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 Seven: Everyone has a really shit day

Having Loki back changes things.

A lot.

For one, Mobius takes up a pretty permanent residence in the Observation Room and its surrounding offices. They've set up the device so Loki only has access to that area – which was confirmed by the test in which he attempted to follow Mobius into the corridor outside of his field of view and promptly winked out into nothing, reappearing a heartbeat later back in the centre of the controls, a mildly amused look painting his face. "I suppose that verifies it."

"Yeah. Sucks, but good for safety. And energy consumption."

Loki doesn't seem put out by his lack of mobility within the TVA's general confines – to be honest, the opposite seems more accurate. He quickly takes up almost as much of a permanent residency as Mobius, so far as his magic will allow without overexertion (and probably a bit over that). He makes himself comfortable in the general area, and although the illusion has no sense perception beyond sight and sound, insists that some of the sterile seating be swapped out with comfort in mind. Mobius half-heartedly objects to this, because there really isn't a point, but seemingly has a worrisome soft spot when it comes to one God of Time, and spends a decent amount of his precious schedule wrangling with Human Resources before he succeeds in acquiring a couple of brown settees in the classic TVA style – which leans more to hospital waiting room than comfort. But Loki seems satisfied enough, and now that Mobius is spending a decent chunk of time there, it is good to have somewhere other than a purely functional stool to sit and focus.

"What are you working on?"

Of course, the fact Loki can appear at any opportunity is something he takes full advantage of. "Jesus – Christ, Loki, I've told you not to do that!"

"My apologies," he replies, dryly, leaning over the back of the sofa to peer at the handheld monitor he was typing on moments ago.

"Oh, you sound so terribly sorry, I gotta forgive you right away," Mobius shoots over his shoulder.

Any lingering irritation dispels as Loki huffs out a laugh, swinging his legs over the top of the cushioned backrest and then sliding down to sit next to him. "I am terribly sorry. And you neglected my question."

"Because the answer is boring. It's the same thing as when you last visited."

It's only been about eight linear hours since Loki vanished, his complexion wan as he pushed to hold the illusion for as long as he could. It took a little threatening, and far more gentle coaxing to get him to take a break and return to the Tree so he could regain energy. But eight hours for Mobius could be god knows how long for Loki – who is in-fact the god who knows, and the god who refuses to confide the Time difference.

Mobius isn't used to it yet. Loki will vanish for thirty minutes on their end, and sometimes come back with no strong memory of what they were last talking about. He hasn't figured out if that's a general side-effect of existing at different temporal velocities or a symptom of something much worse.

He's praying for the former.

Given Loki's immediate uninterested look, this time he does remember the mind-numbing task that Mobus is currently undertaking. "If that is the case, I respect your decision not to enlighten me a second time."

"You didn't find my running commentary on data entry exciting?"
"Riveting," comes the reply, dull. "The moment where you accidentally erased four rows was particularly tense."

"Hey, took me ages to copy that all back in."

"A tragedy for the centuries, I'm sure." He leans back until his head rests against the opposite armrest – Mobius has no clue how that works given he can neither feel nor touch it, but his awareness of the physical world is evidently heightened – and stretches his legs out until they would be resting across his lap if he were actually here.

"Do you mind?" he mutters, exasperation colouring his tone.

Loki ignores him, eyes shut and arms folded, draped in a distinctly relaxed position.

Mobius doesn't speak for a while, and when he looks up from his spreadsheet Loki's breathing has evened out into a dozing level, though the illusion remains as opaque as previous. This is new, and not entirely comprehendible given how much effort it takes simply for him to exist in a projected form.

But it's nice, so he elects not to think about it too hard.

Cutting through the ambient background whir of the monitors, footsteps gradually grow closer, long enough after Loki first closed his eyes that he's evidently tumbled into something deeper than just a nap. Even so, Mobius raises a finger to his lips as O.B. enters, tilting his head to indicate where he's fallen asleep.

"Oh," comes the soft response. "How's he doing that while projecting?"

"Not a clue," Mobius murmurs, equally quiet. "Thought he probably deserved it, however it's happening."

"His connection to the universe might be weaker in here. Should be safe enough, but I'll keep an eye on it."

Mobius nods, still tracing the slow rise and fall of Loki's chest. He returns his gaze to O.B.. "You need something?"

"Wanted to give you this." He shifts, grasping the folder tucked under his arm with his other hand, hesitating before he hands it over. "It's absolutely all of them."

"Everything?" He's careful as he opens it, not touching the legs which are still sprawled weightlessly over his lap. The folder, thick though it seemed on the outside, contains little, a dozen or so plastic wallets clipped in. Mobius scans through the first few as O.B. speaks.

