Chapter Text
Sylvie’s throat was nearly dry by the time she finished her story. The sun was setting in the sanctum, casting long shadows across their table, and Loki had abandoned the books in favor of listening. It definitely felt like an overshare- an insignificant moment of betrayal, but she still felt a bit lighter.
It’d been a long time since she’d just taken the time to remember.
“Wow,” he said after a length of silence. Sylvie nodded in agreement and ran a hand through her hair.
“Yeah. I feel like shit when I remember her, though. Since I… you know.” Sylvie made a tossing motion with her hand. She hadn’t regretted what she’d done- it’d been necessary to ensure that Chavez wouldn’t follow. But Sylvie had never gotten to know anyone well enough to actually betray them until that point.
It was a bitter taste, a bitter feeling.
“I think what you did was incredible. You pushed her away… to protect her.”
“No, she was a nuisance. An obstacle to my glorious purpose,” Sylvie truthfully replied. At her dismissal, Loki skeptically raised his eyebrows- and something strange flashed across his eyes.
“Sylvie, you did it to protect her.”
Sylvie scrunched her nose at his insistence and pushed away the books. It was about high time they left, anyway. “From myself, yeah.”
She felt a strange prickle in the back of her neck as she anticipated Loki’s next question in his softening eyes.
“Did you push me away for the same reason?” Loki asked. They hadn’t talked about that moment in the Citadel at all. They’d talked about what happened before, and what had happened after.
Sylvie thought about the question, and whether to lie or to tell the truth. But knowing Loki, he probably knew the answer already. “No.”
No, that moment in the citadel- that had been personal.
“But I guess what’s different with you is that I really regret it. I don’t regret pushing her away.” Sylvie avoided her variant’s gaze as she spoke. That girl had a place on the timeline- she was meant to experience the multiverse and everything it could offer her.
Loki would likely be the first person to understand what she meant by that- and still, Sylvie dared not look up. She didn’t want to see those eyes that were proof of how much she was adored. She didn’t want to accept this foreign strain of acceptance that Loki always offered her. She didn’t want to think that she deserved anything after all of this was over.
All she wanted was to complete her mission and feel good about it. After that? Well, that was a later problem.
Loki squeezed her shoulder once before he stood from the table. “Alright then, let’s-”
“AHHHHHH!” Sylvie leaped back in her chair when a person came crashing down into their table. The girl had messy brown hair and was wearing some sort of robe they’d seen on the students here.
The two gods stared at the student, who groaned in pain, and she rested her forehead on the table. “Are you… well?” Loki asked when the woman made no move to get up.
“Do I look okay? These sling rings are so hard to use- opening multiversal portals is easier than this.”
Sylvie, upon hearing a deeper- but familiar voice, froze on the spot. She ceased breathing, ceased to even think. Her eyes trained on this mortal as she picked herself up off the table. They were at an angle where she could conveniently obscure her body with Loki’s, and the girl was too busy concerning herself with her bleeding nose to pay them much mind.
“Well, at least I’m still in the sanctum,” she sighed and brought forth a green checkered handkerchief. Worn and stained- but clean nonetheless.
The world could’ve ended around Sylvie, and she wouldn’t have been able to move. A strange, strangled sound of surprise escaped her throat, and Loki had already put two and two together- because he had stepped aside so that they could have a clear line of sight.
“Hi, by the way. I’m America Chavez. Sorry about this-” and the girl, Chavez, Sylvie corrected herself, paused mid-sentence when she managed to lock eyes with her.
The girl blinked a few times as if she thought she was dreaming, and Sylvie watched with bated breath as she scanned her whole outfit.
“...Sylvie?” Chavez’s voice wavered uncertainly. Like she was calling out the name of a fictional person- and Sylvie winced in response.
“Chavez,” she managed. The girl, who was once such a small child, hadn’t grown much- Sylvie had to admit. Still a bit short, and she still had that childish round to her face. But she was undoubtedly older, more confident. And for Sylvie to be able to see her grown and well , it was difficult to blink away the tears that manifested of their own accord.
Chavez had turned out okay.
“Are you, are you actually my Sylvie?” Chavez clambered down from the table and strode past Loki without a second glance. Blood free falling from her nose, and she carelessly wiped it away with her sleeve.
Sylvie couldn’t help but take a step back like a wary animal at this person who remembered her before Loki. The only one on the timeline who could’ve remembered her.
Sylvie raised her right leg and tapped her toe behind her a few times, but didn’t lower her gaze.
“You still like these?” Sylvie dug through the pockets of her cloak and produced a whole stick of blue kablooie. They were terrible for her, but she couldn’t seem to kick the habit.
