Chapter 1
Chapter One
“I don’t know what good these will be,” Mobius’ Variant admitted as he crossed the room, tone teetering on sheepish. His arms were heavy with a variety of items, prompting Loki to raise an eyebrow. The man looked as though he had raided the entire office supply stash and was on the run from the Supervisor. All the same, he placed a small notebook on the break room table, before tucking a couple of pens into the front pocket of a light grey travel bag. Mobius glanced at Loki and tapped the bag, smiling. “Sorry, again, that we couldn’t find green.”
Loki rolled his eyes, just a bit. Yes, he liked green. Loved it, in fact. Not everything had to be green, though. He could appreciate other colors. Rather than comment such, and look like an ungrateful ass, he reached forward and picked up the notebook. “What is this for?” he asked, turning the item over in his hands, long fingers tracing along the spine. It was an unassuming thing, a plain black cover over what felt to be a few hundred blank pages. No one would think twice about it, if discovered, but all things considered, he wasn’t entirely sure when he might find use for it.
Sliding his hands into his pants pockets, Mobius shrugged. “Hell, I dunno’ if you like to write, or anything. But sometimes… Well, it pays to write some things down, y’know? Notes, thoughts, ideas…” He nodded toward the TemPad he had coaxed out of Requisitions. “Coordinates, maybe?” Loki blinked, and Mobius shook his head. “Look, it beats needing a piece of paper, and having to take notes on your arm instead, all right?”
Loki sighed and slipped the notebook into the bag. “Fair enough,” he agreed. He tugged the zipper to a close, careful not to catch the plastic wrappers of any of the small snacks Mobius had provided him. The Agent was being terribly helpful, even Loki had to admit. But then, what did he expect? This Mobius seemed nearly as level-headed as his own.
His own. He felt an ache come over him, at the thought.
After a second’s pause, Loki glanced up at the… Well, he felt confident in calling him a friend, awkward as it sat in the mind. “Thank you, Mobius.” His words were earnest, as heartfelt as he could make them. “I appreciate all that you’ve done and continue to do for me.”
Again, Mobius shrugged. His face was beginning to betray his attempts at a cool façade, turning pink, as it was. He looked away, briefly, before returning his eyes to Loki, clearly flustering. “It’s really the least I can do. I mean, you might not be my best friend – and I mean no offense in that,” he added, holding one hand up in front of himself. “I like you. I do. But… Hey, you’re important to another me, right?” He smiled, returning his hand to his pocket. The ache Loki had felt intensified, considerably. “It would be a betrayal to myself, if I didn’t help you.”
“All the same,” Loki continued, standing from his seat. He looked at Mobius, this Variant of the dearest person in his life, a small frown on his lips. No matter how hard he looked, this man wasn’t his. “You could have easily thrown me into holding and forgotten me there.” It was the truth, and they both knew it. Mobius could have had dropped him into another loop of terrible memories. Hel, Mobius could have had him pruned, outright. And, Loki knew, with every fiber of his being, that the man had wanted to. He just wouldn’t say it, aloud.
Mobius, however, had the grace to voice it. “I was tempted, believe me,” he chuckled. “Right up until you started crying.” Loki made an indignant sound, which caused Mobius to grin. “Oh, come on. We both know that was pretty pitiful.”
Not wanting to hear another word of it, having been given no time for rebuttal, Loki made a show of grabbing the gifted bag, and hoisting it over his shoulder. “What a kind send-off,” he snipped, entirely teasing. “Pompeii was more welcoming.”
Mobius snickered, having heard the story at least twice. His other self had been on a great deal of adventures with this Loki. It was amusing to hear of their trials and tribulations. For a desk clerk, it was a downright exciting piece of storytelling. Trying not to think about the boredom of his day-to-day, Mobius took a breath, his smile settling into something concerned. “Good luck, Loki.”
Catching the shorter man’s eyes, Loki tried to keep himself together. As much as he wanted to get home, he hadn’t been looking forward to this moment. This could be the last look of Mobius – any Mobius – that Loki would ever be allowed. He wasn’t entirely sure he could handle that. Pushing the thought to the side, he extended his hand, fighting back a shiver when Mobius accepted it in a firm shake. Their eyes locked. One last look. He did his best to commit it to memory.
