Chapter Text
For once in his life, Mobius knows exactly how much time has passed. He likes it. He’s been vacationing on earth for five months, hopping back and forth to see Sylvie and other TVA employees; which has made him realize that life goes on, and time can heal every wound and drown every sorrow, and he should stop thinking about it before he ruins his evening.
As the soundtrack swells to a climax, the two main leads stare deep into each other's eyes. Their tired lineaments let on that the conflict that's kept the plot together for two movies, will drag on to a third one. The screen first fades to black, and then to an elegant “Fin” in cursive. Part of the audience claps, but if Brad asks, Mobius will tell him everyone did.
Mobius makes his way out of the theater and into the hall hosting the premiere event without looking anybody in the eye, waiting for Brad to notice him in the crowd. He digs his hands in the pockets of his beige trousers, restless and annoyed out of the blue, which isn't fair. He liked the movie, and he takes a lot of pride in the change of color of his suit.
Sure enough, Brad spots him from across the room, getting to him in an excited skip that didn't quite make it.
“Mobius, you came!” he pats Mobius on the shoulder with far too much energy. “So, what did you think?”
Brad's smile could light up a room. Maybe Mobius will tell him there has been a standing ovation.
"Beautiful. Kept me on the edge of my seat the whole time."
Brad perks up even more.
"Let me offer you a drink."
And how could Mobius say no?
Mobius waits at a table, watching Brad ask for two whiskeys, and wave and greet other people, completely in his environment. In a way, it anchors him. Mobius only wishes he had a camera to capture the open jacket for flair and the tall hair rock-hard with gel because he will use it against Brad in twenty years or so.
"Ok, let's catch up before the press steals me away." Brad immediately says as he slides into the chair in front of Mobius.
"Right, you're a star." Mobius teases.
"You're too kind." It goes completely over his head, and Mobius takes a sip of the drink to hide his smirk.
"I've heard far too much about my movie." Mobius can't help but raise his brows. A little star goes to Brad for modesty in his mental checklist.
“Sylvie?”
“At work. She said she’ll catch it once it’s out in theaters.”
Brad immediately deflates. He flashes Mobius a tight smile. “She’s committed.”
“It’s not a bad idea. It’s easier to trick the body if we only travel years. Gets the illusion of no time passing.”
Disappointment forgotten, Brad jumps at the chance to make this about himself. “Tell me about it. Last February, I traveled to June 1925 to watch the first of Les Miserable,” Mobius smiles at the English accent Brad isn’t supposed to have, “the French version of course.”
“Of course.”
“The moment I returned to this timeline, I came down with a fever. Spent a week to tango with the toilet, if you know what I mean.”
A bit too much information, but Mobius doesn't tell. “So you agree it's not a good idea to mess with the schedule.”
"But she could have come after the shift," Brad whines.
"No, Brad, you wanna give her a thirty-hour day?" Mobius wouldn't wish it on his worst enemy- well, on his most annoying coworker. He'd wish far worse for someone like He Who Remains or Ravonna.
"Messes the whole sleep cycle up if you've gotten too comfortable." which they have.
Mobius already has problems sleeping as it is. If he tweaked his day by just a couple of hours, he'd start waking up in the middle of the night.
Brad rolls his eyes. “I guess.” He downs his whiskey.
There's a moment of silence in which Brad squares Mobius up. “Back to your timeline? Or timeline-adjacent?”
Mobius breathes through his teeth “Not really, no.”
"You’re not at the TVA, are you?"
"Also, no."
When Brad stares clueless a moment too long, Mobius clarifies. “Vacation.”
“Why don’t you explore a couple of different timelines? Find one to settle down in. You could retire, you know.”
Mobius smiles down at his glass. In a way, he’s been doing that already. Is he about to dump all his doubts on Brad, of all people? What the hell, the movie made him emotional.
“All I had to go back to was a family, and that’s been pruned from reality.”
Brad attempts a series of empathetic faces. It's hard to tell if he's faking, or if he's been waiting a long time for the man to open up.
“I could find a timeline in which my variant has died a tragic death, but do I even want to be a family man? I feel like it’s something that happened to me, and I powered through because of everything I had built, just like I powered through at the TVA, but now I haven’t done any of that.” Mobius takes a moment to breathe.
Sometimes, Mobius thinks that he could go back to it, that he'd be truly happy if he did. It doesn’t mean he wants to.
