place. Silence a second longer. "I always feel really awkward doing this bit," he mutters, voice laced with tension – prolonging the moment the dial swings towards success or failure. "Hey, Loki?"
As if on a timeline branch, no longer a delay between summoning and appearance, Loki flickers into view, the illusion opaque and solid-looking, almost real in the dark Observation Room. Compared to the harsh sunlight of the branches, it's harder to tell in here. Mobius gets the startling urge to reach out to touch him.
"Oh," Loki says, voice quiet and face morphing into uncertainty as he takes in the two of them, and the room about him. A jittery nervousness in the way his eyes dart from floor to ceiling to floor again.
This unease is not aided by the alarm that decides now is the time to blare at full volume, pausing every few seconds as an automated voice reads, "Temporal Anomaly." The lights flash red.
Loki unsuccessfully attempts to stifle his flinch. Mobius raises a placating hand and yells over his shoulder, "Casey, can you –"
"On it," comes the call, barely audible over the jarring siren. A moment later and it shuts off.
"Geez, the whole TVA probably heard that. Might want to send out a stand-down message."
He returns his attention to Loki, whose fear has melted into mild confusion instead, evidently soothed by a great amount of trust. Which is a lovely feeling, and a strange one, and something for Mobius to think about later. "Welcome back to R&A," he says, putting his hands in his pockets absently.
"What – how did you…" he breaks off, still sluggish with badly concealed amazement, and shakes his head. "Given the overwhelming salutation, I presume that O.B. is not aware of this."
"Nope," he affirms, lips turning upwards. "Wait about three minutes and he's going to come in here and slaughter me, so you might want to lay the thanks on quick while you can."
"I very well may do. How in all the worlds did you manage this? This is…" he tails away, voice failing, but the flourishing brightness in his face – absent for so long – makes up for the lack of words.
"Awesome? Yeah, I know. Thank Casey, mostly, he did all the work."
Loki does exactly this, turning to face Casey, standing awkwardly behind the monitors. His face softens, a copious relief mollifying any lingering distress. "Casey. Thank you."
"Good to see you, Loki." He gives a small wave. "But Mobius is underselling himself. He figured a lot of it out."
"Ah," Mobius brushes the praise off, "you're way too nice. Anyhow, I told you I was gonna find a solution to the timeline thing."
"And you did." Loki's face breaks into such an earnest smile that his own expression dissolves into an embarrassingly open fondness.
O.B. chooses this moment to appear in the doorway, breath coming at the speed of someone who has sprinted several staircases. He fixes a glare on the two of them in the centre, Casey in a much more forgiving position off to the side. While this expression would not usually garner much fear, given his less than threatening stature and temperament, there is an intensity that is definitely terrifying. Mobius shifts automatically to stand just slightly in front of Loki defensively, despite being the only one really in O.B.'s crosshairs. "I'd love to say it's not what it looks like, but it actually is what it looks like."
"Mobius, what are you thinking?" His voice is remarkably steady, lacking in expression. This makes it beyond petrifying. "I just got about thirty alerts on my breach system. You've opened up the whole TVA to the universe. Did you not think there was a reason we weren't locked on to a time?"
"O.B. –" Loki attempts, voice placating. Mobius hushes him before he catches the brunt of anger that is not directed towards him.
Thankfully, O.B. seems to agree on this point. He turns briefly to face Loki, his usual chipper self breaking through. "Hi Loki! Great to see you!" And then he turns back to Mobius, resetting to fury. "You realise you've created a direct pathway for literally anyone who wants to enter the TVA? Do you know how many Variants attempt that on the regular?"
"Okay, hold on. Trust me, I did a little more research than that before I jumped in; everything is fine. I made sure it was all safe first."
"Mobius, how can you be sure of that? You understand, like, one percent of the systems we have in place to protect us, there's no way you can manoeuvre through all of that without breaking things."
Casey raises his hand in a very tentative admission of guilt. "Uh – I did help him. I made sure it was safe."
A small amount of anger vanishes from O.B.'s face, dimming to a quieter irritation. "Well that's a relief, but that's still only about half of my defences covered. I told you this was a bad idea when he first suggested it, and I stand by it. Whichever timeline you locked onto, vanished or not, is now a direct access point."
"Ah –" Mobius jumps back in, "We didn't quite do it like that. Not in the way I originally wanted. Not that we didn't try, but the LC-One didn't... it didn't really like what we did."
"It short-circuited and set four stacks of mechanical blueprints on fire." Casey supplements.
"I wasn't going to tell him that bit, but sure, go ahead."
O.B. centres his attention on the new device, only now clocking it is not the same as the LC-One. The back, marked in hastily scribbled pencil, reads: LC-Two. "So how does it work then? I need to patch up the issues, fast."
