Chapter Text
People claim drowning is a peaceful death.
Loki disagreed. He was drowning. And it was horrible.
“Who are you?”
The words echoed endlessly in Loki’s ears as he stared at the statue of Kang. Everything felt unreal and remote as if he were underwater. His lungs burned and pain bloomed, the moment he discovered he was a frost giant was the only thing that compared.
Loki couldn’t breathe. He was alone in a way a thousand languages couldn’t begin to describe. Except he wasn’t alone and he had seconds to think of something before he was taken away.
Analyst. Mobius thought he was an analyst. It was too late to convince him he was a TVA employee, but maybe he could hide among the analysts long enough to get his bearings.
Hopefully this TVA had a similar layout, Loki thought as he drew on his powers. They hadn’t worked in the TVA previously, but he hoped the timeline fracture had changed that. Loki couldn’t fully access them, but he could feel just a hint, possibly it was enough to disappear?
He disappeared, then reappeared. Loki grabbed onto a desk chair unsteadily as he looked around. No one else was in the office.
“Lunch,” he sighed with relief. This was even better than blending in.
Loki began to pace around the room and muttered to himself. “Get out, try to make Mobius remember… wait. Is Mobius, Mobius? The timeline split. If there were Loki variants with one timeline, it would stand to reason there could be Mobius variants spread over multiple…”
He sank down on the edge of a desk. It was madness, all of it. But he was a survivor. And he would find a way to survive this. Loki’s fingers brushed something and he looked down. A TemPad. He could travel throughout this timeline, but it would do him little good. Loki needed someone who understood.
“Mobius. I need to find my Mobius… okay, that sounds absurd. I need the Mobius from my timeline. Maybe they track them?”
Loki stood up and moved around the edge of the desk to the computer. He glared at it and a search menu came up as he willed it to do so. Then he typed in Mobius. Thousands of names came up.
“How in the nine realms do I find the right one?” Loki grabbed the TemPad and glowered at it. “And how do I get there? There’s magic, of course.”
Magic could help with finding his Mobius.
However, crossing timelines? That was a tall order, even for him.
“Wish I had the Tesseract right about now,” he said grimly.
Of course, the Tesseract was no more. Sacrificed to extract the Space Infinity Stone. An entire universe destroyed by stones they had in piles at the TVA.
“Beyond depressing.”
All that power, lying about, doing nothing!
They were useless in the TVA or at least they had been before the timeline fracture.
A moment later, Loki brightened.
“Portals exist outside the TVA, they’re a hole in time and space itself. Could it work?”
He yanked open the desk drawer and saw the pile of Infinity Stones carelessly dumped by one of the analysts. Fingering through, he pulled out several blue Space Stones and green Time Stones.
Loki closed his eyes and concentrated his powers. The stones glowed, floated to the sides of the TemPad, and then pressed into it.
***
Mobius walked out of Ravonna’s office with a forced smile on his face. She had talked to him about the search for Loki. It was nearly word for word the conversation he’d had with her before he’d met the Loki who became his friend and partnered with him before the change. He’d still had his illusions about the TVA and Ravonna had been a friend at the time. But Mobius knew better now.
The question at hand was what to do about it? For now, he was playing the loyal TVA agent he’d always believed himself to be. Mobius needed to get the lay of the land and come up with a plan. Loki would be captured in a couple of days.
Would he be the Loki he knew?
Ravonna had been obsessed with obliterating Loki variants. Perhaps it was Sylvie and her failure when the young female Loki escaped. But was there something more? The TVA was about order and Lokis proclaimed themselves gods of mischief. Could Loki’s penchant for chaos be the key to bringing down the TVA?
Mobius approached his office and dropped the fake smile as he turned the knob. Pretending was exhausting, but there was too much at stake not to give it his all. In this timeline, he had a private office, at least, to retreat to.
He wasn’t sure what the right thing to do was, but his best hope was to find Loki, his Loki. For all the demigod’s flaws, he had been a friend of sorts and there had to be a reason the TVA was focused on eliminating Lokis.
“You just might have glorious purpose after all, my friend,” Mobius said as he entered his office.
“Thank you. I always rather thought I did.”
Mobius looked up and stared.
Loki was draped in his chair. Wearing an analyst’s uniform that had seen better days, but with the hint of arrogance that accompanied all but his most vulnerable moments. It was his friend! Or was it?
He froze in place, awash with a torrent of uncertainty. “Loki?”
Mobius was still trying to process his identity when Loki stood up suddenly and closed the distance between them. Long fingers grasped Mobius’ upper arms and squeezed.
“You’re going to wrinkle my suit,” he said automatically, regretting the words as they left his mouth. The touch was the first thing that felt real since the timeline fractured.
