Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

I don’t let myself ponder love often. Never while sober. 

It leaves me far too morose, half-heartedly attempting to sop up the unfortunate emotions leaking everywhere with even more wine (or whatever’s available), which has a 50/50 chance in ending with me thinking about it even more than I already had been to begin with, which usually means I’ll start talking about it, too, usually to anyone who will listen. 

I loathe feeling beholden to my emotions, unable to shove them under the rug to be ignored as usual. I especially don’t like being vulnerable around near-strangers. It’s preferable to being vulnerable around people I actually know, but only by the thinnest of margins. Most people don’t think twice about a drunk Asgardian singing songs and reciting poems all night, are usually drawn in by the charm and nothing else, but occasionally my spur-of-the-moment drinking companions try to pry deeper than that, intrigued by the patrician stranger with the haunted look in his eyes. It’s best to avoid thinking about love to avoid the look altogether and the subsequent depressing excursion into my subconscious that I rope whoever’s nearby into. I have a tendency to pull others into my orbit even when I’m not trying, as is the nature of chaos. 

I’m honestly not a fan of having a subconscious in general, always making me feel and want and fear without consulting me first. Highly inconsiderate of myself, really. Now that I’ve met another version of myself, though, I’m beginning to rethink what self even means. Is Sylvie truly a pale imitation of myself, as I’d believed, or someone who had evolved to be something else entirely? She’s beginning to feel more and more like the latter. I certainly didn't think I’d ever choose a postman to spend the end-times with, though the first person who comes to my mind is probably worse. Much, much worse. This is precisely why I don’t let myself think about love. 

I try to fill the chink in my armor with more Figgy Port to little success, feeling myself grow more and more maudlin. Love is….what is love? Certainly not hate. I hate the TVA, hate the hideous brown everything and strange packaged foods and the clearly-evil space lizards. I do have to admit that it’s the perfect setting for mischief, though. Almost too compelling, with all of that power begging to be used irresponsibly and a companion who pretended to disapprove only to be swayed to my side with only a little bit of wheedling. A companion who challenged me, listened to me, almost understood me. 

I sigh, downing the rest of my glass before one of the nobles on the train approaches me, drink of their own in hand. I curse myself for looking so haunted and mysterious and appealing. I really can’t help it. 

She wore a white garment with puffy sleeves that spoke of her wealth if not her taste, and her hair framed her dark face in complicated braids that reminded me a little bit of Asgard, which I immediately mention, of course, deciding to just succumb to the terrible sentimentality that I  haven’t been able to fend off all night. 

"Asgard?" She asks, intrigued. "That's quite a distance from here. Last I heard...well, I shouldn't bring that up." 

I fix her with a look. "You're speaking of Ragnarok." 

She has the grace to look sympathetic, at least. "Yes. Were you there?"

I swallow, thinking of a few flickering images in the Time-Theater and some printed words in a file. "Yes, I was there." 

"Well, if it's any consolation, I know what it feels like to lose your homeworld." She sweeps her hands around us grandly, looking out at the endless purple landscape passing by in a blur. 

"I suppose you do. My condolences about that, by the way." I try my best to be polite and not ask if there was ever any part of Lamentis that wasn't just dust and ruin to begin with. 

"What was it like? Asgard? I've been told it's terribly romantic. Feathered horses and fountains and fruit trees all around."

"There was some of that." I contend. "It's...it was... beautiful. Lively. Magic." I feel the tingle of my magic in my fingertips, feel the way it was tied to Asgard and to my mother, nurtured by both. It was the same magic that was woven throughout the planet itself, all the way from the gleaming golden city to the roots of the trees that grew on the cliffsides. 

"Ah. Magic. So can you…" she leans closer conspiratorially, wiggling her fingers at her glass. "Make things appear?" 

I grin, tapping the rim of her glass once and watching it refill, fizz and all. 

She claps in delight, raising an arm to hail her friend. "Abdou! Come get a refill!" 

It isn’t long before I’ve refilled the glasses of most of my newfound drinking comrades, all quite easily impressed by simple party tricks. It’s a temporary distraction that I gratefully seize,  desperate to not have to talk about Asgard anymore. I don’t think that I could bear it unless I have quite a deal more to drink. Thankfully, the bar seems to be well-stocked indeed.

▲▼▲▼▲▼

I slip alone back to the bar after a few hours, taking advantage of a lull in the festivities to take a moment to myself. I watch the woman in white hang onto her companion (Abdou, I think) with her arms around his neck, swaying slowly to their own drunken tune. I’ve never understood that kind of love, the kind that made others entirely blind to their surroundings altogether, though I suppose that maybe that kind of love is reserved for people who've never had to look over their shoulder, expecting a dagger. (Or people who’ve never had to drive their dagger into someone else’s.)

There are different kinds of love for people like me, people who've never really believed in it to begin with. There’s my mother's, the only one whose love I don’t doubt the existence of altogether, nurturing and forgiving and too subtle to sustain me at my worst. Her love alone had never been enough, and now I’ll never get to let myself feel it in full. She shared her love with him, after all. Odin. 

I love you, my sons.

Odin and love were two words that have never seemed to fit together, or maybe two words that I desperately don’t want to fit together. I don’t want that to be love, don’t think that I could contend with a reality where such distance and deception could come from a place of love. 