“You’re a bit older now, you might need a few more to keep you going. Although, you seem to be pretty settled.” Her voice felt comically loud in the quietness of the library.
Chavez stared at the pack of candy as if it were a bar of gold, and then she swiped it out of her hands like a greedy little gremlin. She tore open the package and immediately popped a piece into her mouth. “Damn, it tastes as good as I remember,” Chavez sighed, vigorously chewing the candy to squeeze every bit of flavor out before she swallowed it.
Sylvie glanced at Loki, who was giving her a puzzled look, and she looked back at Chavez who took a few big steps back and winded up a punch. Which was fair, Sylvie figured, given that she had thrown the girl off a cliff. So she braced herself, waiting for the swing to come, and instead- she was sucked back into a multiversal portal. Sylvie was pretty sure she’d turned into spaghetti at some point until she was dropped by the portal onto the ground.
“Neat trick, huh?” Chavez’s smug voice came from above. Sylvie raised her head off the ground and glared at her.
“Finally controlled your portals, then?” Sylvie muttered as she picked herself up off the floor.
Chavez made a show of blowing off her fist and grinned. “Yeah. Told you I could do it.”
Sylvie sniffed and dusted off her clothes. “I never doubted you.” And it was adorable, the way the girl seemed to puff out her chest a little bit at the compliment. There was a beat of silence between them, the looming threat of awkwardness nearly rearing its head, before Chavez coughed into her elbow.
“And also: do you know what gum is?” The girl turned the pack of candy over in her hand and pointed to the innocuous neon word.
It seemed like traveling the multiverse had also made her snarkier than she last remembered. “Gum? Yeah, it’s candy,” Sylvie deadpanned. Chavez gave her this lopsided smile, her own eyes tearing up just a bit. “Did you know you’re not supposed to swallow it? You’re supposed to spit it out before it loses flavor… although it’s probably not the worst multiversal rule we’ve broken.”
“Spit it out? Why?” Sylvie asked indignantly. She’d been eating it her whole life- she couldn’t imagine why people would want to spit it out. Instead of answering, the girl ran and gave her a bone-crushing hug. Face buried in her leather armor, and grip tight as if she were scared she would disappear into thin air.
“It’s okay,” Chavez said into her chest, and Sylvie automatically wrapped her arms around the girl.
“I know what you did. I saw it- the orange door you opened under me in case I didn’t make it. I forgive you if you ever felt bad about it in the first place.”
Sylvie felt tears drip down her face, and she had to close them to stop them from falling. Damn, she didn’t think she was the type to be so sentimental like this. But it was hard not to be, not when she knew that a girl like her had survived against the odds of time.
Thank the gods for that. Sylvie found herself patting the girl’s back, just to feel how solid beneath her fingertips. Hale and whole, tangible and real .
“I’m glad you’re okay,” Sylvie said after multiple attempts of trying to straighten out her voice.
Chavez peeled back to reveal glistening cheeks of her own, and then fiercely rubbed them. “Whew, yeah. That’s a lot. I take it the TVA has been taken down?” Chavez abruptly changed the subject, her voice faltering in just a few places.
Sylvie scratched the back of her neck. “That’s a bit of a long story.”
At this, the human’s eyes lit up. “I have time.” Chavez quickly responded, but she bit her tongue. “I mean, if you have time.”
Before Sylvie could respond, Loki gently pushed her by her shoulders forwards with a fond smile. She’d never seen that look on his face before, and he made a shooing motion. “I still have to go over these tomes. We have plenty of time,” he said the most flimsy excuse she’d ever heard.
“What about incursions?” Chavez asked, and Sylvie gave the girl a broad smile. “Well, incursions don’t follow us.”
It was a strange flip, to be on the other side of being an exception.
“What? That’s cool.” Chavez had a spring in her step and could not stop talking as they left the library.
After a brief excursion to a grocery store, the two returned to the courtyard of the Sanctum. Chavez gestured for her to sit at one of the many wooden picnic tables, and produced a single rotisserie chicken. It was still hot, and it smelled delicious.
She popped open the plastic hood, produced two paper plates, a handful of mismatched napkins, and gave Sylvie this hopeful look. “I, uh- well. I just really like chicken.”
It feels nostalgic.
Sylvie’s heart warmed at the unexpected wave of familiarity that washed over her as she tore a drum stick off the bird- and Chavez quickly did the same.
“I do too. That was one of the best chickens I’d ever eaten. With you, in that forest.” Sylvie allowed, and Norns- she was already so soft. She couldn’t predict her emotions anymore, what made her throat close up and her lips quiver- or what she could casually mention.