“Take care, Mobius.”
*
He came awake with a start. Not a gasp, or a shock. Just a deep breath, and a shiver, and a sudden jolt of wake-the-hell-up-now. Quite frankly, he was getting used to that, to waking up at all hours, no matter where or – more importantly – when he was able to rest his head. Judging from the pitch dark of the room, it was still quite late… Or quite early, depending upon how one chose to look at it. But to be quite honest, he was a miserable shit anyway, and there was no winning in the situation. Early, late, it all still sucked. It still meant that he hadn’t been able to stay unconscious for more than a few short hours.
Another shiver passed through the god’s form. He reached for his blanket, only to come up empty. Looking to the side, Loki discovered that he had pushed the blanket to the side of the bed, at some point in the night. It was stretched along his side, shoulder to toe, bunched in random places. As though someone was beside him. As though he wasn’t alone.
Loki fought the urge to scoff. He was very much alone. A blanket wasn’t going to change that, no matter where it was placed.
He tugged the material back over his body, the cool of the fabric doing little to warm him, immediately. His own fault, in the end. He’d practically been rolled in the material before falling asleep. How he had managed to toss it all away was completely beyond him.
Half-awake, as he was, most everything was completely beyond him.
With a deep inhale, Loki debated whether to bother sitting up. Every muscle in his body, and every synapse in his brain was screaming at him to go back to sleep. He was exhausted beyond measure, and there never seemed to be enough time to catch any rest. This little place on the shore, though, it had been a godsend – someone else’s words, not his own, though the case could be made that procuring the abandoned beach house was something of a present to himself – and Loki had mistakenly thought he would be able to catch his breath and refocus on his task. Relax, and regroup.
Once again, he had thought far too highly of his present situation.
In the end, it really wouldn’t matter all that much, anyway. He knew, if only between himself, the pillows, and the four walls that were forever closing in on him, that proper sleep would not come until he was back home. Home being quite relative, the TVA… Wherever Mobius was.
Eyes trained on the ceiling, Loki sighed, the sound shaky and tense. Mobius. Fucking Hel, did he miss that man. He’d been searching for home for so very, very long… For Mobius, and HB-15. To be rid of the vast array of worlds that he had thus far tripped into, headfirst. The places he’d been, and the people he had met… He had learned so, so much, but… He still hadn’t found his partner, the love of his life, the only being in the entire multiverse that loved him for what he was.
Reaching up, Loki dragged a thumb over his eyes. It was too early for this.
Loki turned over in the bed, plush pillows sinking and re-forming around his face as he directed his eyes at the far wall. It was a pointless endeavor. He wasn’t going to get any sleep if he didn’t even bother closing his eyes. And his eyes? Yeah, definitely not closing, any time soon. Sleep was a, how did the mortals say it? A unicorn? He’d never understood that. He’d met unicorns. They were elusive, certainly. Probably even a bit skittish. But they were easier to find than sleep.
He rolled his eyes at himself. Clearly, he needed sleep, even more than he realized.
There wasn’t any use in waiting around for sleep to claim him, he supposed. He could be at this for a stretch worthy of an insomniac’s worst nightmares. Perhaps getting up would do him some good? A warm drink, and a few pages of a decent book, and maybe, just maybe, he could entice himself to get some rest. With that thought in mind, Loki pushed himself from the warmth of the bed to stand on the floor.
The room, to be fair, wasn’t all that large. A couple of steps in either direction, and one could see the entire space, including the en suite bathroom. It only took those few steps across the plush carpet to reach the little grey bag propped against the empty dresser. It was hard to categorize his travels in weeks and months, but for however long he had been on the move, Loki had lived out of the one bag. A simple enchantment assisted in enlarging the item’s overall capacity, creating suitable carrying space for a few changes of clothes, if he found something he liked, and whatever research materials he happened to gather. Reaching into the main compartment, Loki tugged out a pair of night pants, and a long-sleeved shirt. It was likely his imagination, or the product of a severe lack of sleep, but the nights seemed to be awfully cool for such a place as this. The days were warm, with pleasant breezes and low humidity. But, against the bare skin in which he had fallen asleep, the open window was proving to be too much. Dressing was easier than closing the window, though, a testament to just how gods be damned tired he was.
