“How long would it take?”
”Centuries.”
He was a God and a fast learner, but still it would take him centuries to learn everything he needed in physics, mechanics and engineering. Centuries that, in the eyes of everyone else, would have passed as quickly as a snap of the fingers, but not for him. Loki really had to go back in time centuries and centuries, just to understand how to save everyone, through a matter very distant and different from his magic: physics. Every single student would have trembled at the thought, but it was the only option for that Multiplier to work well. He was slightly terrified by the answer, the word "centuries" really included a lot; despite this, repeating in his mind that he was indeed a fast learner, he ventured back in time, going directly to those who had given birth to physics.
He started from the beginning: Galileo Galilei, Pascal, Newton, Schrödinger, Einstein and Feynman, but without forgetting others of lesser fame. He suddenly fell into the lives of these scientists, seized by the desire to know, and had them tell him everything they knew, from A to Z, channeling as many notions as possible directly into his mind. It was incredible how easily humanity could complicate life with a series of numbers and mathematical formulas. At the same time, though, it's fascinating how they wanted to understand the world around them. If he had told them that some things only happened because a God like him snapped his fingers, it would probably have traumatized them all, but it would have been fun to see.
Making a final timeslip into the modern era, he arrived on May 3, 2012, in the center of New York City, at the foot of a gigantic and ultra-modern tower, which seemed to cut the blue of the sky. At the top, the word STARK was beautifully constructed, revealing a vague self-centeredness. Loki knew well that Mr. Stark was not there that day; he was sure they were together on the Helicarrier, the day of his capture, the first of many. The reason he wanted to see Tony Stark was simple: after having studied mechanics and physics, he now needed to understand more about modern engineering, which humans apparently used to solve problems much, much bigger than themselves; even winning entire wars against alien armies, if his memory served him correctly. He almost shivered as he remembered that, after all, this was nothing other than his original timeline. He was the Loki who ran away with the Tesseract after the events in New York, sometimes he almost struggled to remember it.
Luckily for him, he had met Mobius; the man who had believed in him, so much that he changed his life. He wanted to return the favor and save him back, so they could stay together. Honestly, he couldn't wait to return to him and take him in an endless embrace, perhaps to the tune of a ballad, letting that hero's task, which he had been carrying with him for quite a while, fall from his shoulders. The more he thought about his beloved, the more desperate Loki became, but if he really wanted to save everyone, he had to squeeze every drop of humanity's best geniuses. Tony Stark couldn't be left out.
When he appeared on the Helicarrier, Loki found himself in a conference room directly in front of Tony, who was fiddling in front of a blue, transparent screen suspended in the air. He was alone, and the air in the room was heavy, full of tension, as if the entire group of future Avengers had just argued and he was left brooding over something. This was the only time Loki could even hope to receive help from that man: it was before he threw him from the top of his tower, and even before he formed any form of bond with the rest of the team. Stark was still hesitant of their purpose, doubtful of all of them, as if they just wanted to take advantage of him. Furthermore, it must be said that no one seemed to tolerate him, perhaps due to his incessant sarcasm.
Stark immediately took notice of the new arrival, and before Loki could speak, he was struck by the fact that he was facing the God they had incarcerated himself that morning. The two of them pointed fingers at each other, as if a warning not to move, and slowly circled each other. To prevent anyone from disturbing their meeting, Loki stopped their time with a snap of his fingers, earning a couple of questioning glances from the other. He didn't mean to sound threatening, but he had to talk to him; everything else would have been superfluous.
“You..?”, Tony asked, frowning. Slowly, he moved his finger towards the table and pointed to a small screen, where a security camera showed a holding cell. Loki didn't want to look, he knew full well what he was pointing at, and he closed his eyes at the thought; he didn't have time to think about it, to see himself in those clothes and to metabolize his entire life again. He had to save his friends, so that he could find his place next to them again. He had fought to get them back, now he wouldn't abandon them for any reason. Tony, on the other hand, quickly realized that he was somehow trapped in time; rich as he was, he had never seen such a thing - although he was more intent on understanding whether what was in front of him was an illusion or another brother of Point Break. Who knows, maybe he also had a sister with black hair and green eyes, maybe it was Thor the one adopted into the family.
“I'm not him”, Loki said, his voice almost seeming to tremble. His breathing was rapid, partly from the running he was doing and partly from having to face his old self. Denying himself had hurt, at least in part, a small part of his pride, the one still anchored to his glorious purpose. It was true, however, that he didn't recognize that Loki, and that he had now seen plenty of versions of himself. He had a lot of emotions in turmoil, but this was not the time for sentimentality. Now he had to convince the man in front of him to give him a hand, so that he could solve that enormous problem that was about to endanger everyone's lives, Stark's included. He had already done it with O.B, and science enthusiasts all have a common goal: to talk about numbers and find a solution, even if the problem might have been completely imaginary. In a hasty manner, he began to explain to him the whole concept of timelines and the TVA, he spoke so fast that the other didn't even have time to intervene. On the other hand, Stark was really trapped, he might as well let that crazy Asgardian talk and avoid adding another kidnapping to his resume. After finishing the explanation, Loki spread all his notes on the table, pointing to the drawn prototype of the Multiplier.