Chavez took a bite of the chicken, blowing the steam off the leg to cool it. “So, do you wanna go first, or should I?” Chavez asked between bites.
Sylvie gave her a nod and gestured with her greasy fingers. “The floor is yours.”
Loki found them hours later in the darkness of the night. Led only by Sylvie’s aura, and two voices in the distance animatedly chatting.
The bones of a bird’s carcass lay lifeless between them. Picked clean, and killed a second time over. Candy wrappers littered the area, and Sylvie had the fondest look on her face as Chavez described her adventures with Strange. Loki lurked in the darkness for a bit, just to watch the two. The way they would trade stories. Sylvie would recount a strange experience on her journey- and Chavez would weigh in with her own story.
“So, are you two a thing?” Chavez asked in a hushed tone. But being the child that she was- it wasn’t quite a whisper.
Sylvie laughed at the question, oddly nervous sounding to his ears, and absently began to clean up the table. “I don’t really know. I hurt him, similar to you. I didn’t even try to find him, he found me. I’m still working out why you still like me.”
And that was new- Sylvie openly discussing her insecurity out in the open like this. Chavez rolled her eyes, “For a really old person- you don’t really know stuff like that really well.”
Sylvie huffed at this and squinted her eyes at the daring child. “For the supposedly ‘sweetest kid in the sanctum’ you’re awfully snippy.”
“You’re the one who told me to milk being a kid for as long as I could.”
Loki could see Sylvie’s smile from this angle. It was small with no teeth, but it felt like it lit up her whole person. Chavez cleared her throat and sniffed before she nodded back to her.
“Anyway, I mean- I think it’s obvious. You’re not, like, an evil person. You’re just, uh, a very direct,” Chavez said and began to count on her fingers. “Strong, petty, childish, smart, and kind person. Or god. Or whatever you are.” Sylvie’s eyebrows seemed to raise with every contradicting trait Chavez listed, and she leaned forward on the table.
“A kind person? After I, what did you say, ‘yeeted’ you off the waterfall?” At the use of this strange Midgardian word, Chavez laughed at her and stood from the table. “No. But I know why you did it. Anyway- what I’m saying is that he likes you. And he’s not dumb to like you.”
Sylvie also stood from the table. “Well, since we’re exchanging parting pleasantries. I think your mothers are alive out there.”
Chavez traced some sort of shape on the table, deep in thought. “You really think so?” Her voice was much softer than before. Seeking a genuine answer, and Sylvie made a noise of agreement in the back of her throat.
“If they’re anything like you, they’re either surviving out there- or they’re traversing the multiverse as they speak.” The two walked over to deposit their trash in a nearby trashcan. “They’d love to meet your current girlfriend as well, she sounds like a nice person,” Sylvie added.
Chavez’s cheeks lit up the lightest shade of pink. “Visit sometime? You know where I am now. And I’m not super strong… but I’m better than before. Mira! ” Chavez flexed her arms to show off her muscles. Sylvie’s laughter rang out into the clearing, strong and full-bellied before she expectantly opened her arms for a hug. Chavez made a show of rolling her eyes before they embraced once more. “We’ll return. We might have use of you yet, magician,”
For good measure, Sylvie ruffled the top of the human’s hair. To which Chavez batted her hand away and took a few steps back. “Cool! Yeah, alright. I’ll see you later.” Chavez turned, took a deep breath, and began making those wide circle motions that Strange enjoyed doing.
The space in front of her spluttered pathetically, but she was set on making it work. Perhaps she knew she had to make it work in order to return home. It took a few minutes of grumbling- and even in the dimly lit darkness of the night, Loki could see her ears further redden with embarrassment as she negotiated with the sorcerer’s magic to return her home.
Eventually, though, Chavez opened the portal. The girl turned with a broad grin, and Sylvie gave her a thumbs up. “Great job.”
Once the girl left, Sylvie turned to look him straight in the eye. Ah, he’d been found out. “How much did you hear?”
At this, Loki raised his hands in an act of repentance. “Enough,” he modestly replied. Her hands fell to her hips at his response, resigned, it seemed- and she looked up into the sky. Light polluted to all hell, but they could make out a few of the brightest stars.
Loki’s temp-pad beeped a few times, indicating to them that Mobius needed them back. The softest of sighs escaped her lips, and Loki had half a mind to stay to hear what she wanted to say. What thoughts he could coax out of that pondering gaze she sent up to the sky- but Sylvie turned to him first. Placing a hand on the scabbard at her waist, she gestured for him to open the timedoor. And he did. And that, he supposed, was that.
