Chapter Text
~~•~~
“Oh, come on. You weren’t even a little bit scared? Just—just a little?”
Loki threw a look of disdain at the tiny space between Mobius’ thumb and pointer finger. “No.”
“Wow. You still think you can lie to me,” Mobius remarked with an obviously feigned laugh. “That’s cute.” He tossed a couple bags of chips and a pair of seran-wrapped sandwiches onto their usual table as he sat down. “To be fair, I think I’d be afraid to fight myself too. At least it’s over with now, right?”
Loki hummed unenthusiastically as he plopped down onto the other chair. “For now. But I dread what the timekeepers have planned for me next.”
Mobius worked his jaw to one side and picked at his teeth with his tongue. “Well… You don’t have to worry about that now. They’re pretty good at giving people time-off. Don’t want a repeat of that union uprising back in TSY.” He tore open his bag of chips and stuffed a few into his mouth before extending his hand across the table. “Hey, pass me my drink, will you?”
“That’s not what I mean. What if they decide to send me back?” Loki replied as he slid one of the boxed containers across the table. “To carry out the timeline?”
“That’s crazy talk. They won’t send you back now.”
“How do you know?”
Mobius snorted. “Just because I trust you doesn’t mean they do. You really think they expect you to cooperate with your old timeline’s rules? Come on, Loki, you’re smarter than that.”
Loki watched his handler pop the top on his drink with one hand and unwrap his sandwich with the other. His gaze traveled down the table toward his own meager pile of sustenance. He remembered glorious feasts held in golden halls, with ever-flowing wine and mead and food that mortals only dreamt of. And yet, he found himself much happier here, living off his wits and surviving on whatever Mobius deemed edible. Here, he had purpose and friends of his own making. True, he had a few enemies too. Those were also, arguably, of his own making. Regardless, this life was his; he enjoyed forging his own path instead of following the one dictated by the T.V.A.
“If they send me back and I don’t cooperate, they can always kill me,” he pointed out.
Mobius set his drink back down on the table with a dull thunk . “Would you stop being such a negative Nancy?” he chided. “We did it! Mission complete! So do me a favor: celebrate a little before getting all doom-y and dramatic on me.”
Loki folded his arms across his chest and raised one eyebrow in challenge. He hated being called dramatic, especially when the circumstances warranted it. The situation of his whole life being turned upside down in an instant by the ruling of three space lizards, for example, seemed like a good time to get dramatic.
Mobius turned his eyes up to the heavens and heaved a long, audible sigh (and he said Loki was dramatic?) “At least allow yourself to feel proud of what you’ve accomplished. Of who you’ve become,” he said. “I am.”
Coming from anyone else, the comment would have been empty words. Hel, it might have even been laughable! But Loki knew that Mobius meant it. How? He couldn’t tell you if his life depended on it. The whole concept of ‘trust’ was a mysterious one; he’d never quite been able to pin it down, and the fact that he’d known Mobius for less than a week made things even more complicated. Then again, time did pass differently in the T.V.A…
“As much as I appreciate that,” he said, “I can’t help but think it’s going to be short lived.”
“What?” Mobius asked. “Your pride or mine?”
“Both.”
Mobius slapped both his hands down onto the table. “There you go with the negativity again! It’s like a vicious cycle with you. Lighten up!” He grabbed the unopened bag of chips and hurled them at Loki’s head.
“Hey—!” the god exclaimed as he ducked out of the way. The chips flew over his shoulder and slid across the floor under another table. “I’m not going to fetch those.”
“Just use your magic,” Mobius said through a full mouth of sandwich. He wiggled his fingers at Loki. “WoOooOOoo!”
“You’re a child,” Loki said incredulously, though he couldn’t help the slight tugging sensation at the corner of his mouth.
“Oo- Is that a smile? Wow! Look!” Mobius exclaimed, pointing at Loki as he swiveled around in his chair. “A real smile! Hey! G-16! Look at this! Where’s Z-20? I got Loki to smile! She won’t believe this!”
Loki lowered his head into one of his hands. “Deliver me…”
“Eh, he’s ignoring me anyway.” Mobius stood up and slapped Loki’s shoulder with a chuckle as he passed by.
“And you wonder why?” Loki met G-16’s eyes beneath the rim of his helmet and shook his head, as if to say, Can you believe him? G-16 shrugged and tapped his wrist before swirling his finger around beside his temple. Translation: He’s been here too long. He’s crazy. Loki smirked. He liked G-16. Unlike most of his triple digit-named comrades, he actually had some semblance of a personality.
Mobius grinned back at them as he bent down to pick up the bag of chips. Just as he did, the watch on his wrist chimed out a familiar three toned melody, followed by Miss Minutes’ peppy southern drawl: “You have one new message!”
Loki drummed his fingers on the table a few times before turning to glance over his shoulder. The temptation to transfigure something into Mobius’ sandwich was quickly growing more and more appealing. Hey— you don’t just turn off mischief in the mind of the mischief god, no matter how ‘good’ he becomes. “Mobius,” he called. “What are you doing? I thought we were supposed to be celebrating.” The decision of whether to put a spider or a cockroach inside the sandwich suddenly became far less important when he saw the look on Mobius’ face. He’d seen it a few times before, usually whenever he talked about Loki’s other life in the sacred timeline. A sinking feeling settled in the depths of his stomach. “Mobius?”
The bureaucrat’s chest rose as he took in a breath and slowly let it back out. “I got a message from Ravonna. We’re both wanted in the courtroom in ten minutes.”