Brad raises a placatory hand towards Mobius. “Again, whoever you want to be. Do you think this was my timeline?”
Mobius blinks. “What?”
“I wanted A life on the timeline. Maybe I was a vintage movie enthusiast from the 22nd century, there’s no way of knowing. I went out there and lived. Did what felt right." Brad smiles at the petrified confusion on Mobius' face. "So, now that that’s cleared, what have you been up to?”
Mobius feels like he doesn’t have a reason to brood anymore. Not gonna pretend he’s alright either.
“I’ve been traveling the Earth from my time. I’m apparently from America, so I thought I could get in touch with my roots, have a little eat-pray-love road trip," he takes a big breath, "without the praying and the loving.”
Brad draws his brows together but doesn’t comment.
“I’ve been trying to avoid northern Europe as a general rule,” Brad doesn’t speak, “Oh, I tried to ride a jet ski, but-”
“I love that for you!” Brad says suddenly. Nonetheless, he doesn't seem too keen on keeping the conversation going. Poor thing, maybe he was expecting small talk and a question about an eventual sequel for his movie.
Well, Mobius can give him a prompt. “Also, I’ve been trying to figure out if we can age.”
Brad suddenly shuts down. Maybe it’s never occurred to him.
“Hadn’t thought about it, huh?”
Brad hums, noncommittal. Mobius thinks that if they do age and die like common humans, he might as well give up on waiting for Loki, and begin to rot away. But he doesn’t say any of that. “Plenty of ways to preserve things from time.”
“Huh,” Brad stares down at his glass. “Tell you what, I’ll let you know. Also, hell of a prompt for a movie.”
Mobius smiles.
"About that, what was it with the ending there? This is a trilogy, isn't it?"
Brad immediately chuckles and quickly starts to break down the last couple of frames as if he'd waited all evening for someone to ask him. So much for not wanting to talk about his film.
Mobius knows he's been a good guest, not a nowhere man anymore, when at the end of the night Brad thanks him for coming and asks him the most fitting question.
“How are you holding up?”
As always: not too bad, and terribly at the same time.
And he’s back in his timeline. He’s in Florida, lots of wildlife he’s not familiar with having spent so many years at the TVA with the one cat and the occasional fly. Too many snakes and spiders in the US for his liking.
Wait ‘till you see the rest of it.
He huffs a laugh. Going crazy.
Sometimes it's a sarcastic voice, sometimes it’s the light that hits him just so, other times he’s tripping on thin air, or losing his stuff only to find it after an hour out of the blue. Mobius likes to think that’s Loki keeping an eye on him.
Ok, maybe Mobius does pray a little bit if one could call it praying. It's more of a telling his day addressed to the universe, and every time he does, he sleeps like a baby.
Next Monday, Mobius starts his day with breakfast, then takes a stroll, slowly tearing down some of the mind blocks he has. Museums and zoos have been his greatest wake-up call. He still thinks about the time he spent an hour in the reptile house to look at the snakes, and came across a sign intended for kids, which showed in fun colors and anthropomorphic little reptiles, that turtles and tortoises hibernate during winter.
Mobius had smiled as his first thought "What the hell is a tortoise", was promptly whacked away and replaced with the clear knowledge of them hibernating.
Although Mobius moved here specifically to dedicate his summer to jet skis, his ultimate goal of riding one still goes unfulfilled.
He supposes the time and place have never been more right; because when he first arrived in Ohio he’d seen the lake, frozen, then he'd moved to see the Atlantic Ocean in January, terrifying. It’s June now, so it should be good. Maybe he'll try tomorrow, but what if he doesn’t like it? How?
Mobius finally stops at the local bookstore he's been raiding for the past month. In a way, he's still working for the TVA.
He's piecing HWR's idea for the TVA bit by bit, as if he could drown the anger with history and inspiration, and give all the employees a romantic purpose to exist.
The book on cults has been uncomfortable, and the biography of August Ferdinand Mobius exhilarating, but discovering that the only mention of Ravonna Renslayer is in a comic book has been the sugar on the cream. Still gives Mobius an evil little zing of pleasure whenever he thinks about it.
Today is the Ouroboros' turn again. Mobius skims through the spirituality and philosophy aisle with his list of books at hand. He finds there are similarities between Mobius strips and the Ouroboros, but the latter allows him to research while putting some distance between him and the topic.
Look! Asgardian philosophy. Alas, it has made it out of the cryptid aisle.
