Chapter 8
It was a good thing Sif hadn’t eaten all of her fries, or Thor would’ve been too starved to follow all the brainstorming.
“Now, let’s give him the benefit of the doubt and blame everything on unknown cosmic laws for now.” Mobius moved a post-it note from one side of the whiteboard to the other. “That means we’ve got to look for patterns in this mess. And that means we have to gather more information on the separate anomalies. Any ideas, anyone?”
Thor had lost track of all those notes that kept being moved around that board. Why keep moving them? Was there supposed to be a visual pattern? Anyway, he did have an idea. The handy things of these anomalies, they all happened around Loki before the battle of New York. Well, guess where Loki lived during that time? Also, guess for whom it would make perfect sense to also be there. “For any anomalies taking place in Asgard, Sif and I can investigate them. No one will question our presence.”
The only sound was Sylvie slurping her drink. It might be his imagination, but it seemed like she was doing it extra loudly on purpose. Everyone else was just looking left, right, or down, or any sequence of those. Even Sif stared at him from the corner of her eye, knuckle of her hand pressed against her mouth. If there was ever a tell-tale sign.
Thor looked straight at her. “What am I missing?”
“Well…”
Sylvie interrupted by banging her boots on a desk and leaning back. “Like, didn’t we already do that? Like, your girlfriend over there, I mean.”
Sif folded her other hand over the one already in front of her mouth. It didn’t hide her cheeks turning red. “We did....already do that.”
She really was a horrible liar, but she had tried this time and pulled it off too, even if only for a short time. “Thanks for telling me.”
She dropped her hands. “It didn’t come up.”
“No? You didn’t think I could maybe help with that?”
“It was a single mission.” She tilted her head. “And I don’t make the plans here, I only followed instructions. But you can certainly take on the next one.”
“No?” Sylvie snickered. “That was the point?”
Thor turned to her. “Would you mind explaining that?”
The corner of her mouth twitched upwards in a way very reminiscent of Loki. “She went in your place, because no one here trusts you to not screw it up, compulsively or impulsively. I can’t remember which of those two it was.”
Based on what? Based on her apparent drive to bully him? “Yeah, real nice of you. And you exaggerate.” He looked to Sif to back him up. She was conveniently looking the other way.
“Alright, let’s take a break,” Mobius said. He immediately proceeded to hassle Thor all the way out of the office and into an empty corridor. There, stopped and planted his hands on his hips. “About what Sylvie was saying.”
He shrugged. “I do not know what I did to spite her.”
“Don’t take that personally, it’s not. But I wanted to talk to you about the concept of timelines.”
“Many people have, many times.”
“It’s a big concept,” Mobius said. A twinge of melancholy entered his expression. “But it is important to realize this. A timeline cannot alter itself. If you go back and change something, you create a new timeline that you’re not part of.”
“That came up before, I think.”
“Which means, whatever you do, nothing will prevent what already happened. Nothing anyone can do will prevent Thanos from killing the Loki from your reality. I should’ve been clearer that, even if we succeed, that Loki will remain dead.” Mobius looked as if he was waiting for a bomb to blow.
“You’ve been more than clear about that.” Cruel as it was, that death was true and final. The Loki he’d witnessed dying, he could not save. But there was some version of the brother he grew up with- even if from a path that had diverged long ago-who needed rescue. If not from the tree, then from himself. With how complicated the world had become in the past days, philosophical pondering on identity and what not in the context of alternate realities would only serve to drive oneself insane.
“What I mean to say is, if at any point, you go out there you cannot, for example, walk up to a past version of him and warn him about Thanos or tell him not to drop off the rainbow bridge. Besides that it changes nothing for you, we cannot go around forcing new realities into existence. From what I gathered, they’re still not sure what that will do and I don’t really feel the need to find out.”
Not dropping off the rainbow bridge would be common sense, one would think. Then again, Loki evidently had some trick up his sleeve when he'd done just that, given that he’d lived to tell the tale. “Understood.”
“Which also means, if you see him in danger from anything other than a Kang variant, you cannot intervene.” He paused. “O.B. is still working out the bugs, but apparently it’s possible to end up on the wrong side of a nexus event. Inside a parallel reality.”