“So, you're him from the future, or another timeline, whatever you call it,” Stark began, still pointing to the surveillance camera screen. Loki ran his fingers over his forehead, praying that the man had understood at least a fraction of what he had told him.
“And you need my help to create a Multiplier for a Temporal Loom that will otherwise kill us all?”, the other continued, adding a hint of sarcasm in his tone. The God brightened: ignoring the fact that he was treating it like a joke, Stark had actually hit the nail on the head.
"Exactly! The rings. The rings are too small”, Loki confirmed, showing him the drawing of the Loom on the page of the TVA Handbook. He had carried it with him the whole time, now he was totally inseparable from it. It reminded him of home, somehow, and was a comfort item to him in his sad moments. He had grown fond of it, but perhaps it would take him a while to admit it. Tony blinked at the sight of that book; he was still too young to know how many more bizarre things would happen to him in his life as an Avenger.
“And doesn't the fact that I know about TVA now make me a variant?” he asked, quickly making 2+2. Loki looked at him, and almost as if he wasn't expecting the question, it took him a while to answer.
“You already are, but you'd better keep this secret with you to the grave, if you don't want to start wars in the multiverse. You already have one to think about now,” he said, thinking it through sufficiently. He didn't feel like he had been threatening, but seeing Stark's mouth shut, maybe he had spoiled a few years of his life.
Oops. As if he hadn't done it on purpose.
It didn't take much for Tony to become passionate about that physics problem. He listened carefully to Loki's theories, admiring how much he knew, and wondered if he could have such a conversation with the incarcerated Loki. He would try later, just to play a little bit (needless to say, they ended up insulting each other). Getting back to the problem, the God's calculations all seemed pretty much correct, and he began assembling a prototype of the Multiplier on his blue touchscreen, waving his hands as if he was casting a spell. It gradually began to take shape; the round head and the screw body, just like the TVA one. Suddenly, with a hand on his chin, Stark stopped dead in his tracks, looking at that screen with intensity, as the blue light illuminated his face.
“It won't work,” he stated, trashing the draft he had made with a quick wave of his hand. Loki looked at him confused; he had studied centuries for that theory, he couldn't simply throw it away. Angry, he almost lost his temper at this behavior, but forced himself to take a deep breath. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see himself locked in the containment cell; he would have taken care of losing his temper with Stark.
“Could you kindly enlighten me about this?”, Loki asked, opening to the dialogue with body language. Arms open and head slightly tilted, he waited for explanations from the man, words that could convince him enough to change his entire theory.
“It's so trivial it's stupid, you just can't scale something by infinity, it would be like dividing by zero. The timelines, as you described them, are most likely expanding at an infinite speed, which means that even if you increase the Multiplier, it will never be enough,” Stark said, waving the copy of the TVA Handbook. He was a know-it-all, but he was right, of course he was right. Loki sat for a moment, running his hands through his hair. Even though he'd been studying for centuries, that was a rookie mistake, and maybe his idea of studying in a hurry hadn't been a flash of genius. Tony looked at him, noticing a significant amount of desperation on his face. He opened his mouth to continue speaking, but stopped when he saw the other man with teary eyes.
“I won't be able to save him”, he heard the God whisper, referring to a him. He looked desperate, almost like his heart was being cut into tiny pieces. The expression lost in the void, the shaking of the head in an increasingly disconsolate manner; oh, that was love. That person in front of him really was different from the one imprisoned downstairs, he was even in love with someone. Stark sneered slightly, dragging another draft onto his screen, and wondered if Thor knew anything. He had so many questions by now, it was really a shame he wouldn't be able to talk to any of them about it.
“However, we could just extend the Multiplier to infinity, to let it grow with the timelines. By doing so, you will not run the risk of overloading,” continued the man, glancing at the God, still sitting in the chair. He was leaning forward, looking at the blue screen, his eyes wide as he tried to understand what Stark was telling him.
“Are you listening to me, loverboy?”, Tony asked, still hearing no feedback. Not even those nicknames could drag Loki out of his trance-like state, maybe his sense of humor was failing. Sighing, Tony turned the screen to show him a geometric figure, vaguely reminiscent of the shape of infinity.
“This is the solution,” he concluded, pointing to it as a professor shows the blackboard to his students. When Loki realized what it was, he jumped up, stretching out his hands towards the hologram of that figure, as if wanting to take it between his fingers.
A Möbius strip.
A Möbius strip was nothing more than a non-orientable geometric figure, which someone could travel infinitely, without ever knowing which side they were on. The name of that band was so familiar; he missed him, he missed him so much, his heart almost burst in his chest at the mention of his name. However, he didn't understand how that geometric figure could help with their problem. Before he could ask anything, Stark raised a hand, speaking again.