"It uses the coordinates to the Tree, and follows your shifting algorithm. No timeline disintegration necessary. And Loki here," Mobius motions to him, stood somewhat ill at ease to the side of the argument, "can see just this room, nothing else. Sorry," he throws him an apologetic look, which is shaken off with an incline of his head.
"Oh." O.B.'s face cycles through a myriad of emotions. "Well that's so smart I can't even be mad at you. I didn't think of that."
"Yeah. Figured it's safe unless someone manages to get to the Tree, and if they do then we'll have way bigger problems than whether they're coming for the TVA or not."
"Okay then." As if the past five minutes have not occurred, O.B. falls back into characteristic composure. "If you let me check it over so I can make sure it's safe, that doesn't sound too bad."
"Great, thanks. I just really needed the Council off my ass about these timelines."
They had also been scarily close to running out of empty ones. No matter how important communication is, Mobius is aware of the moral implication of using any of the other timelines. He feels bad enough about killing off flora, and he definitely can't justify the purposeful disintegration of branches where anything is breathing.
And he's a little scared that he might've tried to anyway.
Now the interpersonal friction has mostly died its thankful death, Loki moves for the first time. He wanders towards the bay windows, slow and careful, a stilted element to his hesitation. Mobius, hands still in his pockets, waits for him to take a few paces away before he follows, equally gradually – he doesn't want to spook him.
Casey whispers something to O.B., and proceeds to tug him out of the room with nowhere near enough subtlety. Mobius watches them retreat with more than a little amusement, before restoring his full attention to the figure silhouetted against the void. He coughs. "When you first left, we spent about... five months? Think it was something like that, we spent combing this specific section of the void for clues. I don't know why we were so certain you were here somewhere." He takes the steps necessary to stand beside him.
"I did leave via that platform." Loki nods towards the bridge, a line of lights into nothing. Pinprick stars in the void. "So you weren't stabbing entirely in the dark. Or, I suppose you were, but not in the metaphorical sense."
Mobius huffs a laugh. "I definitely was in the literal sense, because I distinctly remember spending a lot of time raking that section over there –" he motions to the far corner of the platform, "– for any signs."
A weighted silence presses down on the room.
The lack of a time limit – no branch death – is both a blessing and an opportunity for the wealth of heavy conversation they've held off.
But now they're here, and Mobius has never wanted to talk about anything less.
"Thank you," Loki says eventually, voice low, "for figuring this out."
"I was always going to," he replies lightly. "It was just whether I could do it in time. I think after we found you it kind of... motivated me to speed the hell up."
A hum in response.
"How... how have you been feeling?" Mobius angles towards him, gazing into his face as if he can gauge the truth of his reply, despite knowing all too well how strongly that mask can withhold reality. "Since we found out what the problem is?" he adds, to clarify.
Loki looks downwards. "As I said previously, I was vaguely aware of the possibility the universe was absorbing me for a while before you arrived."
"But I still confirmed it."
"You did." An exhale betrays him. "It's not as bad as it looks."
"Isn't it?" Mobius reproaches, sure his face is probably a mess of badly-concealed worry. "Because you're a terrible liar, and that was a terrible lie."
Loki snorts, a small smile forming on his face. "Of the various unfortunate experiences in my life, this does not rank so high on the pain scale as you might think."
"Yeah, but the unfortunate experiences in your life are on a level way beyond anybody else's, so that's not a glowing recommendation either."
No response. And then, softly. "I can handle it."
Equally gently, he takes a step forward. "I know you can. But that doesn't make it any better, or make it hurt any less."
Loki's face splinters into a dangerous desolation, levelling off back into mild amusement as quick as it came, smooth like glass. "I suppose not, but it makes it easier to bear knowing that those things eventually came to an end, as this one may also. Although I am as of yet convinced that this burden is at least semi-permanent, provided we can deal with the absorption issue before I manage to destroy the timelines."
"Well, don't put all your eggs in one basket." Redirecting his gaze to the empty room behind them, Mobius leans on the sill of the window. "I've got a couple of ideas knocking around, once we figure out… whatever the hell's going on with the first problem. Hey, you never know, maybe solving that will solve all the rest of it too."
The answering smile lends more to permissive scepticism, humouring him rather than following with genuine belief. "I knew when I left that this job was likely a permanent state of affairs, and I've rather made my peace with that."
"Again, a humongous lie. Wow, that was even worse than the first one."
Loki shoots him a look. "Believe me when I tell you it would be futile to attempt to meddle any further than restoring the universe back to full health. Of the many options you're considering, I can assure you none of them will work."
He narrows his eyes. "What, because you had time to try so many in the five minutes it took us to get from the drawing board to you leaving on that bridge?"