“Also understood.”
“Let’s say, a parallel reality in which he dies. There are realities like that, for everyone.” Mobius made some emphasizing gestures. “For example, a reality in which some arrow does hit him during a battle, or he slips and falls off a mountain. You gotta let that happen. Can you do that?”
“Could you?” Thor responded and studied Mobius’ silent reaction. Confusion, as if he’d been asked in all seriousness if one plus one made two. In short, yes, he would do just that. “And here I was, thinking you loved him.”
“I do, but I also understand that’s just how the multiverse works.” Mobius did a double-take before shaking his head and briskly walking away. “Bloody Asgardians, every time.”
Thor almost felt bad. He’d really thought the poor man had already realized.
Sif was, as the Midgardians said, left hanging when almost everyone else dispersed out of the office. What was she supposed to do now? Sit there and wait for something to happen?
Sylvie was even less companiable than usual. Her boots had not come off Mobius’ desk and her eyes were closed and her arms folded. As if sensing she was being watched, she opened one eye halfway. “I’m never going to let you keep a secret for me. You suck at it.”
“Don’t worry. I won’t.”
“Oh.” She opened her other eye too. “I can appreciate an attitude.”
“I don’t appreciate yours.”
She tilted her head. “Careful, I’m almost starting to like you.”
“I’ll certainly take care.” Sif accidentally turned her chair from left to right. What possessed the Midgardians to not only put wheels underneath their chairs, but also make them swivel. “But if you care to answer, why are you here?”
“I didn’t want to wander around and risk getting stuck in pie land again. Hope you don’t mind the company. If not, go find pie land yourself.”
“Not what I meant.” Although, the answer was quite obvious already. The question that really mattered was scribbled all over that magnetic slab on wheels. Again, wheels. Underneath everything. There were several tables on wheels in this space alone. There was even a cabinet on wheels. “But forget that, what does Loki have to gain from hiding himself?”
“Didn’t you hear all that about cosmic laws just now?”
“Do you believe that?”
“I barely understood it, to be honest.” She opened the last paper bag left in the office and pulled out a cup with a logo of a woman wearing a crown. “Why do you keep asking that question? Every single thing he does, what does he have to gain from it?”
“Because I’ve known him for a long time and there’s always another motive, and those motives stopped being benign a while back. So yes, I have my doubts.”
She slurped on the drink. “And you’re asking me this out of all people, because I’m technically him, right?”
“I suppose so.”
“Then what would I gain from answering you?” With the straw still between her lips, her mouth turned into an approximation of the yellow smile on that foodbox. Her smile swiftly turned into a frown of realization. She pulled open a drawer, rummaged through the files inside, and put one on the desk. Having regained her smile, she opened it. “It’s kind of unfair, you know. You know so much about me, but I know practically nothing about you. Let’s fix that.”
“What is that?”
“You see, Mobius is an analyst. He analyzes people and he would do his due diligence researching the people he brought here. I think he read your file retroactively, since he didn’t plan on bringing you, but hey, improv. Fyi, it’s not a coincidence he plucked you out the big ol’ 616. They’ve got that mapped out like crazy. But I’m yapping, let’s get to it.” She rested her chin on her folded hands. “Sif Tyrsdottir. Tyr? The god of the battlefield? That general?”
Fucking hell. “What of it?”
“Nothing much. Met him once. Not impressed, to be honest.” That was the first time someone said that to her. “And you are the goddess of… war? Ah, daddy’s girl, much.”
Sif got up and went to take that file from her hands.
Sylvie turned her chair to block Sif’s approach with the backrest. “Damn, youngest of six siblings. No wonder you’re so angry all the time.”
Sif snatched it out of her hands all the same and looked it over. Only basic information easily found in Asgard’s civil registry.
Sylvie peered into the drawer. “But like, wasn’t that guy a hardcore traditionalist? Wouldn’t think he’d hand you a sword.”
“Everyone should be able to defend themselves.” Imagine his surprise when she actually decided to put that skill to use.