“If we allowed an energy source to travel along this band infinitely, and placed it inside the Multiplier, it would expand infinitely. As said, it would grow with the timelines,” he explained, tapping a pen on the palm of his hand. He had arrived at the solution, but only one small detail was missing: the starting amount of energy. To that question, it was Loki who had the solution, running to take it from his notes. He waved it victoriously, finally emerging from his catatonic state.
“The same amount of energy that temporal radiation has, to begin with. After that we will put the ion decoupler in the primary compartment; it won't heat up because we'll have it interface with Timely's adaptive exponential computing system,” the God said in one breath, immediately regaining lucidity. He was back on track, after a moment of emotional decompensation. Stark snapped his fingers, happy that his physics buddy's nerdy side was back. It had been a strange experience to be trapped with an Asgardian God who needed a help with physics homework, but he had done just fine, and was still alive.
“Thank you for your help, I'm going to assemble everything,” Loki said hastily, gathering all his papers. He was ready to start again, now all he had to do was create a prototype from scratch. However, as he was about to leave as quickly as he had arrived, Stark stopped him, just long enough to ask him one last question.
“Don't you want to say hello to your brother, at least see him?”, he asked him, shrugging. It had caught him by surprise, stopping him in his tracks. Loki thought about it, after all Thor was on that Helicarrier, and they were all still stuck in time. He wouldn't have created any timeline if he had simply gone to see his brother's figure, completely immobilized.
“It's downstairs, near you- his cell,” Stark added, sitting back down at his station. He resumed doing the same thing he was doing when the God arrived, waving goodbye. He would take that secret to the grave, along with the TVA Handbook, which he had secretly placed in his pocket. He would have kept it as a souvenir of that meeting, but he would not have shown it to a living soul: he wanted no other wars to break out.
Loki went downstairs, slowly walking through the entrance. In front of him, the containment cell: in the center, was his old self. He stood with his hands behind his back, turning his back on his own brother, Thor. Loki didn't linger on himself, not even a glance, and with slow steps approached the blond, looking at him closely. A vague sadness could be read on Thor’s face as he looked towards the floor. He was affronted by his brother's fate, which he had consciously chosen, but nevertheless blinded by hatred and revenge. He would have liked to enter that cell, talk to him face to face, but he knew that old Loki would take the opportunity to escape. Thor just wanted his brother back; he didn't want to deal with the murderous madman behind that glass wall. All these emotions, the Loki of now was able to see them clearly in Thor’s eyes, regretting the time they had spent together, as brothers, on Asgard. He wanted to talk to him about so many things, but he couldn't allow himself to. The impulse to say hello was strong, but the fear of creating a temporal disaster was even stronger. He didn't want to endanger his brother any more than his old self would soon do. There was nothing he could do to stop it, all he could do was accept his fate, and try to save what could be saved. It was as if he and his brother were also forced to walk a Möbius strip, but never met again. Filled with sadness, Loki returned to TVA, leaving Thor, the old Loki, and Tony Stark behind.
A few seconds later, he found himself with the Multiplier in his hand, running through the corridors of TVA for the umpteenth time. Mobius ran after him, trying to hold him back and make him explain, but Loki had to hold on a little longer before giving in, he just had to make one last run.
“Trust me ”, he whispered, inches from his lover’s lips, as Timely prepared to approach the Temporal Loom. Contented by that closeness, even if minimal, Mobius let him go; he didn't want to be the one to not trust Loki, however there was really something wrong. The anxiety of seeing Timely advance, press the green button and go back invaded every single person present at that moment. No one wanted to see him torn to shreds, even though Loki had seen it several times before. However, after Loki’s efforts and centuries of studies, Timely succeeded, the launch of the Multiplier was a success and he even managed to come back, alive.
“It's working!”
He made it.
Everyone was telling this to Timely, but in reality, the one who made it was Loki. Certain of the stability of the values, the God walked away from the computer, clapping his hands victorious. He had succeeded, he had saved everyone, and now he could, finally, collapse without strength in the arms of his beloved. He didn't think much of anything, except that he really missed him. At his side, he rested his forehead on Mobius's shoulder, silently reaching for his hand. Their fingers intertwined secretly, almost shyly, behind their backs. A gesture that was worth more than a simple "I missed you".
“Are you behind all this?” Mobius said, placing his lips on his temple. The others were all distracted by the Temporal Loom, so he took the opportunity to ask him directly. On his shoulder, he felt Loki nod, preferring silence to words. From running around and talking about physics, perhaps his voice had also worn out.
“Thank you.”
Loki smiled at those words; Mobius was the first one he had made all that effort for, and it was nice to hear him say thank you, once he was sure they would all remain alive and well. Returning to Earth, Tony Stark never revealed anything to anyone about the TVA. As promised about ten years earlier, he took the secret to the grave; it was no coincidence that another multiverse war was approaching only after his disappearance.