Mobius smiles, catching the spine of this thick blue book, the title written in gold in a monumental Roman font. A bit out of topic in his opinion.
get it.
He sighs, "Sorry buddy. Hits too close to home." Mobius whispers to the shelf. Imaginary voice or not, it would be rude not to answer. Mobius quickly finds what he's been looking for and checks out, hoping that if he walks fast enough, he won't have the energy to think about them.
Thus Spoke Zarathustra is many things, Mobius considers as he takes another big, heavy breath full of longing and remorse, but it's not a beach book.
This life, as you are living it now and as you've lived it before, you shall relive once again and countless times over, and there won't be anything new. Still, every grief and every pleasure and every thought and every breath, and every unspeakably small and big event shall return to you, all in the same sequence and order - and thus this same spider and this moonlight between the branches and this same moment. The eternal hourglass of existence, flipped again, and you with it, speck in the dust."
It makes Mobius want to lie down on the sand and let the Earth swallow him whole. The humid heat wrings his neck and wraps heavily all around him, as his mind painfully connects every word written in black ink to a memory from the TVA.
So much for playing it safe.
Mobius starts skimming through the pages, looking for concepts on the more comfortable side of revelation. Needless to say, he gets himself a nice hammering headache.
When Mobius decides he doesn't deserve to spend the whole day frying his brain and wallowing in his depressing memories, the sun is low in the sky and the umbrella isn't doing much to shade him anymore.
Finally, he reads bits about the Übermensch climbing the stairs to the beyond, becoming something other and powerful altogether, and Mobius snaps the book shut. He gets up with purpose and walks up the beach where the tides wouldn't reach even at night, only to leave the book on the ground. Someone could find it, take it as a sign from the universe, and be stuck with it.
Happy to cause a little chaos, even this little will do, Mobius smiles to himself and starts to walk back to his umbrella. It would probably make someone passionate about philosophy.
Or maybe, the thought crawls up his spine, it could fall into the wrong hands and help create a cult of self-proclaimed superhumans who couldn't make interpretations.
Mobius twirls back on his feet to the book. He's not risking Nazis 2 electric boogaloo, not on his hands.
It's an excruciating five minutes of consideration, picking up and leaving the book again, or staring down at it with his hands planted on his hips.
Ok, now you’re exaggerating.
“You know how easy it is to branch, I think I’m being reasonable." Whenever Mobius wants to be left alone, he talks back to the voice in his head. Makes people think he’s crazy. Works like a charm.
But they sell the book, you bought it.
"But to find it on the beach, it’s divine intervention.” Or someone lost it.
“Fine, I’ll leave it then." Are you mad? Respect the book.
“Just read it!”
And suddenly, Mobius' blood freezes, as he dips his fingers hard in his sides.
“Loki?”
Did he just make contact?
Loki focuses back on his surroundings, the green light of the branches temporarily blinds him with its unnatural glow. He’s getting sick of it, matter of fact he’s been sick of it since the beginning.
He wants to go back immediately. Mobius heard him, he talked. It's his voice he heard instead of a faint thought.
The timelines are buzzing in the background and he’s overwhelmed. He’s not trembling, but he feels like it. He’s not crying, but he'd like to bawl his eyes out if it could take even a speck of his pain away. As it is right now, he’s almost disconnected from his body. There’s no use in trying to connect back.
Loki tries to calm down. He can do it, he’s always so collected! Enjoying what he can in his self-imposed prison... small victories- fuck he can’t think about it without choking.
Although it feels like he hasn't managed to do anything at all, Loki understands he's been straining too much. He closes his eyes and lets himself drift off into the timelines, hoping to recharge by leaving his mind partially to wander. They hope a short one will do because they don't have the patience for it right now.
If Loki wanted to find a silver lining, at least he's got his realm to look after. He feels like he’s Big Brother, a term they've learned by watching the sheer amount of TVA employees taking part in reality shows.
It's truly like a moth to a flame: they get on a timeline for a period of vacation, apply on a whim because everyone at the office is talking about it, and the producers eat them up every single time.
Loki's watched so many during his darkest hour, that he can't help but drift there right now.
"I'm sorry, you're in the military, have an 'understanding of quantum mechanics but not in a mathematical way', but don't know what a mall is?"
Hunter A-24 smiles brightly at the producer, her hands resting flat on the table. "That's right."