"Everything. Fifteen potentials. Your four are in there, and Casey got about six. B-15 was actually great from a medical point of view, so she's vetoed some stuff that would've killed him."

Mobius skims through the headings. Temporal rewind. Cosmic differentiation. Singularity filtering.

And then, simply: timeslipping.

"That was Loki's idea," O.B. elaborates, standing on tiptoe as he watches Mobius flick through. "He thinks he could maybe extract himself if he just timeslips through the branches."

"Wouldn't that be an issue with the timelines being literally inside him?"

A shrug. "Yeah, probably. That's why I reckon we try it first, before the Tree roots itself any further in. The current intrusion wounds we can probably patch up so long as it doesn't get any worse. And, if he can timeslip out, there should be enough residual power in the Tree for us to extract that new branchside source and deploy it in time."

During the course of his explanation, the volume gradually crescendos into a normal conversation. Loki shifts, a line forming in his brow, before he settles again.

Both of them look at him, waiting for his breathing to round out. "Okay," Mobius whispers, "sounds like a good one to try then. Can you get a risk assessment done? We can go through in order until something works."

He nods. "I'll have it done by the end of the cycle. We can get started tomorrow."

As if to illustrate his point, in a show of either clever track of time or sheer luck, the lights flicker down into night-mode.

"Oh, for the love of – I've told them to leave this department out of the day cycle." Mobius blinks at the folder in one hand and his digital spreadsheet in the other, which now looks far too bright in the dimmer room. With a grumble, he switches it off, setting it aside and passing the folder back to O.B.. "I suppose Loki has the right idea. I could use a catnap too."

"Before –" O.B. shifts, a certain discomfort crawling into the straight line of his back, "– before you do, I just wanted to say that there is one more option that I haven't put into the collection."
Mobius, in lieu of having anything to hold, folds his arms and settles back, the muscles in his shoulders relaxing and easing some of the pain from sitting upright over work for so long. "Oh?"

He takes a deep breath, and keeps his voice low and rushed. "It's not much longer until we reach the point where his consciousness is scattered too widely for him to access his body. But obviously we've got a reading of his temporal signature in our databases, so I've already drawn up an identifiable map of the early diffusion. It's actually really simple physics."

"And can you… use this map?" Mobius waves his hand, as if over a real map between them in the air.

"Absolutely. His consciousness has been absorbed at a quantum level, so there are remnants of entangled particles linking back to his actual body."

Off his bemused look, O.B. simplifies, "All of the dispersed parts of his mind are effectively conjoined via an invisible bond, like really thin string." As he says this, he utilises the imaginary map between them, drawing his fingers from the furthest reaches to one singular point in the centre. "I could pull these consciousness threads together into his body. And that would bring him back fully."

This potential seems too wholly positive for how nervous O.B. looks. "I'm sensing a really big however coming up."

"Uh… yeah. Two problems. To draw him back together I'd have to pretty much fold space-time into the specific configuration where he's in one place and one time, like origami. And we do not have the technology for that yet. That's why I didn't mention it as an actual method."

"Can you build it?"

"Before the branches cause his body to fail? Not really, which is problem two. Once they dig into enough vital organs he will physically die, and to be honest I think that's going to be sooner rather than later. At the minute half the reason he's still alive is because he's mostly scattered into the timelines, so by the time I managed to pull him back, I'd be drawing him back into a dead body."
"And that'll kill him properly," Mobius substitutes, mouth set in a hard line.

"Yeah." A grim look overtakes his features. "But it would solve the multiverse dying issue because it breaks the ouroboros." He pauses. "I – I don't want to suggest it, because we've got all these other ideas on the go, but if… if none of them work, there might come a point where we –"

"Don't say it," Mobius says, voice dropping to a thick mumble, as though he's swallowed gravel and it's digging into the inside of his throat.

O.B. shakes his head, eyebrows drawn close, forlorn. "We might have to make a choice between… it's… it's the multiverse."

It's the multiverse. Dying with every second wasted, entire branches lost each passing second.

But then again, "And it's Loki."

O.B. tips his head in concession, though not in visible agreement. The silence hangs, only Loki's rhythmic inhale, exhale and inhale again permeating the still air – too loud and too regular to be from someone still asleep.

O.B., realising something similar, throws one last glance at the god before nodding. "Goodnight, Mobius."

Mobius tips his head in acknowledgement. He waits for him to retreat out of earshot, the clip of his shoes against the tiled floor fading against the lingering digital hum, before he rounds on Loki. "Okay, how much of that did you hear?"