“That’s my Mobius,” Loki laughed and pulled him into a hug.
My Mobius? The words echoed in his head and a feeling of warmth suffused his body. Soft cologne mingled with Loki’s natural scent and surrounded him comfortingly. Had he ever noticed how tall the demigod was before?
A small wisp of desire unfurled in the pit of his stomach and panic washed over him. This might be the Loki he knew and was friends with. And he was the most handsome of the Lokis in Mobius’ opinion. But having dealt with countless Lokis, he was wary to say the least.
He was about to pull away, but Loki beat him to it.
“Sylvie killed Kang,” Loki said. “He Who Remains. The one at the end of the time loop. At least I’m assuming. We confronted him, she shoved me through a time portal and the TVA had changed.”
“Is she… er… gone?”
“No idea.”
“I’m sorry, I got the impression you liked her.”
Loki looked uneasy, then shrugged. “She embodied some of my better qualities and understood me. I haven’t had much understanding from others. Sylvie is a Loki and therefore a survivor, doubtless, she’s somewhere. But if we’re going to fix this, I think we’re better off without her for now. Too impulsive.”
“Impulsive, right.” Mobius suppressed a grin. Hearing Loki criticize another variant for impulsivity was something he’d never imagined. However, he’d never imagined a Loki like his. The urge to smile fell as he realized he’d thought of him as his Loki. He’d often thought of the demigod as his friend, Loki. It must have been Loki referring to him as his Mobius. A linguistic mindworm, not a shift in their relationship, he was overwrought and overthinking things, Mobius decided.
“So what do we do to fix this? Do we destroy and bring down the TVA? Restore the TVA? What’s the plan?”
“I don’t know,” Mobius replied.
“Don’t know? What do you mean, you don’t know?”
“I wish we had time to figure it out. I’m under close watch and you’ve seen what this timeline does to Lokis.”
“Can’t we just go somewhere or some time with a TemPad?” Loki asked and pointed to the Infinity Stone enhanced TemPad on the desk. “Sylvie did it.”
“Hiding in apocalypses like Sylvie isn’t conducive to thinking.”
“So let’s hide somewhere else.”
Mobius moved to his desk and took a seat. “Anytime more than one Loki variant is in the same spot, alarms go off for the analysts. Too much chaotic energy in one location.”
“God of Chaos goes with the territory,” Loki said with a shrug. He picked up the TemPad and sat on the edge of the desk.
“Intimately acquainted with your chaos.”
Loki gave him a lascivious smile. “Did one of the other Lokis get inside Mobius M. Mobius’ starched TVA issue boxers?”
“No! Why… that’s …” Mobius spluttered and turned red.
“Just teasing. Relax. And I wouldn’t blame you, we are a handsome lot.”
Mobius grabbed the TemPad and grumbled, “Keep it up and I’m going to a place where there aren’t any Lokis.”
“Sounds dreadfully boring,” Loki said and snatched the TemPad away.
“Sounds incredibly peaceful.”
Loki ran a finger over the Infinity Stones along the side of the TemPad. His expression changed suddenly and he leapt to his feet.
“Mobius! A place without a Loki! That’s it!”
“Loki what—”
“That’s where we can find time! There have to be a few timelines without any Lokis. Aren’t there?”
“Yeah, I suppose.”
“The TVA will look for timelines with multiple Loki variants first—”
“They won’t think to look at timelines with no Lokis!” Mobius interjected and jumped up. “Loki, that’s…”
Mobius stopped, he was face to face with Loki. He swallowed nervously.
“It’s perfect, Mobius! Let’s fire the TemPad up and get out of here.”
It was hard to think. Why was he so aware of Loki’s proximity? This wasn’t the time for distraction. Think, Mobius , he ordered himself and closed his eyes.
“No, we would have to search on the computer and it would leave a trail,” Mobius said. He opened his eyes and took a step back. “And they could get a fix on the TemPad and find us if they know which timeline to look in.”
Loki’s expression became remote. “Strange.”
“Not really, it makes sense.”
“I meant… oh never mind. I have an idea, but you’re going to need to trust me.”
“Trust you? Like that’s easy,” Mobius replied in a sarcastic tone. “Anything else, Lord Loki?”
“As a matter of fact, yes. Infinity Stones. We need to gather as many of the Space and Time Stones as we can find and carry. The blue and green ones.”
“And what are we going to be doing with them?”
“Bribing a wizard.”
“Bribing a wizard,” Mobius repeated. “Why not? Stay here, I know a few places I can grab them. It won’t help anything if you get caught.”
Mobius left Loki in his office. He didn’t know what the demigod had in mind and he doubted he’d like it. However, it was probably their best chance.