They write her off as the weird one who's not fit for the show and will be eliminated in the third episode. Shooting starts in two weeks, and Loki is disappointed to find they don't have anyone else to root for in live-time.
They could always peek into the past, but they throw the idea out the window once Loki remembers there's one airing on Mobius' timeline. He's not opposed to a little recreational television time, and if it's the show he thinks it is, Mobius won't mind either.
Loki then lingers on Sylvie: the final step of every one of the little strolls he takes to wind down. She’s in the kitchen of her same old McDonald's, kicking at the ice cream machine. Loki smiles. He could look at many other Lokis, but he knows Sylvie, and it feels better to see her fail too.
He focuses on Mobius again. He’s not going to lose it. He can make contact, he can get his friend back.
Put on channel 5
“Loki, is that you?”
It’s either that, or you’re going insane. Loki loves being like this with Mobius, it makes their day. They might as well call it a day since they divide their time between Mobius being awake, and Mobius being asleep.
“You find a way to communicate, and it’s to spam TV. Seems weird, I’m just saying.”
I promise it’ll be worth it.
It’s a reality show, LOST for love. It doesn’t look like anything Loki would even consider watching, but how they enjoyed the shooting!
“Did I get occult publicity in my sleep?” Mobius looks at his tempad and mutters under his breath.
Mobius, trust me.
“Because that turned out so well last time.”
Loki feels a swirl of anger, frustration, and sadness all happily mingling together inside their stomach. Deep down they agree with Mobius, but there's not much that can be done to change it, for now.
I did save the timelines, and I did give you a chance of life, but of course, don’t mind me-
“Alright alright, I’m sorry.” Mobius lets a beat of silence pass. “Of course I trust you… That is if you’re not just a voice in my head.”
Are they? Loki could play along for a little while, convincing Mobius they’re not real, just to show up with a more concrete manifestation. They don’t want to drive Mobius mad, but they will die of boredom without him.
Still on the fence about that.
Mobius is about to answer, but his mouth goes slack. “Wait, is that Casey?”
Loki can’t bite back a smirk. They both watch in astonished silence as Casey makes his presentation. If he shuts down his surroundings hard enough, Loki almost feels right at Mobius’ side, watching Casey say he’s from Scranton Pennsylvania like some famous scientist who isn’t born yet, without mentioning he’s talking about the “Scranton Pennsylvania” floating town in Venus’s atmosphere, created in 2700 and named by a task force for cultural preservation of the last couple centuries on Earth.
It's a sight. Halfway into the episode, another resident tells the group that opposites attract, that it's chemistry. Casey immediately strikes up an endless conversation about bonds. "Sure, ionic bonds are about opposites, but covalent bonds? And do we even want to talk about metallic bonds and leagues?"
"Would you look at that?"
I know, he's been captivating in this one. I'm very proud.
"Do they let him tell the whole metaphor?"
Of course they do. It's the bonfire after elimination day, they need him for morale. Lexie and Pamela came as a couple, and now Lexie has left the island forever. Tragic.
Mobius giggles. "Yes, I saw that too. But I mean, it's not like they won't see each other at home-"
Quiet. This is the best part.
"Some might say bonds are romantic." Mobius mouths the clear jab. "But leagues describe realistic love with impressive accuracy. They often have small windows for a perfect match. The metals need to be at a specific temperature and to evolve together in a certain way. Doesn't matter that they'd form the strongest league of all: if they aren't ready, if they aren't in the right environment, they won't blend. This goes for similar metals and very different ones."
So much for "love is a dagger"
"One of yours?"
Right, they've never mentioned it to him. Yes.
"Well, daggers must be a league of some kind."
Hopefully a good one.
They enjoy in silence Casey diving into the technical part of his pep-talk.
"Let's see how long it takes them to notice he's done with the metaphor. No spoilers."
The moment Loki stops worrying about suddenly disappearing again, they start to relax. Granted, it's like watching a movie inside another movie, but commenting with Mobius is making them feel like a person again after a long time.
By the end of the episode Loki is exhausted. He likes to think he yawns, smiles, gets up, and walks to his bed in the house. Good night, Mobius.
With time, he tells himself. They hate the implication with every inch of their soul since it didn’t work before, and since it led to years of frustration. It scares him more than anything. This time though, Loki thinks that time will do. There is nothing else on their hands anyway.
“Do you think I should visit the Midwest during winter, or summer?”
Sylvie smiles, looking down at the clutter of notebooks and pamphlets scattered around the diner’s table. She fidgets with her ring, a cup of coffee in her right hand.