Given up pretence, Loki doesn't bother to open his eyes, instead raising a lazy brow. "Enough."

They stay like that for a while.

Loki shatters the peace. "Mobius –"

"No."

"If it comes down to it –"

"I said no. Not an option."

Eyelids flickering open, Loki shuffles to shoot him a look that's gallons more understanding than it should be. "You know that's not true. I'm flattered by your insistence, and respect that I would take a similar stance in a reversed scenario, but you cannot pretend this isn't a suitable fallback plan."

"Killing you?" A copious scepticism, wrapped around the slow-growing certainty in his chest. That it is a suitable fallback plan, and even an easy one from the sounds of things.

"You thought I was dead to begin with, or thought I may be, and I honestly did consider the possibility I would die in taking my position amongst the branches – yet I went through with it in full knowledge of that chance." He gives a strained smile. "Is it really any different if it happens now?"

"Yeah, it's different because I'd have my finger on the trigger," Mobius retorts, eyes fixed firmly on the wall opposite.

Loki, ever so gently, shifts to sit up properly, moving closer as if he can reach across the aeons, across the impossible distance separating them. "You've been handed a loaded weapon and will be pulling the trigger whether you would like to or not, my friend. It is your choice whether you point it towards me or towards the universe."

"But that's not a choice," he whispers, stricken.

To his credit, Loki has learnt when lying is not the path to follow. "I know."

That concludes it. For a moment.

But then Mobius missteps, and turns his head to lock eyes with him, and finds all remaining stoicism rapidly crumbling to rubble. "I can't. I can't. I have to hope. I have to hope we'll find something before that."

Loki's face morphs, for a frightening second, into something close to disappointment. Then the shutters come down, or in this case come up, back into kindly acceptance. "Of everyone I have ever met, you are the person who has shown the most startling ability to hope, despite being a man who has faced much more than anyone should. Against my best judgement, this inclines me to follow your lead on that matter."

Mobius gives a weak smile. "Yeah, you should. And my other good sense of intuition is telling me you'll need a heck of a lot of energy for tomorrow, so you should probably get on back to the Tree."

Loki scoffs, and reclines to his previous lounge across the couch. "I can regain energy perfectly here. That is what I was doing, until two people decided to have a conversation about murdering me."

"That isn't funny," Mobius says, eyebrows raised.

"Is a little bit." He closes his eyes, effectively cutting the conversation short.

Mobius watches him for a while.

"Are you going to sleep too, or continue to stare at me?"

"Hah. Just… thinking. You're not worried about having to try all these things?"

Loki's tone morphs into exasperation, deadened with languor. "Mobius. The universe is trying to eat me. I can handle some escape plans."

He sighs. "Yeah, that's… that's reasonable."

Loki hums. Within a few minutes he's back on the verge of sleep, breathing even.

Mobius doesn't sleep for a long time.


What was advertised as a long day quickly turns into a long, long few months.

A very long few months, starting with a very long day.

"O.B.," Mobius says, turning away the slightest amount and raising a hand to cover the comms, as if that will provide any protection from the god who has nothing else to do other than listen in, "this looks… it looks worse than last time. A lot worse."

"Worse than predicted?"

"I don't –" he chances a glance back at the throne, the branches of the Tree converging, quite literally, into a point. The point being Loki. "– I don't know, but it really doesn't look great."

"Let me see if I can run a remote analysis quickly, figure out if it's still safe to attempt. Try to keep him calm, because he'll need to be really focused for this to work."

"The two of you are aware that I can now hear both sides of this conversation, correct?" Loki says, voice ringing across the dias, heavy with amusement.

"Oh. I forgot that," O.B. sounds mildly embarrassed. "In that case, try to keep calm because you'll need to be really focused for this to work, Loki."

"Thank you, O.B." Loki shoots Mobius a wry smile, otherwise unmoving in the tangle of timelines suspending him in place.

Mobius finds himself returning it, and he wanders back, positioning himself as close as he can without nudging the branches coiling over the stairs. He lowers himself carefully to the floor, perching on a step devoid of timelines, sighing as his legs protest the movement. "I'm getting too old for this."

"Have the extra few years to your otherwise indeterminate lifespan really caused such a difference?"

"I've never exactly been young," Mobius replies. "Not that I remember, anyways."

"You're not… you're not old, by Midgardian standards." An attempt at placation. Unneeded, but mildly sweet even so.

Mobius raises his eyebrows. "Flattering. But I think my combination of at least several centuries of life plus the fact I seem to be occupying the body of a middle-aged man does maybe put me in the Midgardian 'old' category. My knees seem to think so, anyhow."