Passing between rooms, Loki chanced a glance at the clock hanging on the kitchen wall. The large hand appeared to be on the fourteen, while the small hand clung to the three. My, what a glorious hour to be awake. What did people even do at this time of the morning, he had often wondered? In his youth, certainly, he had spent many a long night rabblerousing, he and Thor having dragged themselves into the halls of their ancestral home at an hour very much unbefitting a pair of Asgardian Princes. All in good fun, though, he supposed. But now? Now? He had very little understanding of the appeal of being up at ass-o’clock in the morning to prowl the house like a common burglar, or a very high-strung house cat.
Loki inhaled quickly at the thought. Pussycat. He shook the word from his mind, continuing toward the living room. He was beginning to learn the layout of the place, after just a few days, no longer bumping into the back of the couch on his way through, or narrowly skating the coffee table. The sliding door that led from the living room to the back deck was quite lovely, all things considered. The deck, itself, was even better, furnished with patio chairs and a table, along with a pair of chaise lounges in a duo of colors, one blue, and one tan. One step down led to the sand, which was a welcomed feeling against the soles of his feet. It was the strangest thing, and he would never be able to explain it, if pressed, how his feet could be so overheated, while the rest of him was slowly chilling its way into a block of ice. All the same, it made these nighttime ventures out onto the sand a comfort, no matter how small.
He scoffed. He would never again claim a comfort to be too small, again.
Wrapping his arms around himself, Loki advanced across the sands in slow, unbalanced steps. Half-lidded eyes stared toward the sea, as he inhaled with the salt-tinged breeze. Another shiver, and he wished he had snagged the blanket from his bed on the way out. It wasn’t cold enough to see his breath, far from it. But this chill… He couldn’t shake it, no matter how hard he tried. And he had tried.
The night was peaceful, illuminated by the soft light of the full moon. The only sounds to be heard were the crashing of waves and the chirps of crickets. Fireflies dotted the sky in front of him, a playfulness about them that brought a smile to Loki’s lips. He hadn’t seen such a sight since childhood, he was quite certain. Long walks with Mother Earth, surrounded by Her creatures. Peace. Solitude.
Loki sighed through his nose. Tonight, solitude was hardly among his desires.
He’d barely put twenty yards between himself and the cottage when a slight tremble shot down his legs. Damn, he needed a rest. He dropped down in a rather nondescript spot, the chill of the sand, previously a comfort, suddenly teetering on uncomfortable against his backside. To be fair, his entire backside was a giant discomfort, a tight pull having settled into his tailbone, some while before, and thus far unwilling to let go. He’d kill for one of Mobius’ wonderful, mostly unsolicited back rubs.
Mobius. Gods, where was he? Where had their timeline gone? He wanted to get home. He needed to get home so damned badly, it physically hurt. The thought, alone, felt like a punch to the solar plexus, and Loki found his breathing speeding up, just a little at a time. His heart began to race as tears pooled in his eyes. In moments like these, Loki found himself regretting every single bad thing he had ever done, ready to beg, barter, and sacrifice whatever he could to take them all back. To atone for everything and appease whatever greater force had decided that this was a fair punishment.
Punishment. This was fucking torture.
With a deep, deep inhale, Loki tipped his head back to stare up at the sky. God damn it. He wanted to think of something sentimental, something touching. Was Mobius looking up at the same sky? He scoffed, despite his tears. Highly unlikely, that. Loki had been in countless places, across countless timelines. Surely, by now, he had caused enough (quiet) disruptions to enough timelines that someone should have noticed. But then again… Then again, with the state of the chaos he and Sylvie had caused… He sighed. No one was ever going to notice a cluster of disturbances.
Loki swallowed back a sob. Not even his Mobius.