“Depends if you like snow or mosquitos.”
Mobius says he’s not accustomed to bugs yet, and that he doesn’t mind snow. Only, he says it in a way someone who doesn't enjoy snow would. Well, that won’t do.
She picks up a pamphlet, amused, and happy he’s getting over Loki. “Maybe do autumn. You could go around harvest festivals. Lots of food and fair games.”
Mobius’s smile doesn’t reach his eyes, and Sylvie hopes she hasn’t triggered anything. She’s going to be kind to Mobius.
“How’s Earth 2022?”
“A mess. And Don is so weirdly calm, in his castle holding it all together out of thin air.”
“Reminds me of someone.”
“Yeah, we’re pretty alike.”
“But you don’t want that.” Not even a question.
“No."
Usually, the conversation dies here, but today Sylvie is startled back into it. “I spent an endless existence pining after jet skis, and I’m supposed to live in Ohio?” He says it as if he were a US citizen who’s known all his life about the unspoken hierarchy of US states. She chuckles.
“Don's already got his share of the sea, I want mine.”
“I get that.” And she does.
“Now, after that, and maybe only then, I’m going to live in a place of compromise.” he has a bite of pie.
“Like the TVA,” she can’t stop herself.
“Well-”
“Don’t tell me you’re going back!” Sylvie doesn’t even know for certain how many times they’ve had this conversation.
“You’re so happy here, you could be a tourist for all eternity. They owe you that much.”
“Oh yes, He Who Remains absolutely does," Mobius takes a deep breath as if he were bracing himself. "But if they need me, I think I’ll go.” Sylvie is relieved to hear the doubt in his voice.
“Mobius please do it for me, I have to prove Loki wrong.” Sylvie is not proud to play the Loki card, but she knows he'll listen to her now.
Mobius purses his lips, takes a moment, then of course asks: "What?”
It’s time. Sylvie is glad she can take this off her chest. She talks about the bits she has been remembering from past timelines and failed attempts at fixing the Loom, which is common knowledge at the TVA, just not like this. She then gives him sprinkles about her conversation with Loki about Mobius. “What do you want?”
Silence falls on the table. Unstable and prickly, ready to be shattered by whatever reaction Mobius might have to this. Sylvie hopes for relief, but she'd be lying to herself.
“Wow, the perks of being a god.” Mobius finally says, eyes cast down.
She doesn’t like the snide in his voice. “Don’t think you’re not special.”
Mobius scoffs, and Sylvie thinks it’s now or never. “Does he talk to you too, or am I going crazy?”
Mobius’ eyes light up, there it is. “Looks like we're both crazy,” he says.
Sylvie laughs. Maybe he's not wrong.
She then thanks the server for refilling her coffee. If they look puzzled at the pamphlet [2022 fair] they don’t ask. A new timeline is formed, and a new conspiracy theorist is born. Sylvie loves being an agent of chaos.
“You know what the real problem is?”
“What?” Mobius is still fairly serious, munching another bite of apple pie as if he had to obliterate it, while Sylvie has a grin that splits her face.
“You’re dressing up as a soft autumn when you’re clearly a light spring.”
Mobius laughs. He pats his mouth with a tissue lest he spits crumbs on all the pamphlets.
“Do you get the same adverts I do on the tempad? Is this why you’re dressed like that?”
“I’m trying to find my style!” Sylvie feigns offence, although she admits her fashion experiments don't always hit the spot. “I’m a true summer, you know… maybe, not too sure actually.”
Her past self would have scoffed. We’re surviving, who cares about your palette? I do, thank you very much.
“You’re a Loki, you’re going to be manic about this.” Mobius says matter of factly. Smug jerk.
“No, I’m not.” She retorts.
“Really? Because I hear you’ve been Employee of the Month three times in a row, and you're starting a little revolution with your McDonald’s.”
“Touché.”
There's a lull of comfortable silence. Their eyes meet, and Mobius flashes her a smile.
“So, I’m a light spring you say?”
Sylvie smiles back. She knows she won't be alone, and that’s a good enough glorious purpose.
Later, Mobius opens his time door in the back of the diner, making it look like an ordinary backdoor.
“Send me the news so I can play Nostradamus?” Sylvie asks. They started calling her that here at work, and she has to keep it up. Even if their timelines are different, she still manages to guess enough to keep the nickname.