Loki chuckles, the sound breathy. Despite an evident effort to avoid nerves slipping through the fissures in his armour, his eyes flicker over the scene before him with a swallowed agitation, not lingering anywhere for too long.

"Hey." Mobius waits until Loki relents, holding his gaze. "You're gonna be fine. Even if this doesn't work. We'll just move on to the next idea."

"I'm not so worried about myself. More so about the potential ramifications on the Tree. If I... if I so much as knock something out of place, then –"

"You've been the guardian of the branches for more than enough time to know best, Loki. Something doesn't feel right? You just abort."

A hint of a nod, almost invisible with how limited his movement has been rendered. Deep into his neck, now, the timelines dig through the skin. Up there, unprotected by cloth, it looks far more eerie, the branches burrowing into the flesh, dragging outwards, something very human fracturing into the universe.

"Okay, all happy with the checks. Remember where you're headed?" O.B., although Mobius remembers clearly the trepidation he'd displayed earlier, has hidden it all under a layer of confidence – he sounds more as though he's announcing the destination of a plane journey.

"Midgard," Loki answers. "Twenty-first century New York."

A target selected from a mere handful of options – they're aiming for somewhere he knows well, to give that success probability the tiniest boost.

"B-15 has got a med-team ready to drop-in when you get there. It's not unlikely that you might need some patching up if this works."

Loki's face, already pale, hitches a shade whiter. "I'll admit, I'm trying not to think about that part."

Mobius winces. In the planning stage, they spent a decent amount of time judging whether timeslipping from a semi-dispersed state might just cause him to arrive semi-dispersed, but without the timeline support. Which would get very bloody very quickly.

Still, O.B. figured out it was only around a one percent chance of that happening. Which is pretty good odds by their standard.

"That's fair." A suspended pause. "You wanna go for it?"

"I'm currently talking myself up to it," Loki murmurs, and Mobius knows that this is more to him than for the team in the comms.

"Take your time," he encourages, moving to half-kneel ahead of him, full attention on the faint fear clouding his face, painted in the line between his eyebrows. "There's no rush."

"Mobius. If this… if this does fail –"

"Nope," Mobius interrupts, instant, and cuts him off again when he opens his mouth, "None of that. It'll work, or it'll not work and we'll find something else."

"But if the worst happens and I... if I try this and don't..." he exhales, tilting his head as far as possible. A watery smile. "If I don't make it back."

A thousand words packed into the space of six. A dagger to the chest.

"You'll make it back," he breathes, reverent faith returned in equal measure.

Loki takes his confession of something as accepted.

And then he timeslips.

Except he doesn't.

Counter to how Mobius remembers it – the momentary flailing of limbs, a second's worth of breaking and reforming – on this occasion it doesn't stop. Loki doesn't vanish.

It drags and drags and drags.

Watching it for a moment was bad enough.

This is closer to torture.

Ten seconds. Most pronounced is the noise – a shredding, a ripping of atoms as he unbecomes and becomes again, body tearing, fading and reforming over and over. A drone of a scream, barely audible under the breaking, sometimes muted with pain and othertimes sharp with anguish, loud.

Thirty seconds. Still the branches hold him there, trembling as the oscillations run up from the ones held tight between his fingers, the Tree above them shifting like an ocean heaves.

A particular noise draws Mobius' attention back forwards. Behind the wounded yelling, a quiet sound – more of a sob.

A minute. "Loki," he says.

Two minutes. It's not working. "Loki –"

Still, pressing onwards, Loki doesn't stop. A rising panic brings a wave of terror about in Mobius' heart: that maybe he can't even hear him anymore, wherever he's scattered. Maybe he won't ever stop.

Three minutes. "Loki!"

Loki goes still. Silent. From a world of everything, he collapses back into the throne, fully formed, and the branches around them seem to breathe, like dust settling back into place after a disturbance.

"Loki, hey," Mobius surges forward, heedless of the timelines. "Loki!"

Slumped where he is, the timelines have shifted enough to allow him the leeway to fall the barest inches forward, shoulders hunched and shaking. But now they're pulling more firmly at the skin, twisting it in a way that has to be far more than just uncomfortable.

"Loki," he whispers again. As if that will help. As if that will do anything at all.

Audible wheezing, bubbling up through his throat, rings as testament to his survival. Yet his face, pinched and soaked with sweat, eyes scrunched closed, speaks to a less-than-pleasant aftershock.

"You're okay," he whispers, "You're all fine now."