“Fair enough.” In one smooth movement, she fished out a binder the height of a hand. “Here’s the real thing, by the way. Everything that ever happened to you, right here. Hey, this has a bookmark. That’s new. Now I wanna see.”
They had a bookwork of her whole life? First of all, what was the meaning of that? Secondly, that was none of Sylvie’s business. “Give that here.”
Sylvie kicked her chair away from the desk and read calmly as she rolled through the office. She whistled. “Well, that’s not really a prank, is it? Some nutshots are deserved. How did he even-” She flipped a page. Her jaw dropped and her eyebrows shot up. She sipped her drink and grew a triumphant grin. “Well damn. Did not see that coming.”
Her mind wandered to a certain series of events, but what were the chances she’d landed there. Or actually, why would that be bookmarked? “I’m serious, give that to me.”
“That would’ve been a dick move on its own, but this is just straight-up shitty. Is that what you meant with ulterior motives?” She actually snapped the binder shut. “If I’m getting this right, he slept with you so he could cut off your hair? No wonder you hate his guts.”
Then there was also the part he tried to kill them all on Midgard. “That’s hardly the worst thing he’s-.”
“Oh no, sleeping with someone as a prank is about as bad as it gets, short of killing or maiming them.” She paused. “That’s not what happened to your arm, right?”
“Last warning. Give that to me.”
“I’m shaking in my boots. But here, I’ve seen enough.” She deposited it on the desk she happened to end up next to. “I would not blame you if you burned this. And awkward question maybe, but does Thor know?”
“I do not see how that concerns him.”
“Guess not. Now actually, I have to put that back in this drawer. The people here are crazy organized.” She quickly snatched back the binder. “Actually, if you ask one more time what me, Loki, any version of us has to gain from something, I’m going to show this to everyone. So let’s leave that bookmark in. It would take me so much time to have to go through everything to find the right thingy and do I want to know what else imma find there?”
“It’s true that part of the reason I am here is because I distrust him. I have not denied that. He currently holds power of unknown nature and we don’t know his intentions.”
“Yes, we do.”
“I do not dare ask,” Sif countered. “But I do not even need ask why you are here. It’s plain to see. You think that is what he does not want and you’re angry with him. But I suppose I should not ask if I am right.”
“For everyone.” She pulled the lid off the cup and reached in. She retrieved an ice cube and threw it into her mouth, chewing it like it was a grape. Demolishing it with nothing but her teeth. “For everyone, except himself.”
She must be more in touch with her frost giant side than Loki was. “Sorry, what?”
“Well, screw you.” She jumped off her chair and hurried to the door. On her way out, she added, “Metaphorically.”
“Call me changeable,” Sylvie said as she met him in the middle of the many hallways of the TVA. “But I changed my mind.”
“You want out of the mission?” Mobius asked. There was only so long you could expect someone to stay around the ghost of their long-dead brother. “I understand. It has to be hard to keep seeing him.”
“No, I want us to stop the mission,” she said. “We shouldn’t be doing this.”
“You’re changeable.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “What changed?”
“I wasn’t thinking right because I was angry, but this is wrong,” he said. “If he isn’t coming back, he has a reason.”
“Well, either he can’t and we have to help him, or he can but won’t and then I’d like an explanation.”
“It’s the same. It’s the same reason as before.”
“You mean the one you won’t explain?”
“You know him, and understand him. You already know the answer. But you...” She smiled faintly at the ground and shook her head. “Be honest. Why is it you’re not going to stop?”
Because it was Loki. Because he wasn’t about to let him rot away somewhere beyond time. “He did this for us. We owe him that much.”
Sylvie seemed discontent with the answer. “He did this for us, yes, and that’s why we have to stop. But I know you won’t.”
“That’s right. I won’t,” he replied. “But Sylvie, no one will blame you if you don't want to see him. Just say the word and I’ll make sure you won’t have to be in the same room.”
“Don’t change the subject, you arse.” She pushed past him and walked away. She must’ve been all the way to the end of the corridor when she said, “Oh by the way, Mobius, he would do the same for you. Maybe for the same reason, even.”