“You got it.”
And Mobius disappears in his time door.
Sylvie goes to work with a skip in her step. The counters have never been shinier, and the inventory is stacked in the most efficient and aesthetically pleasing manner. Of course, she's Employee of the Month. I see you two are bonding.
“Oh, welcome back!” Sylvie quips from her station in the kitchen.
What do you talk about
Of course, it's about Mobius. Although, she can’t make out the inflexion of Loki's voice, which is unusual. Sylvie frowns, isn’t he supposed to be omniscient? “Obviously, we talk shit about you.”
She does hear a dramatic scoff. “Aren’t you here twenty-four/seven?”
Not since I talk. It’s a treat for once in a while, I need to recharge.
“I’m glad you have something to do.”
The scoff must have cost something, something perhaps they're sparing for Mobius, because Sylvie manages to serve her clients during rush hour, as the fryer gets jammed, and a weird green shade of light looms in the kitchen, without hearing so much as a peep. Sylvie thinks she enjoys her friends. Yes, even this annoying prick.
Later, having a bite in her car, she tries again.
“He’s happy, you know?”
And immediately- He’s happi-er. Not exactly in the prime of his life.
Sylvie hums as she raises her brows. Kind as always.
“With us, I mean. I stand by what I said.” Which is?
“You don’t remember?”
Sylvie you talk to so many people about so many stupid things, it’s hard to remember it all.
Sylvie smiles, proud. She’s a social butterfly after all.
“God of stories, all-knowing, that checks out. I bet you remember everything Mobius says.”
A beat of silence passes. Well, not everything. There it is.
“Loki, I meant about being selfish. Just a little. You made contact, I’m sure you can manifest yourself at some point.”
Yes that’s the plan.
“Good, I’ll see you around then.”
Don’t you want to talk a little?
“Nah, I volunteered for a late shift, and I take my job very seriously.” Fuck, Mobius is right. She swears Loki mocks her before going silent again. When Sylvie comes back inside, the ice cream machine is jammed, and Loki is gone.
It's almost time to start helping Hunter A-24 obliterate the competition in her reality show when Loki finally thinks they have found a way to have a whole conversation without having their ass shoved back into Yggdrasil.
He immediately reaches for Mobius, finding him sound asleep in his bed. After all, it is two in the morning. Loki lingers for a moment. He feels like a pull, the urge to smooth the creases on Mobius' forehead, to be the sole reason for his peace.
The idea sneaks up on him: how difficult could it be to just… get in there? Sylvie can do it so effortlessly, surely Loki can have a margin of success, for Mobius at least.
With nothing else to latch onto, Loki gives in to that pull, placing all his hopes in the immense amount of wild magic flowing through him, trying so hard to communicate he might pop a vessel.
He tries to back off, and he’s suddenly on his feet in a place that could be anywhere but Yggdrasil. He feels the shift as if he’d hit the ground, and his stomach turns. The sky is black, and everything is dark. It looks like a nightmare, and it feels like one too. A crippling fear is crawling inside Mobius. It's an ominous ringing, an anxiety that won’t leave him, telling him he's not safe. He sees Loki from across the space. There’s a strain tearing him apart. He’s not sure he’s concentrating anymore, and he feels his control slipping.
“Mobius?”
“Loki?”
He’s here. He can see him.
Mobius can’t move as the outlines of his room form behind his eyelids. It feels like the world is spinning in his head. He tries to force his eyes open at least three times before they follow suit, and then he catches Loki- Loki adjacent- Loki-shadow staring down at him from the corner of the room. When Mobius finally jerks awake, able to move again, Loki is gone, and he’s sweating bullets.
“What just happened?”
Mobius takes a series of long, grounding breaths, still overwhelmed. He’s not registering time passing, and his heart is going a hundred miles per hour, so he thinks he has the right to be blatantly honest.
“Fucking hell, Loki! You gave me sleep paralysis, that's what happened.”
“I think I got that too.”
“You-” but then Mobius notices this isn’t an echo in his head he’s talking to.
“Loki?” he sits up, awake to his best possibility.
“I haven’t had one of those in ages. Don’t worry, it’s just stress-related, which checks out. I alone have plenty of stress for the both of us.”
“Loki do you hear yourself? It’s freaking me out.” Mobius switches the lights on. As much as he’s happy to hear his friend’s voice again, an ominous voice in the dark is an ominous voice in the dark.