An inhale, stronger than the others. "That –" he huffs, clenching his teeth around a low groan, "– that didn't work."

Mobius laughs, weakly, voice soft as he says, "No. That really didn't work."

Hissing, Loki straightens to his previous position. The branches, as though sensing this, curl around him, clinging tighter. "There were moments –" he gulps for air, "– snatches of seconds where I thought I had found a route out. Hence continuing." He blinks, eyes bright.

"Well, that's better than nothing. We can work with that." Mobius says this to assure, but is met with a surprisingly heartening snort of laughter.

"As – as much as I appreciate your insistence to spin this as a success, I have to say you may be reaching on that."

He smiles. "Cut an old man some slack. I'm looking for the positives here."

"Yeah. So. Evidently that didn't work." O.B.'s voice makes Mobius startle. He'd forgotten he was there, listening. Off of O.B.'s awkward hesitation, he was also aware of this lapse in memory, and has spent the last few minutes attempting to smoothly reintegrate into the conversation. "Do you want to call it a day, or try option two?"

Mobius says, "Call it", at the same time as Loki says, "Two," voice firm.

"Yeah, no way," Mobius replies. "You look like you're about to keel over and die. We're not going again."

Loki still appears sick with pain. "It's more likely to work this time."

Option two. Timeslipping into the TVA, into the Observation Room. It's somewhere Loki knows well, has spent who knows how long looping back there, again and again.

It is, arguably, more likely to work.

Still. "No. Tomorrow, 'cause you need a break right now."

He throws him nothing but defiance. "That is a shame, because I do believe you can't stop me. O.B., I'm happy to try."

"O.B., do not encourage this," Mobius warns.

"Ah... I mean, he is right. I can't stop him."

Hell will freeze over on the day someone actually takes Mobius' advice. "Fine," he grumbles. "But make it quick. If it doesn't work in half a minute, you quit." He directs this at Loki, who looks pleased at winning his case, despite the tremors still wracking his body.

"Deal. O.B.?"

"We're ready. Make sure you aim for the Observation Room, so I can get a lock."

"Will do." Loki takes a deep breath and offers Mobius another smile, weak, terse. "If I don't make it back?"

"You'll make it back," Mobius concludes, anxiety returning to a boil as he moves away, giving him space.

A final breath before Loki timeslips. A momentary jerking of limbs.

Then he goes limp.

"Oh, shit," Mobius goes to catch him, but the branches beat him to it, holding him in place. "Loki?"

It hits him that the silence sounds far more permanent than previous.

"Loki!" he barks, desperate.

No answer. He still isn't moving.

Mobius isn't entirely sure he's even breathing.

"O.B., he's not –"

It suddenly hits him, why the silence sounds so loud.

There's no static from the comms.

He presses a hand to the activation button. "O.B.? You hear me?"

Nothing.

"O.B.?" Reduced to begging. "Would love for you to pick up right now."

His heart beats as if it's attempting to shatter his ribcage. Thudding as Loki remains lifeless, as no voice crackles through his helmet.

He's alone, out of time and beyond space.

Loki isn't breathing.

Then he jerks. He gasps, inhaling in one long choke for air. Mobius' heart stutters back into the race, but this time fast with relief, not horror. At the same time, the comms system buzzes into life, a faint clamour that has never been more welcome. Lightheaded with the alleviation, he barely sees through the overwhelming wash of grey. "What the hell. I'm going to kill all of you. Violently."

"Sorry!" O.B. sounds frantic. "He knocked out the main power somehow, and the backup grid took forever to reboot. All systems looking okay, though we're running on emergency power."

Loki is fairly gagging on the air in his haste to breathe. All pretence of concealment cracks in the face of hurt.

"The second you recover from this," Mobius mumbles, watching him cycle through a series of sharp gasps. "I genuinely might murder you."

He doesn't respond, not immediately, as he works to gather himself back together, whole body seizing in its confines. "I –"

"Don't talk," Mobius says, though this time it's gentle, all traces of threat vanishing. "Just focus on not dying. That'd be real great."

"Before the power went down, we got a really strong signal boost," O.B. explains, words slow, clearly working it out as he goes. The faint tap of a monitor keyboard. "Yeah. I think he might've split himself from his body and then got trapped here until the backup kicked in."

"Uh-huh?" Mobius mumbles, "Well, he died on my end. So maybe we scratch this idea off the list."

"Oh dear. Yes, let's do that."

Mobius waits helplessly as Loki fights through, a barely audible apology falling from his lips.

"No, don't say sorry. You did great. 'S not your fault it went like that."

A ragged cough. "I – I almost didn't… didn't make it back."