~~•~~
Mobius had his hand on Loki’s shoulder during their entire journey up to the courtroom, partially for support and partially because there was concern about the god bolting, which he’d been known to do. “Just… try to think positive,” he said once they were in the elevator.
“Really? Is that the best you can do?” Loki all but snarled at him.
“Look, this has never happened before. Variants are rarely called in for consultation, let alone field work. You know the time keepers— they’ll want it to be all formal.”
Loki’s laugh was more spiteful than anything. “Don’t pretend you’re naive enough to think they’re seriously going to offer me a job. We both know where this is headed.”
They fell into an ear-numbing silence as they rose steadily upward, the chaotic ambiance of the T.V.A. outside whizzing by their tiny capsule without a care in the world for the tragic fate of yet another variant. Another cosmic mistake. He could hear the irritatingly cheerful voice of that absurd clock-woman in his head:“Thank you for your cooperation in keeping the sacred timeline on track! Remember, it’s nothing personal!”
It didn’t help that Mobius had unwittingly shown him his fate in the sacred timeline. Whenever they looked at footage or read-up on reports, he always refused to let him go past a certain point. Loki wasn’t stupid. He knew what that meant…
The elevator greeted them with the bureaucracy’s signature three-toned chime as the doors slid open. Loki quickly stepped out of Mobius’ reach; if he’d planned on trying to escape, he would have done it by now. And there really wasn’t any point. He knew from experience that he couldn’t leave the T.V.A. without clearance, and he wasn’t about to have that infernal collar snapped around his neck again. He began his trek down the hallway without looking back… until he realized Mobius was notably absent from his side.
“Well, what are you waiting for?” he demanded. His guardian had never even set foot outside the elevator.
“I need to take care of something,” Mobius replied after a moment of hesitation. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
“Are you serious?” Loki snapped.
“I’ll only be a minute,” Mobius promised. “Time me.”
Before Loki could even think of protesting further, the elevator had closed its doors and whisked his mentor out of sight. He considered waiting for Mobius to return; it would be better to have someone in that room on his side, but his current feelings of annoyance toward the man emboldened him to handle this as he handled most everything else in his life: alone.
“Oh, don’t be so dramatic,” Mobius’ voice mocked in his head. He paid it no mind.
He entered the courtroom with all of the pride and prestige he’d held the first time; it was far easier to uphold his dignity sans collar and prison jumpsuit, but no sooner had he thought it when- ZAP! A sharp stinging sensation rippled up his spine and froze him in his stride. He strained to face his attacker on instinct, yet no amount of physical strength could break this bond. His body, his mind were trapped, suspended in a gelatinous state of time. The subtle movements around him were like lightspeed in comparison, as was the potent SNAP of cold metal around his neck.
“Loki.”
He stumbled forward as his physical form reconnected with the time rate around it, and his hand inched up toward the infernal thing clasped under his chin. He kept his head angled downward as he straightened to look Ravonna in the eye. He hated the way she stared down at him, with her hands folded together just right atop the judge’s bench and her perfectly rounded red lips that matched her perfectly pressed red sash. The color reminded him a lot of someone else who also liked to test his patience.
He forced a not-so-friendly smile onto his face. “Is all this really necessary?” No. It wasn’t. She knew as well as anyone that he couldn’t leave this place.
“A necessary precaution,” she assured him. She gestured at the stand before the bench. When he didn’t immediately move to obey the voiceless command, someone grabbed the back of his arm and tried to force him forward. He shot a withering glare over his shoulder as he ripped out of their grasp.
“B-15,” he greeted tightly, “How lovely to see that you survived our last little venture.”
She offered him a thin-lipped smile. “The feeling’s mutual.”
“After your stunning heroics, I’m surprised they didn’t offer you a real name.”
“That’s enough,” Ravonna ordered. “Where’s Mobius?”
Loki shifted his weight and exhaled boredly. Even if he knew the answer to that, he wasn’t about to share.
“Well… We’re already running on borrowed time,” Ravonna divulged after a quick glance at her watch. “We’ll have to proceed without him.”
“And the time keepers?” Loki blurted.
Ravonna studied him closely as she rearranged a stack of papers on the bench. “They’re otherwise occupied. Now—” she lifted a couple of pages with her forefinger to glance at the ones underneath, “Before we get into it, I’d like to commemorate you, Loki.”
The god didn’t bother to conceal the scoff that escaped his lips. Ravonna’s gaze flicked up at him briefly, but otherwise, she did not react. “We’ve never had a variant display the kinds of… capabilities you’ve shown.” She seemed to concentrate on the documents in front of her for a long time. “You’ve been a valuable asset to the T.V.A.’s mission… which is why it’s unfortunate that you’ll have to be terminated.”
The sluggish state of his mind returned, and for a moment, he thought B-15 must have jabbed him with her baton again. “What?”
“Your existence alone is a threat to the timeline. And with the other variants successfully eliminated, the T.V.A. feels it’s only logical to tie up the last loose end.” She sighed softly, as if she’d just revealed that the cafeteria would be discontinuing Fried Chicken Wednesdays. “As I said: it’s unfortunate.”
Two sets of hands enclosed around his arms, but he couldn’t seem to shake them this time. The panic of what was about to happen to him had begun to set in. “You can’t- This- this is anarchy!” he half growled, half stuttered. “Just- send me back! Or let me stay here! I’ll cooperate!”
“It’s too risky,” Ravonna said. “Our only other option was imprisonment for life, and even that isn’t foolproof. Besides that...he assured me this would be more merciful.”
“I...I beg your pardon,” Loki said hoarsely. “Who?”
Ravonna pursed her lips. “Mobius.”