The lie wobbles, whatever and wherever it is hidden within, visibly fracturing along the delicate edges. Again, Loki hastens to cover the double-crossing of his own body language, voice strong with far too much conviction. "Obviously not, but I certainly have considered all options since."
Mobius debates pushing, pressing his hand into the heart of the matter until it shatters and becomes visible. But that recalls an earlier era of their relationship they've both worked so hard to dismantle, rife with animosity and cruelty. Probably a lot of that last one on Mobius' part, more so than Loki's, which only underlines why he needs to fight the urge to relapse. A tactic that certainly didn't work at the best of times, and it is certainly not the best of times now.
No. A newer approach, unexplored and careful, is what he chooses. It surmounts more to anguished pleading than he'd like. "Whatever you're not telling me –" he says, barely above a whisper, "– and you don't have to tell me – but… why?" He gets no immediate alleviation. "What's so bad you're this desperate to hide it?"
Torn by indecision, Loki angles his face away, looking out to a completely uninteresting point in the darkness ahead of them. Which tells Mobius all he needs to know about deflection. "I – I don't know." Very quiet. "It's not... I'm not trying to hide it from you."
"But you are," Mobius presses, subdued, "I can't figure out what happened on my own. And I can't make you tell me if you don't want to. I mean, obviously I don't wanna make you do anything you don't want, but it might help us to help you if we know the full story."
"The full story is rather long winded, and mostly boring," some humour returns, a joke that only he understands, "though complex despite that."
"Hence us maybe needing the background information so we can cover all corners on this thing." Pausing, he takes in the way Loki has near-frozen, knuckles white around the beam where the window meets the wall. Head bowed and shoulders drawn together. "Whatever it was really scared you this bad, huh?"
"Sort of." That's an admission if he's ever heard one.
"Bad enough that you decided to leave instead of going through with the initial plan? You thought tearing apart Time with your own hands and weaving it back together like some... I don't know, human battery, was better than fixing the Loom?"
His eyes close. "It's not that I don't want to tell you. It's that... I don't – I don't want to make it real."
"Real?"
"What happened to me, it happened only to me. It saves everyone a lot of pain if it remains that way."
Well, that dishes out a generous serving of dread. Because Mobius, semi-retired though he may be, has read several utterances of similar phrases in countless textbooks over the years. Stuff from the TVA guidebook about anomalies and circular Time streams and a host of alternative issues, down in the rare temporal events chapter.
He furrows his brow, straightening, and Loki tenses, as if sensing he's given away enough for the clues to be pulled together by string, for him to unveil the truth without further input.
Mobius stares at him a while longer, casting his mind way, way back to when he'd first left. All of it, before, had been a catastrophic overwhelm of abnormality, so unusual, so out-of-character. But the situation, too, had been of a similar breed, so no matter how many months after he'd spent analysing their last minutes together, he never drew anything from the uncharacteristic mannerisms other than the stress of being seconds away from death. Never anything more.
Which, in hindsight, feels incredibly stupid. Becoming a sudden expert in quantum physics and mechanics as a coping mechanism to deal with impending doom is not a symptom that's widely regarded as normal. Or even possible.
It does point to some other options, however, that make his stomach turn. And, although he could run the various strange symptoms Loki showed just before his departure against the guidebook to narrow down what really happened, that seems a long and unnecessary process given the god in question is standing before him, semi-present, on the verge of dropping the façade.
He reaches out a hand and holds it over where Loki's shoulder would be, the line between illusion and reality glimmering a brighter green for a second. Partly it's wilful omission that prompts it, hoping beyond anything that he'll find solid molecules under his fingertips, knowing that he won't. But mostly it's the unwavering urge to provide some manner of comfort, when he has no way to do so right now.
Loki, though he can't feel it, must either sense or hear it, because he opens his eyes and turns to half-face him.
"Do you wanna tell me before I figure it out?" Mobius prompts softly.
A throat clear. "I – I suppose." A pause, but one that indicates he's mulling over how best to convey the story, not hesitation. "When – when... Norns, I don't know. The timeslipping came back, for one thing."
That is not what Mobius expected, not even as a factor, because that seems so long ago now, that he pulled him from the Loom. But he nods him forwards.
"This time," Loki continues, "I could control it. Or I learnt to control it, and I could move between times at will. I didn't realise this until we tried to fix the Loom the first time, and it didn't work, so my body performed it for me in some kind of instinctual fear reaction."
As he continues, Mobius finds his attention drawn to a singular phrase, lost within it.
Fix the Loom the first time.
The first time.
Oh.