Eyes barely able to focus on the stars above, Loki took in a shaky breath. “Please…” he whispered, knowing no one could hear him, but still hoping, all the same. “Please… I’m begging you… Just…” The sob he’d held onto finally let loose, a deep, agonized sound ripping free from his chest. “Just let me go home…”
He received no response. No sign. Only another cold breeze, and another pathetic shiver.
*
“Maybe, Loki,” Mobius mused, one arm hooked around the back of his chair. The fingers of his free hand were fiddling with the handle of his teacup, twirling the porcelain around in a slow, lazy circle atop its saucer. “Maybe, this time can be different.”
To that, Loki snorted a scoff, unable to contain his disbelief. “I’m sorry, did I miss something?” he asked, raising his own cup to his lips. He paused, eyeing Mobius with a mischievous smirk. “I’m pretty sure I’ve run out of chances in this existence.”
With a thoughtful sigh, Mobius shrugged. “I don’t know,” he replied. “I don’t know if I can believe that.”
Loki swallowed his sip of tea and smiled. “When will you face it, Mobius?” He set his cup back down, gently placing it on its saucer. “I’m doomed. Wretched. Done.” His smile faltered, just a bit. Hopefully, not enough for Mobius to see. “I’m hopeless. A lost cause.”
No answer came immediately, causing Loki to glance up, once more. Mobius was staring at him, unimpressed eyes and mouth turned down in an obvious frown. “You aren’t hopeless, Loki,” he murmured, staring the god down, pointedly. “I won’t give up on you, and you know that.”
Loki looked down, eyes focusing on Mobius’ fingers, which had since stilled against his cup. “I don’t… understand why.”
“Because,” Mobius continued, sitting up straight, and leaning forward. Loki glanced back up to find the man smiling, like he hadn’t been upset in the split-second before. “Maybe, this time, here in this place, you can finally win.”
It took a moment before Loki allowed himself a small smile of his own. “Perhaps, we both can.”
*
Reaching across the dining room table, Loki grabbed a stack of papers he had previously set aside for later. Now, it was later, confusing as that sounded, and he was ready to tackle the fresh research. Well, fresh might have been a bit of a stretch. Some of the pages he currently held between his fingers were likely older than he was, himself. But he had yet to go through them, so. New to him, he supposed?
Damn, how he wished he had been able to get back to sleep. He was making no sense across six timelines, four languages, and in his own head.
The top pages of his stack turned out to be uneventful, turned face down beside the main pile following very careful reads. Loki had to pause after each page to rub his eyes, take a breath, and begin anew. Nothing was making any sense. Nothing at all. Space travel, it seemed, was still science fiction to certain realms, while others simply found it archaic. (One timeline had legitimately tried to burn him as a witch, from which he still bore a couple of the scars). One group’s fancy was another’s worst nightmare.
He slammed his hand down on top of the pile of pages in sheer and utter disgust. Nothing. Made. Sense.
Fighting the sudden, overwhelming urge to shove all his research to the floor in a fit of rage, Loki instead forced the pages across the table, still carefully separated from the rest of the work he had already combed through. Thankfully, he had enough presence of mind not to make things any worse for himself than they already were. It took him all of two seconds, after that, to clench his eyes shut and drop his forehead to the cleared space of tabletop. Fuck, how had things managed to get this bad? To reach this point? It didn’t make any sense.
Maybe… Oh, maybe, this was what happened when Loki tried to be happy, when the God of Mischief tried to do the right thing. And maybe he had put that thought to work a bit more often than he should have, since his departure from the TVA. If he had just stayed put, if he hadn’t gone off to follow Sylvie, and her half-assed plan for revenge, he might still be with his friend, now. If he hadn’t felt the urge to protect someone who would just inevitably destroy him, regardless.
Hm. Another thing he had been considering, lately. Sylvie had been an awful lot like Thor, in that regard. Once she had the idea of death and destruction in her mind, there was no stopping her.
Loki blinked, lifting his head from the tabletop. Like Thor… Well, it was difficult to argue, even in the kindest of light. She hadn’t been terribly mischievous, no. She was making her mark. Clearing her path, by any means necessary.
Not quite a Loki.