Loki had exited the bathroom of his TVA apartment with a towel around his neck- hair still damp and in his black nightwear. He had expected Sylvie to be gone by the time he got out. She usually didn’t linger for long- but this time he caught her on his green satin sofa. Leaned against the low backing of his Asgardian furniture. A glass of wine in one hand, and a book in the other.
She had lit a few of the scented candles he had scattered about his common space. Both of them seemed to prefer the natural, living light to the artificial lights of the TVA.
“Is that Midgardian wine?” Loki asked as he picked up the glass she had set aside for him, smelling something acrid, yet overwhelmingly sweet at the same time.
“Roxxcart Rosé. Boxed wine,” Sylvie said nonchalantly, and Loki groaned- but drank it nonetheless. It was as watery, sugary, and sour as he last remembered. He grabbed a bottle of nearby liquor and poured some of it into the glass to at least make it worth the trial.
“It’s foul. Asgardian ale-”
“Tastes like horse tranquilizer with a splash of honey,” Sylvie replied, snapping her book shut and raising her glass for a toast. Loki sat on the other end of the couch, just a cushion of space between them, before begrudgingly knocking his glass against hers and taking a large gulp.
Disgusting. And Sylvie knew it too by how she grimaced after her long sip.
They sat in companionable silence, the two of them in the low-lit ambiance of his room. It was hard to say how much time had passed since he had first found her in that Mcdonald's- minding the cash register- and trying to convince him that she had no clue who he was.
--Some time ago--
Loki stood outside of this Mcdonald's as he watched Sylvie leave for her car. He had convinced this variation of Mobius to leave for the TVA first. Months of working closely with Kang’s organization had finally paid off.
“Sylvie,” Loki called once more. Hands in his pockets, and he felt his heart sink. Anger and pettiness bubbled in his throat- but he pushed it down in favor of parting words. “I just hope that you’re ok. I’m still trying to find my way to our Mobius- but I’ll manage.”
His words, however, had the opposite effect of what he’d intended. Sylvie stopped dead in her tracks, going deathly still with her bagged lunch and carbonated drink in hand.
“You don’t have to do it alone. You go, I go. But only if you want to. I already know what happens when you truly don’t want me around.” Loki felt his throat close up as he pulled the temp-pad from his pocket dimension.
Sylvie took a deep breath a distance from him and looked up at the sky- a baby blue color with wisps of clouds floating around.
“You’ll betray me again,” Sylvie said as if it were a matter of fact.
“So perceptive, of everyone but yourself,” Loki snapped back, his own eyes widening at his temper. But really, how could she be so daft?
Sylvie spun around at his words, a snarl on her lips- but he interrupted her.
“You made me betray you, Sylvie. A self-fulfilling prophecy. All I had asked was for you to consider .” Loki’s chest heaved with exertion and his fists balled up at his sides.
To not make the same mistake as I did.
“But you don’t trust me, do you? You never did.” Loki followed up bitterly. Months of covertly trying to find her- and this was what he got. A predictable answer to an obvious question.
Loki threw aside his new TVA-issued coat, devoid of the variant title on the back, and undid his tie along with the top two buttons of his shirt. He pulled his collar away, and strode towards her, fury in every action as she refused to retreat- and he felt tears prick the back of his eyes.
“Go on, then.” He took one of her pliant hands- forcing her to drop her bagged lunch, and placed it against his throat. “Take your trust, take what you want from me.”
He dropped his defenses, and he could feel how her magic probed against his mind. Not entering, simply testing, and Sylvie’s jaw tightened in what he would dare say was emotion as she ran a gentle thumb under his throat. Her blue eyes, usually so fierce, were momentarily vulnerable as she took in a shuddering breath. Tears threatened to spill, but never actually overcame her.
“No,” She said in a hushed whisper. Instead of pushing her way into his memories, she pulled him into hers- and he saw what she wanted him to see. Her new mission, her new actions, her motive. There was a Kang slithering around this timeline. Broken, and wreaking havoc on the locals as he tried to find a way to reconnect with his TVA.
When they were out of the enchantment, Sylvie was back to her usual self. A slight, self-assured smirk, but her hand lingered on his neck for a second longer than necessary. They were so close, yet he felt so far from her.
Perhaps this time, though, instead of crash landing into each other- they had time to orbit the other instead.
Looking down at this fiercely determined goddess of mischief, he buttoned up his shirt and gave her a smile of his own. “What’s our plan?”