"But I told you that you would," Mobius supplies, "and you did. That's more than enough for me."

The barest hint of a smile. It quickly dissolves back into residual discomfort, inhales still running a mile a minute.

"If we're rounding up, I'll recall you, Mobius."

"Wait." Mobius looks at Loki, who looks back. "You want me to stay here for a bit?"

A pause. The hesitation says everything, but the minute nod confirms it. "Yeah. If you –"

"I want to," he replies, firm.

That settles it.


In the end, it's Casey who makes the mistake really.

Just Mobius who makes it a hundred times worse.

Two file submissions away from clocking in and about ready to crash from the host of planning he's got going for the next couple of break-out attempts, Mobius finds a new folder deposited neatly at the end of his desk. He looks up.

"Power source," Casey says, "This is the write up for the main idea but... I really don't think the Council will want to approve it."

Mobius nods for him to slide it closer, opening it and flicking through the overview.

Casey continues. "I had a quick look and it just... seems too much effort for what it is. Given we've got some other sources that might work."

"Yeah, but did you actually speak to the guys working on them? They've got zero faith they'll actually find something as good as this. The best thing they got runs at like thirty percent of Loki's power output."

A half-nod, face a mix of agreement and opposition. "Yeah, I guess so. That's still pretty good though, for early stages."

"We don't have time for prototypes," Mobius shoots back, "The second Loki gets out we'll need to implement something within two cycles, or the residuals will die off. The source guys aren't ready for that."

Casey takes a sip of his coffee. "Yeah, that's fair. Hope you can get the Council to agree though."

He wanders off, likely to either turn in for the cycle or to go pester O.B. about another idea. Mobius would bet all his money on the latter.

He settles back into his chair, folding one leg over the other as he turns through the laminated pages contained within the folder.

Casey was right. This looks, at least theoretically, to be far too much mission input for a very unlikely output – at least five hunter squadrons advised, given last time's success of an excursion. Added to that, the chance of acquiring the source looks to be too slim for how much planning they'd need to do – for how much risk to life.

Even knowing this is their one viable option, potentially to save the universe, Mobius can tell this will not fly. Not if the higher-ups get their hands on it.

He thinks for a while. And then he gets up. And, instead of heading back to his quarters, or down to the R&A to see if Loki is suitably recovered to pop in, he heads to the drop room.

Some good, old-fashioned, solo investigative work it may have to be. If investigatory work can be defined as tentative plans to go onto the timeline alone, with zero backup, to ascertain how difficult it would be to simply grab the power source and Time-Door out of there, sharp.

Maybe not a smart idea, but he used to be an active field hunter, and he's been far more principal in excursion organisation recently, so in his head it seems reasonable.

Ish.

Besides, a one man mission is low input for high output, if it works. And if it fails, it's low input for low output, which is no more than a momentary blip on the system. So that's all fine.

Okay. He's perhaps stretching on the justification front.

But he goes through with it even so.

He fumbles with cold fingers to shut the Time Door behind him after he drops into the branch, his exhales forming a thin mist in the air, clouding his vision. He shifts the pruning stick to his other hand. The door vanishes with a fizzle, leaving him alone on the timeline. Nobody in his ear. Just him.

Ahead, over a tumbling stretch of unkempt lawn, white with frost, sits the run-down husk of a Stark facility – several centuries since any Stark existed on this timeline. But imprinted, shadows on the ice, footsteps lead towards the entranceway.

The Richards variant. The one who has – purely accidentally – created the one thing that might be able to power the universe.

Mobius considers his options. In the end, he elects for speed over subtlety. Reconnaissance so easily becomes action. He has a semi-formed plan, after all.

Get in. Distract. Grab the source. Get out. Quickly.

Avoid the variant. Because that's a fight he cannot win.

Mind made up, he hoists himself over the bank. He makes for the door, deciding secrecy isn't an issue given a distinct lack of defensive technology visible on the building. Whatever hidden cameras Stark originally had positioned on the outer walls, they're long gone.

An entrance. A wide, open atrium. A maze of corridors.

Mobius pauses to check the notes he hastily tapped into his TemPad. Lab 3A. That's where the variant has been hiding, wanted by the authorities on this Earth as much as the variant taggers back at the TVA.

He finds a handily placed map, worn with age, at a second reception on the third floor. Locates the lab. Heads towards it

Now is where his breathing begins to shallow. Where he softens his footsteps. He activates the pruning stick, thankful it whirrs to life without much noise.

An undercurrent of clamour leaks from the slit of the open door ahead. General sounds – a man living in a space. Mobius is pretty sure that's a kettle boiling, the creak and rustle of fabric as the variant sits on a chair.