But that was crazy, wasn’t it? Sylvie had been pruned for being odd, certainly, but it was only odd in the sense of her being born a female. Not… Not for coming out an actual oddity of personality… Right?
Oh, it was crazy. It seemed that all Lokis were destined for the Void, in one form or another. Lokis lost. Thors won. Unless Sylvie was somehow different? Unless she had been born to the timeline where Thor actually lost? They’d not discussed Sylvie’s Thor, hadn’t even made mention of him (her?), to be perfectly honest. By her age, at the time of her kidnapping, she should have been old enough to have known her version of Thor, shouldn’t she? Thor had been a sore spot for him for many, many years. Perhaps Sylvie simply hadn’t wanted to give light to that darkness. It didn’t mean anything. Not necessarily.
Pulling back up to sit upright in his seat, Loki scrubbed his hands over his face. Back to making no sense, again. Lovely.
The sharp whistle of the tea kettle drew Loki from his moment of inner turmoil. A warm cup sounded just fine, downright Heavenly, actually. Perhaps he could soothe himself to unconsciousness, even if only for a little while. Rubbing his left eye with his fingers, Loki yawned. Mm, the odds seemed to be leaning toward his favour. He stood from his seat and meandered to the stove. He grabbed a hand towel from the handle of the oven door, using it to remove the kettle from the burner, and stop that infernal screaming. A flick of the wrist, and the stove was turned off, the red disappearing from the metal coil within seconds. Loki took a moment to procure a cup from the cupboard, and a box of tea bags from a drawer. An offended crease settled along the bridge of his nose as he opened the box and tugged out a little bag of tea mixture on a string. He didn’t care what Mobius said. Tea was not meant to be consumed this way, no matter how common it was. No matter how many times the Agent had managed to talk Loki into using the lazy little things. No matter how comforting it felt to settle the bag into his cup, and pour water over it, imagining Mobius’ voice at his shoulder.
“There, now,” he would say, far more chipper than he had any right to be. It was tea, after all, not a kidney. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”
And, of course, Loki would make a big display of sneering back, “It was absolutely dreadful. I may need to take a personal day to recover from this unjust horror.”
In the present moment – if he could even call it that, he had absolutely no idea, anymore, and wasn’t that the real horror of his current situation? – Loki sighed, tugging the obnoxious little string, so that the tea bag could bob about in his cup. Color bled from the bag, and into the water, the scent of vanilla and lavender soon greeting his senses. A faint smile tried and failed to manifest itself across his lips. Mobius would have liked this blend. Would like this blend. He made a mental note to pocket a few bags when he left the cottage.
Leaving the tea to steep, Loki leaned his hips back against the countertop. Again, he found himself burying his face in his hands. The more time he spent in this place, in this little cottage on the shore, the more he found himself regretting the decision. Everything in the place was just so… nostalgic, even for someone who had never been there before, himself. And the tea was just the beginning. There was no way to mistake the various signs of the Greater Universe At Large mocking him at every step. Had it not been against his own self, Loki would have found it all terribly amusing.
There was no television in the cottage, which suited him just fine. But someone had left behind an entire bookshelf full of old volumes and texts. Dust had long settled over them, but Loki had found himself thumbing through one, just a night previous. He’d been so tired, he was disheartened to find himself deep in the throes of a Sherlock Holmes mystery. Worse yet was how much this Holmes fellow reminded him of a certain TVA Agent. The Detective was wise and learned, bested by no one and nothing. That was Mobius, all over.
The neighbors had a jet ski. A fucking jet ski. He really didn’t need to elaborate on that one.
And, in the middle of the night, two evenings previous, Loki could have sworn he’d felt fingers move through his hair as he teetered on sleep. It had nearly torn his heart out to find that he had simply left the window open, a gentle breeze cascading in, and through his strands.
Mng, the sentiment was getting him nowhere. It was time to return to his work.