The rest was history, Loki supposed. They had killed Kang, found their Mobius, and Sylvie had shared what she’d learned over her multiversal journey. Mission after mission, goal after goal.
Something was different now, though, as they sat here together. Since they’d left, Sylvie had this contemplative silence about her. He had a feeling that some sort of confession was coming- although it was always hard to tell with her.
Sylvie swirled her drink in her cup a few times before she took another drink, audibly taking a deep breath before she spoke.
“I pushed you away because I needed to be right.”
Loki didn’t say anything, refusing to give anything but a hum of acknowledgment. Sylvie seemed relieved at his feigned indifference, and she marginally relaxed into the cushions. Her eyes to the spackled TVA ceiling, pursing her lips as she tried to find her next words.
“All my life, that had been my whole purpose. To find who did this to me, who forced me to eat out of trashcans, sleep with one eye open under wet trees, and the one who killed anyone outside of an apocalypse who’d tried to genuinely help me,” she said, thumbing the rim of her glass as she spoke. Her voice had a faraway, reminiscent quality to it. As if she herself was trying to look at it as if she were watching it from a reel.
But even then, it would never fail to be personal.
“In the end, though, it didn’t really matter. When I saw the multiverse explode- those branches colliding into each other- I couldn’t help but feel that that had been my purpose. To bring chaos into an orderly universe. A universe that would’ve been better off if I’d never been born.”
Loki’s heart mourned for Sylvie, his eyes watering as he tried to push aside that pesky emotion of pity he felt for her.
"This is how it feels to take a fall
Icarus is flying towards an early graveYou put up your defenses when you leave
You leave because you're certain
Of who you want to be
You're putting up your armor when you leaveAnd you leave because you're certain of who you want to be, oh"
-Icarus, by Bastille
“When you found me in McDonald's, I had just about figured out how the multiverse worked. How Kang factored into it all, and I needed to know how to let these universes just live .” A tone of desperation in the way she emphasized ‘live’, to know that her struggle would result in more opportunities to live- than a fated cycle of suffering at the hands of getting conquered by Kang.
Loki could relate to that, if only superficially. He too had thought that he could solve the issue of mortal suffering, although he had been on the opposite end of it, the less noble side, he had to admit.
He had sought to take away the illusion of choice, while Sylvie had endeavored to bestow the truest meaning of it.
"You wanted to do it alone," Loki said- it was easy to read between the lines there. Instead of nodding in agreement, Sylvie shook her head and turned so that she made eye contact with him. Her eyes not quite looking at him , but locking gazes nonetheless.
"I thought I did," she lightly corrected in a way that had his heart singing.
"I regret pushing you away, sorry about that. I didn't mean to put you in the wrong TVA- I was still figuring out how to use the temp-pad." And finally, finally , there was the apology he had been yearning for.
He hadn't been cast away like an insignificant piece of parchment. He had been pushed into a different shelf for safe keeping, and Loki let out a breath he didn't know he was holding.
After a length of silence, Loki decided to speak up. "You could've always done this without me, you're amazing like that."
Sylvie's gaze focused on him, her gaze slightly more readable with the encouragement of spirits, and she gave him that lopsided smile of hers. "I don't think I could've- and I don't think I want to. It gets lonely, you know. I was lonely, and it took you stranding us together on Lamentis for me to come to terms with it. In a sense."
It was as close to a confession as he would get, he supposed. Loki downed the rest of his drink and offered a hand to her. Resting his hands on the cushion- Sylvie loosely twined her fingers with his. Her hands- so strong and deadly, were so small in his own. Calloused, yet pliant.
"My ambitions were nothing compared to yours. You helped me realize that we could be something more," Loki confessed- and that was as close of a confession as he dared in the intimate lighting of his apartment.
Sylvie closed her eyes- undoubtedly reigning in her emotions- before she scooted closer to him. Arms pressed against each other, and they both leaned back. It just felt right with her at his side, and Sylvie lifted his hand to her lips- and pressed a kiss on the back of them. "Thank you," she said, refusing to specify what she was exactly thankful for.
Loki returned the gesture, his lips lingering on her hand for just a fraction of a second longer, and gave her a reassuring squeeze.
They leaned towards each other, each taking in just the presence of the other person, before they pressed their lips together in a chaste kiss. No sense of urgency, and the gentlest and most tentative thing Loki had ever felt.
Neither of them knew what was going to happen from here, but he supposed they could figure it out.
Together.
"My pleasure,” Loki said when they parted, something moist trickling down his face as he gave her a watery smile.
They were going to be okay. They were going to make sure that they were going to be okay.