It seems so contrary to the previous Richards variant. More like Timely, deposited safely back on his home world. Strange, and genius, but not evil.

Then again, Mobius has read his file. He knows exactly why this variant is so hunted – how he got his fingers on a collection of infinity stones that no man should have. A decidedly vicious version of an already vicious man. Known just as much for violence as for invention.

He approaches, slipping his TemPad back out from his pocket. He flips it open, pausing to the side of the door.

There are two exits to the lab. This door, and the stairs to the conjoined lower level, off and away back to the main foyer. Mobius – never one to go in without a semblance of a plan – knows this, and was very careful to note down certain coordinates before he arrived. Now, positioned in reality, he considers the likelihood that his planned distraction will draw the variant through this door, rather than the lower way out. Which would be bad.

Movement from within the room. This decides it, and Mobius loads up the pre-written command he wrote before he dropped-in. He runs it.

A loud crash from the front of the building. The soundwave sends quakes through the floor, the whole frame of the structure shuddering. Dust rains from the walls, a cloud forming in the air. He holds in the cough threatening to give him away. He clamps a hand over his mouth, then tugs the neck of his shirt up over his face in the hopes it will protect his lungs.

Turns out that dropping a pruned variation of the Statue of Liberty from the Void, onto a random lawn, causes a bit more of an earthquake than you'd think.

Once the world settles, there's no longer any ambient sound from within the lab. Mobius takes a tentative step towards the opening. But, through the sliver of light flooding from the crack, a human shadow is cast against the wall. Very still. Considerate.

Mobius freezes. Waiting.

Richards, evidently deciding that he should locate the source of the disturbance, moves, and the shadow vanishes. Mobius' prayers are answered, in that instead of moving towards the exit he's currently stood in front of, Richard's steps echo on the stairwell, heading to the distraction via the quickest route.

As he goes, he gives a command to lock the doors, the Stark building flaring into life to follow the order. Mobius darts forward and jams his foot in the door before it clicks shut. He slips through. It slams closed behind him and beeps, locking.

The lab, now empty of any life, looks more like a library than a lab, as though the metal walls have been converted into that of a cathedral, or a citadel, high-reaching bookshelves and dim, low lighting. Wooden surfaces populate the room, equipment scattered across the tables, a mass of tools and machinery with gleaming buttons.

Mobius moves lightly, picking his way through the workspaces. He reckons he's got about four minutes until Richards returns. Plenty of time.

"I know you're probably watching this, Loki," he murmurs as he goes, scanning for the power source as it was depicted in the folder, "and wondering what the heck I'm doing."

No reply, obviously, because Loki can't interfere without bringing about the destruction of the entire branch. But it's still strange, the one-sided conversation. "Uh – maybe don't tell anyone back at R&A about this, 'cause you'll get me into trouble, but just... keep an eye out for me."

As he searches, he curses this Richards variant in particular, because he seems to be even more messy than the rest. It's near impossible to locate the source.

But when he sees it, he knows he's found it. "Oh. Yeah, you look like a power source."

In reality, it looks like a lump of metal, suspended on wires between two iron clamp stands. But it's bright, a spattering of shades from red to purple, glowing with an unearthly intensity. Where the infinity stones have always been separate, or almost always, this is a gradient of a rainbow, contained in a semi-spherical mass, like melted rock.

Mobius doesn't waste time admiring it. He steps closer, bringing his TemPad back out. He locks on to the coordinates of the source. Links it back to the TVA secure lockup. Presses confirm.

A cuboid Time Door forms around it. An outline first, it connects and then activates fully, swallowing it whole. When the door vanishes, the source has vanished with it, now safely tucked away in acquisitions at the TVA.

Success. Easier than expected.

Mobius doesn't waste time on celebration. He opens the door for his return.

Three steps to reach it.

He only manages one before he's hit with the realisation he's not alone in the room.

Oh no.

A surge of heat rushes over his head as he throws himself to the ground. The Time Door closes, the automatic defence system detecting a threat to the mechanism. He curses, fighting to rerun the open command from the floor.

Too slow. The Richards variant, spurred on by a visible intruder, reaches him within half a second. Mobius rolls out of the way, just as a second blast hits where his head had been. He thrusts the pruning stick outwards. He gets a hiss and a dodge, before he has to wrench his arm backwards to avoid the third wave of energy, emanating from a hand-held weapon.

Richards, deciding this isn't working in close combat, elects to swap to a more physical approach.

Given Mobius' long-time retirement from hunting, this does not work in his favour.