A dab of milk, and Loki was soon carrying his cup with him, back over to the dining table. He took a sip, which was just this side of scalding, before placing the cup down and onto a coaster. (The house was disturbingly void of saucers, he had been loath to note, even a bit mystified, for who had ever heard of having teacups, but no saucers?). He was far from revitalized as he turned back toward the paperwork he had previously abandoned, but there was a renewed sense of alertness to his vision, if absolutely nothing else. Reaching for the stack of files he had barely begun to peruse, Loki thought back to his wonderings on Sylvie. Even if he had been out of his mind with exhaustion, a few moments prior, the considerations were still tickling at the back of his mind. Something wasn’t sitting right with him, now that he had taken a moment to sit with it. Roll it around his brain for a minute or two. There was something worth looking into in that. He just had to figure out what.
Shaking his head, Loki turned his attentions to the piles of paperwork in front of him. It was going to be a long, long night.
*
Mobius hadn’t left his computer for hours. It was concerning, perch tilting awfully close to outright pathetic. The only thing more pathetic was that MB-15 had been around to witness it. Ever since that Variant had dropped into their lives, in the middle of an otherworldly chaos previously unseen by any of their kind, Mobius had been keeping the worst hours imaginable. He barely slept; he barely ate. The only thing he kept close at all times was a cup of coffee, and a sweet from the break room. Said sweet usually went untouched, maybe a single bite or two missing from it by the end of the day. No matter what she, or anyone else said, the man just would not take a break. Wouldn’t even listen to reason, that there was nothing he could even do for that ‘Loki’, especially if Mobius, himself, ended up working himself into an early grave.
Would it really be an early grave, though? Technically? All things considered, HB-15 wasn’t sure, and she would have to look into it further.
Regardless, Mobius was neglecting himself, and was beginning to look like Hel, herself, had spat him back out, and for what? For what? For some stranger who had just dropped through a doorway, damp with sweat, and babbling nonsense? (Well, now, she knew that it was far, far from simple ‘nonsense’, but still). She just didn’t understand and feared that she may never. But she wasn’t quite so sure that she could just sit back and watch her colleague and friend kill himself to help, either. To investigate the Timeline War. To fix what he didn’t break, in the first place.
Mobius heaved a heavy sigh, pulling HB-15 back to the situation at-hand. He had yet to acknowledge her presence, so deeply involved in his work, he probably hadn’t even noticed her standing there. His shoulders were slumped, but tense, hands covering his face in what was beginning to look dangerously close to complete and utter defeat. Mobius? Defeated? That was something that simply would not do. Not while HB-15 still drew breath.
Fucking Loki. Loki, Loki, Loki. Mobius needed to think about something else for a while. Someone else. Somewhere, somewhen else.
She took a step closer.
*
Thunder. That’s what had woken him that time, Loki considered, as he lifted his head from the throw pillow he had passed out on. On the couch. Oh, how very wonderful.
Loki had no recollection of falling asleep, but it was clear that he had made himself plenty comfortable. It was still dark outside, so he knew it hadn’t been for too long, but he felt… Well, he felt just a little bit better, even as a shock of lightning sent a well-deserved shiver down his spine. Thor wasn’t here, he had to remind himself. That, he was certain of. The Thor in this timeline-No. No, he didn’t want to think about that. He didn’t want to think about what had befallen this timeline’s variation of his brother.
Ping.
Raising his head, Loki glanced toward the dining table, where his borrowed TemPad sat open. He hadn’t imagined that, he was quite certain. He had to have received a message. Coordinates. And if Mobius had been able to send him coordinates…
Loki wasted little time in pulling himself up off the couch. Something clattered to the floor, which he pointedly ignored. It could wait. Right now… He had to know. There was no way of getting around it. Surely enough, the display screen had lit up a very soft green. Loki smiled. Leave it to Mobius. No green bag, but a very green display screen.
Picking the device up from the tabletop, Loki scanned the information. As he had expected, he was staring at a fresh set of coordinates. Bless this Variant Mobius, in so many ways. He didn’t have to be doing a damn bit of this, yet here they both were, working their asses off to return Loki to his own timeline. Mobius seemed to understand that it was imperative, so that Loki could then assist his Mobius with saving all the timelines.
For all time. Always. It was more than a slogan now, far more than simple sentiment. It was his life. It was all their lives.