Chapter Text
When the dust had settled as much as B-15 guessed it would, the multiverse in some chaotic semblance of balance, she found herself sitting on an inner step of the cafeteria. The room was empty at the moment, scorch marks on the walls and tables and chairs broken after one of the fights had gotten too close to home. It felt fitting that it was broken, an empire destroyed.
She heard a soft noise behind her and turned her head to see Loki coming up behind her. His hair was frizzed in a matted mess and his face was covered in scratches and bruises over the empty dagger sheath still on his back. He gestured to a spot on the step beside her. “May I?”
She tilted her head in a half-nod, and he sat. For a long moment, he sat there in silence with her staring out at the destruction. She remembered when he was here before meeting Sylvie, before -- well, all of it, how she had heard whispers about how he and Mobius had sat together here and talked, leaning into each other’s spaces, how it had unsettled her and made her uneasy. Things had been simpler then, at least she thought they had, and the thought of a variant making himself so cozy in her space, in the only home she had ever known, had disgusted her. It was almost funny in retrospect, in a way that wasn’t funny at all.
But she remembered how, when he had found his way back to their timeline, he had clutched at Mobius’ shoulders, his arms, his hands, like a desperate man, and how Mobius had melted into him in a way she had never seen, certainly not since Mobius had come back from the Void and told her they were going to tear the TVA down. So she supposed Loki wasn’t quite as bad as she’d thought.
He was still Loki, though, and it wasn’t too long before he started talking. “Are you alright?”
She shrugged.
He ducked his head in acknowledgment. His voice was quieter as he asked, “Did you...see where Sylvie went? After?”
She shook her head. “The last I saw her was in the middle of the battle.” Sylvie’s clothes had been torn and half covered in blood and there was something wild and scared in her eyes that hadn’t been there before. But her hand was steady when she held it out -- B-15 had done the only thing she could do, and gave her a weapon and got out of her way.
Loki ran his hand through the mess of his hair. “I thought I could help her. I thought I could give her...I don’t know. What I had needed, when I came here.”
“She needs different things,” B-15 said, not unkindly. “And she’s not the type of person who needs help.”
Loki huffed a half-bitter laugh. “Maybe I was the one who still needed something. I don’t know.”
B-15 leaned her elbows on her knees. “Maybe it’s good to know you don’t know things.”
Loki looked at her questioningly, but waited for her to gather her thoughts.
B-15 looked down at her hands. “Before you came along, I thought I knew everything there was to know about the universe. About myself. I knew what my purpose was and I was proud of it and I was proud I executed it well. And then Sylvie got in my head, and I realized it was all a lie. Then I had to figure out for myself what being in the universe meant to me.”
“So what now?” Loki asked.
“I’m not sure. Work with Mobius to rebuild a better TVA -- the timelines are still in danger of colliding and someone has to watch them. But I don’t know , and I think that makes me better. It makes me ask myself, every single step I take, if I am doing all the good that I can.”
“So no ‘glorious purpose’ then,” Loki said wryly.
“From what I remember, that’s more your thing.”
“Not so much, anymore.” Loki cast a wistful look across the cafeteria, towards where B-15 knew Mobius was a few rooms over organizing timeline monitoring.
“And what about you?” she asked. “What will you do?”
Loki looked down and shrugged, pressing his fingers into the palm of his hand. “I guess I’m...still figuring it out too.”
B-15 sighed. “What I’m really asking here is why you’re in here talking to me, and not out there with him.”
Loki startled and said, voice pitched higher than normal, “With whom ?”
B-15 rolled her eyes. “He missed you while you were gone, you know. He wasn’t subtle about it.” Mobius had never been subtle about a lot of things related to Loki, but B-15 definitely wasn’t invested enough to get into all of that.
Loki was quiet, staring at the floor, fingers still pressed into his palm, before he mumbled, “I missed him too.”
And there was no way B-15 was dealing with that for all time, always. “Look, you said you needed something when you came here. Needed, past tense. From what I saw, Mobius needed something too, before you showed up.”
Loki looked up at her through his hair. “...Past tense?”
“Past tense.” She stood up. “Just something to think about.”
Loki’s face went through a series of complicated facial expressions before settling on a soft, private smile. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Honestly? Because I have to work with the man and there is only so much bullshit I can put up with on any given day.”
Loki let out a coughed little giggle, the smile staying on his face.
Just as B-15 started to step away, Mobius came through the entrance to the cafeteria. His gaze zeroed in on Loki and he made his way over, though he did spare B-15 a quick glance.
“Hey, thought you’d wandered off to another timeline again,” he said, his tone probably not as light as he intended it. “Instead I find you over here chattin’ away, lazybones.”
Loki stood up to meet his level and said, “B-15 and I were just coming to an understanding.” He looked over at her, and said, “Thank you.” It was firmly sincere, a tone she hadn’t thought possible from him when they first met.
She nodded back. Yes, he’d heard her loud and clear.
She gave a short nod of acknowledgement to Mobius before walking away, hearing him say to Loki behind her, “So, all the multiverse at your feet. Where’re you gonna go?”
“I thought -- I thought maybe I’d stay.”
“With the TVA?”
B-15 rolled her eyes, but paused as she hit the hallway.
“With you,” Loki said. “Wherever you are. If, um...if you’ll have me.”
Mobius let out a strangled laugh. “If? Yeah, Loki. Yeah. I’ll have you any way you’re willing to be with me.”
And that, B-15 decided, was quite enough of that, and she walked away.
The hallways were scratched as bad as the cafeteria, the TVA posters along the wall ripped and burned. For the first time she could really remember, she had no clear-cut mission, no cut and dry dictate of what she was supposed to do and how she was supposed to do it. But, for the first time, she felt clear. She felt right. There was no creeping sense of wrongness that she had covered by believing if she just caught the next variant, tracked the next kill, it would go away and balance would be righted. There was no balance anymore, and it was better than she had ever feared.
She paused, just for a second, closed her eyes and took a breath. She opened her eyes. She had work to do.