He cries out as a boot meets his hand, forcing him to release the TemPad. It skids along the floor, unharmed by the physical pressure.

Richards points the weapon at it. Fires.

The TemPad withstands the first shot – if Mobius makes it out of this alive, he'll have to send his congratulations to O.B.. At the second, it sparks, the screen dimming to black.

Shit.

"I will ask you simply," Richards says, waiting for Mobius to face him from his compromising position on the floor. "Where have you sent those stones?"

Clearly his expression gives away that there is no world in which that question gets an answer. Richards shrugs. He raises his weapon.

Mobius lifts his arms to shield from the blast. He mumbles something along the lines of, "Sorry," to the one person who might hear him.

Because he knows he's not about to die.

What's about to happen is much, much worse.

A flash of green, so radiant it looks colourless. Mobius flinches, hands darting to cover his eyes.

"I would very, very strongly advise that you reconsider your next action."

Loki.

Mobius opens his eyes, drawn to the figure who's joined them. Stood at the other end of the room, cast in viridescence, he looks almost biblical against the backdrop of shelving – an omnipresent god forming at the altar of a church. A luminous indifference sits upon his face, betrayed only by the quick glance he throws over Mobius, ascertaining his being.

It makes his heart stutter.

It's terrifying.

Richards does not waste time in complying – spurred on by the practically cosmic presence watching his movements – and though he does not show signs of fear, he does not attempt to disobey. He lowers the weapon.

"If you could move away from the man on the floor," Loki presses, and though the words are phrased in that polite, delicate way of his, they don't leave room for disagreement, "that would also be preferable."

Clearly Richards overlooks this, unable to see past the geniality to the pervading power underneath. "On what grounds?"

Loki's calm visage cracks, although not into fury, but into irritation. "Oh, for the love of –" He waves his hand.

Mobius watches as the universe seems to fold in on itself, the point at which Richards is standing twisting and merging.

When the process ends, there is no longer a Richards variant standing there.

"Loki," Mobius breathes, "where – where did you –"
"He was wasting time," Loki snaps, the dissimulation of holy apathy dissolving into very, very potent rage. He stalks towards Mobius, who attempts to clamber to his feet.

"Did you kill him?"

"He will have died momentarily whether I did or not," he snarls. He strides past him, scanning the ground. "Your TemPad, where is it?"

Mobius nods towards where it's half-hidden under a desk. Loki crouches, scanning the wrecked mechanism. "Norns, Mobius, this isn't fixable."

"You can't fix it?"
"I can't touch it, let alone fix it!"

"Can't you do that… foldy space thing, whatever that was?"
"On this scale? I'm not a medical surgeon, I don't have that much precision."

This is beginning to look more than mildly hopeless.

Loki straightens. "Please tell me that somebody knows you're here. Anybody."

Mobius shakes his head.

"Oh, you fool," he says, and promptly vanishes. The green glow dims to nothing.

Replacing it, a distinct white light builds in the furthest corners of the room. The corners of reality shriveling into nothing, born of Loki's intervention. The power that saved him is the power about to kill him.

Loki reappears, this time looking far less angry and far more distraught. "Nobody is within hearing range of the Observation Room. I can't get their attention."

Mobius inhales. "Okay."

"Not okay," he returns, eyes wide. His gaze flickers to the encroaching void, and Mobius wonders how frightening this must be from his point of view, to be cut off in such a way. "I can't – I expended too much power. I can't hold it off. I can't – I can't think of any way to get you out –"

"That's okay," Mobius soothes, even as his body begins its protest against death, heart racing.

"No it isn't," Loki enthuses, whole body trembling with an intensity he's never seen before. "I will not have you attempt to placate me through this again."

It hits him then.

This is not the first time Mobius has died in front of him.

It's probably not even the thousandth.

But this time it's real.

And Loki looks petrified.

"It is okay. You'll be fine."

"No." Loki shakes his head. "No."

"Sure you will. You'll have everyone else. They'll figure it out."

"And then what?" he asks, tone anguished. "I don't – I don't want an afterwards without – without –"

Mobius smiles. A prickling of radiation heat builds in the base of his skull. Not much longer. "Maybe you don't, but you can work that out when you get there. I haven't loved you this long for you to tell me you're not going to keep living at the end of it all."

Loki seems to stop breathing. And, as the warmth surges, Mobius thinks this is not such a bad moment to end with.

Something in his pocket beeps, shrill.

The floor vanishes. He falls through, leaving the branch and the void with it.

His head hits something hard and the scene winks out into black.


A/N: Feel free to review if you enjoyed! :D