Silence. For a moment, Mobius thinks he may have imagined the whole thing.
“I’m talking. To you,” an incredulous voice talks back.
“That you are.” Mobius smiles into the void of his room.
“I’m sorry for before. I wanted to try to reach out in your dreams. Enchant you.”
“Mind control, I like the sound of that.” Mobius doesn’t find laying back down in his bed weird, only because he’s exhausted, and Loki is at fault anyway. “Did I dream of you, or were you really there, standing in front of me?”
“It was me.”
“Pity it’ll take me an eternity to fall back asleep.” Mobius mutters, closing his eyes with caution.
“Will you let me try again?”
Mobius opens them back, half expecting to see Loki above or near him. He sighs, takes the courage to turn off the light, and gets comfortable.
“Alright. Ready for another nightmare.”
But it doesn’t come. He immediately drifts off to sleep. It’s a green field, a park, the sky is blue. Loki is standing in his TVA uniform, which is weird, but familiar.
“Hey,” Mobius breathes out.
Loki's smile could light up a room. “Hello, Mobius.”
Closest thing outside of time: TVA.
Usually, agent Valentine takes their coffee from a timeline, stalks a version of themselves to see what it would be like to have superpowers, thanks no one in particular that they don’t have any, and goes back to work.
Today, they also get a muffin for B-15 and an EpiPen in case she’s allergic to something in it. Because today, Valentine is going to ask for a break.
“Sure,” Bee says after a bite of the muffin. Valentine looks at her through their glasses, attentive, waiting for an eventual outbreak.
“Let’s see…” She opens the guidebook about time and employees well being. “How much do you want to take?”
“A week would be perfect.”
“Alright.” She flips through the book.
“We’ll find you a junior analyst to train, and then you’re good to go.”
They smile curtly. “Of course.”
“Do you want to use your vacation days, or would you rather use the distortication?” she squints, “and live a week on a planet and be back here tomorrow- What? Val, just take the days. You have a billion of them.”
“Ah, no boss. I didn’t mean a vacation.”
“What then?”
“I was thinking I could take cooking lessons,” they open with something that could be granted, “and I want to work the HWR cases.”
Bee’s face grows cold as she shuts the handbook. “Cooking lessons it is.” Worth a shot.
“Bee, I don’t like wasting time and energy.” They feel the need to be on top of a case like this one, but they don’t say it.
“Wasting-” Bee scoffs, and Valentine can't catch if it's all for show or not. "You think your little mercenary with the time machine, is a waste of time?
“He always does this. Be it New York or the multiverse, Deadpool always stops and goes back to his status quo when he’s done.”
“Everyone with a variant that can travel the multiverse is important against HWR.” She says in this matter-of-fact tone, and Valentine has to remind themselves they can plead the case without lashing out.
Plan B it is then.
“If not that, you can put me in charge of managing the exceptional variants. Make all the analysts report to me. If we organized a task force it would be so much more efficient.” Just thinking of being the boss of those incompetents monitoring Gwen Poole could send Valentine to sleep happy for another thousand years.
“Not a bad idea," B-15 concedes, "but there’s no chance I’m letting you off the hook with that specific variant.”
“You wanted me to train a junior just a minute ago.”
“You’re telling me you wouldn’t have stretched your time with HWR?”
“I care about Wade. I couldn’t possibly stay away for more than 50 years.”
They pick a file. It reads: Wade W. Wilson aka Deadpool, aka Ryan Raynolds. “I could always break that infernal time machine.”
“I wouldn’t stop you. Save us a lot of trouble.”
This Wade is the last one on their hands with a time machine. When he stops using it, Valentine doesn’t have anyone else likely to do this kind of time travel.
“Just look.”
They press a button on the keyboard and a string of text appears on the computer.
“He hasn’t killed baby Hitler. Now, he’s going to go back to-” they check the file again, “Vanessa, in his timeline.”
And Deadpool doesn’t stray, not when it really matters. Valentine could count on the fingers of one hand the times a Deadpool got a Nexus event. Which has always left them with enough time to mingle and always be on top of every story at the office. Not something they can afford anymore.
The new string of text reads Nexus in red. Nowadays it simply indicates a variation and creates a new folder.
“Look at that, the one with the time machine is loose.”
Valentine points out that technically, all of them are loose, but doesn’t make a compelling argument.
Deadpools who travel realities still travel with a mission. This one, Valentine thinks, is frolicking in the flowers with no destination.