It hits all at once, why these visits have felt so anachronistic, so unfamiliar, so off. As though he's talking to a Loki built upon the one he knows, but shrouded in something else, this ancient, weary embodiment. Foolishly he'd assumed it was all due to adopting the multiverse, to taking in everything that's ever happened – which has probably played a part – but before he left, too: the strange knowledge and the change in his demeanour, his speech falling into practised, artificial patterns. The thinness in his face. The exhaustion. The erratic recklessness. The hopelessness.
Not from stress.
From time.
Oh.
Oh god.
"How –" he interrupts the unheard story, then pauses. He can't find the words. "How long?"
Loki seems to stop breathing. Caught at last, stepping wilfully into the trap.
"Loki, how long?"
No answer. The silence hangs still, infusing the air with a fatal hum. Mobius waits.
To Loki's credit, he keeps his voice balanced even as his hands clench tight, a moment away from shattering. "I'm not sure."
"Could you guess?" he pushes, heart drumming a gallop against his ribs.
"I can't." He wets his lips, and says, "and I am not sure it will help either of us. It would only serve as a fact we both harbour guilt over."
Mobius traces the sharp outline of his wrist bones, and then again back to his face, his eyes lined with far too much age, even for a god. "Can I get a range, maybe? You gotta give me something here, Loki."
At his name, Loki's resolve crumbles – he slumps, just a little, staring at the floor. His voice, for the first time, is deathly quiet, barely audible. "I don't know. Genuinely. I lost all track of time after ten loops, let alone however many it actually was. I don't know. I don't –"
This seems to be the base of the issue. Not even the loops, as crushing as they must have been, but the fact he was in hell for long enough that he has no idea of a timeframe.
It's chilling.
It's excruciating.
"You really have no idea?" Mobius asks. "Because I hate to jump to conclusions, but given how bad you were at physics we're looking at… hell, at least ten years I'm guessing. Probably double that."
"I don't know. I'm sorry."
"God," he raises a hand to cover his eyes, taking a deep breath, "please don't say sorry. There's no reason to say sorry."
"It took me far too long." A damp whisper. "And I didn't even manage it."
"You did, Loki," he replies, instant, cursing everything in the universe that has led to them standing here, removed from each other, stuck in this half-measure. "You did manage it. We're all alive because of you –"
"This version of you is alive because of me," his voice fragments, he coughs roughly to regain fortitude. "But all the others. They weren't variants of you, Mobius, they were you. And that doesn't just get erased because I went back in time – all of that happened. I didn't watch variations of you die, over and over. That was you dying. And B-15, and O.B., and Casey –"
"Hey," he interrupts, infusing his voice with urgency, moving to stand in front of Loki as best he can, half-blocking his view of the window. In an oddly reminiscent move, he raises his hand, encircling one side of his face, the illusion breaking where his fingers meet where the skin should be. Loki leans into the facsimile of touch, eyelids pressed together, as Mobius continues. "That wasn't your fault. If the Loom was gonna explode, that's what was going to happen, and that's not on you. The fact it happened over and over? That's you giving us a chance. Every single time you tried again is something that shouldn't have happened. That's the proof you wanted us to live."
A weak nod. "But it was selfish, nonetheless. I put you through that, over and over. If I'd just stopped, I wouldn't have killed you all, for all that time."
Admittedly, that is a little terrifying. The potential of being a variation of himself, lost to time, dead on a non-existent TVA branch somewhere. If Loki had waited one more cycle before leaving, he'd be long-gone in a radiation overdose, one of many variants forgotten to the loops.
But he's not. He's very lucky he's not.
"If I know anything about myself, and anything about the others, I know damn well that we would've wanted you to keep going. Every single time. It's not selfish to put yourself through that to save the people you care about. That's good."
A breathless laugh, echoing more like a sob. "Someone once told me I could be whatever I wanted to be. Even someone good."
"Sounds like a clever guy. Real smart, actually. A genius."
"He is." Not an ounce of insincerity in those words. He's still staring at him like he's a lifeline. "And one far too forgiving."
"Yeah, well, I think the universe owes you a little forgiveness after everything. Me included."
Loki raises an eyebrow. "I seem to remember you forgave me very early on, with very little incentive to do so, so please excuse me if I take your personal endorsement with a grain of salt. But the rest is nice."
"Don't get smart with me when I have literally just given you a morale boost."
"I'm afraid that's a side-effect of the morale which –" he looks about the room, still a brush of incredulity at being back, "is very much boosted right now."
God, Mobius needs to move before he gets incredibly sappy. He takes a step back, returning to his place next to him. "Yeah? Well, I'm very glad to have you here."
"And I'm very glad to be here." Loki offers him a sentimental grin, far more open than usual.
And then when the quiet falls, it's no longer tense. It's back to being comfortable, the way it used to be.
For a while they stand there together, unspeaking.
They have time for that now.
A/N: Maybe no update next week! I'm a little busy. Hope you enjoyed reading :D