You've deceived everyone you've ever loved. I remind myself helpfully, stirring my drink with a cold finger. There's been a fair bit of distance on your part, as well. You've no room to talk.

I suppose I learned it from the best. 

Perhaps the love isn't in the deceiving, but in the willingness to believe in the first place, the trust willingly given up. I think of Thor, mourning me over and over again as though every time had been the first. 

I think of conversations I haven't even gotten to be there for, that I’ll never be there for if I want to escape my fate. 

Loki, I thought the world of you. I thought we were going to fight side by side forever. 

Maybe you're not so bad after all, brother. 

Maybe not. 

If you were here, I might even give you a hug. 

I haven’t earned that forgiveness, not yet, but some version of me had. Surely that had to count for something? Had I already altered the timeline so irreparably that I would never become that person? Is my redemption only ever earned through death? Only ever intended for a version of myself that isn't a Variant?

That’s the trouble with love; it's never really there, in the end. Not when you need it to be. 

I’ve resigned himself to a life without it, a life that I’ve chosen for myself. A life with purpose. What place is there for love in the life of a god? What role could it possibly serve? 

You can’t sustain yourself on love, can only fill yourself up with so much of it so quickly that you burst at the seams, imploding before you even have a chance to feel anything but that desperate, aching want. Love is meant to be short-lived, to be made sweeter by its brevity and to always end with you withered away to almost nothing. That doesn’t mean that it can’t be beautiful in the interim, though, somewhere between the gorging and the starving. 

Even at its worst it can’t help but feel profound, as if every shared moment is the invention of something entirely new. It’s terrible and addictive and something I can’t ever let myself indulge in for fear of losing control entirely. 

That’s how love seems to survive within the smallest crevices, a particularly stubborn weed that only creeps out when I let my guard down just to remind myself of the terrible yearning that I’ve never been able to escape, a deep, craven want forming a chasm that nothing can fill. Sometimes I feel that what’s left of me is more void than substance, nothing but a giant black hole feeding on the chaos around me, gnawing and desperate. The smallest things can ignite that hunger: a glance, a word, a little bit of empathy. It all reminds me of what I can never have, will never get to have. I’ve always resented the way most people make me feel. 

It'd been worse when I was younger, when I'd actually allowed myself to feel, to want. I'd grown up on the Asgardian epics of old, after all; poems of romance and sacrifice, of an ineffable and unending kind of love. I hadn't yet known that I’d been foolish to pay them any mind at all—that I’d turn out irreparably different, irreparable in general. The melancholic days of my youth would've been far better spent pondering how to overtake Odin's throne without all of the trouble I’d ended up undergoing for it. Maybe then I wouldn't have ended up here, royally screwed and utterly soused on an unfamiliar train at the end of the world. 

I hadn't been able to help myself when I was young, had found far too much mischief to ignore in the lingering gazes of others, in the heat of their breaths and the certainty they seemed to feel when they touched me, a certainty I was so desperate to feel about myself that I tried to feel it through them, instead. 

The first had been Ylva, a girl that I had only wanted because I knew Thor wanted her too. It had been fun to have something that Thor didn't, for a while, but I'd moved quickly on to Fritjof, a strong boy who I’d found compelling for some reason despite his lack of interest in magic or anything else worth caring about. I can’t remember why, now. It hadn't lasted long, either; I had found a terribly fun new game to play in the time spent between falling for them and falling for someone new, enjoying it even more if it was someone who had taken a while to win over at first. 

Somewhere in my late adolescence my solitary nature had gone from something that had made me appear odd and reclusive to something that made me aloof and mysterious, turning me into someone charming with a clever tongue and cleverer hands who wasn't as concerned with maintaining the image of a proper young prince as my brother. 

I’d been glad to play the part, addicted to the feeling of being desired, of filling the endless chasm inside with temporary attention and praise that always faded the second I moved on, never letting myself get close enough for the shivery feeling of filling the void with something concrete, something that had the potential to last. The first person I'd let myself feel that way about had been Sigyn. 

She'd been strong-willed and stable and far too patient, too persistent. Someone a prince should marry. She had actually listened to me, tried to understand. All of her trying hadn't been enough, in the end. How could it have been? I had known the end before it had even begun, had cursed myself for ever losing sight of it to begin with. I didn't belong on stable ground, always panicked at the slightest wobble beneath my feet and jumped ship, leaving a shipwreck in my wake. Scorched earth, rubble, destruction. The detritus of the first time I'd actually tried to build something, had discovered that I'd already known the truth all along: I’m incapable. 

I'd promised myself never again, and then, a little while later, had visited Earth alone for the first time. 

Malakhi had been human. I know.

I’ve always regarded most humans as widely the same and have saved a lot of time in doing so: clever, sometimes, but generally easy to impress and even easier to trick. That had been the worst part about Malakhi—he hadn't been like the others, not even a little bit. Magic didn't particularly frighten or interest him, none of my other tricks seemed to work on him, and he had this uncanny ability to get under my skin without trying, making me desperate for his approval. It made me feel like a child, again, scrambling to prove that I was worth something, all made worse by the fact that it was a human who could make me feel that way. 

Malakhi hadn't been cruel, though. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone more gentle except perhaps my mother. He had spent his days in the Mediterranean forests weaving his own kind of magic with nothing but his hands and the earth. He'd blended in well with the trees, tall and sturdy and olive-skinned with crinkles by his eyes and smile, barely-there threads of silver woven throughout his dark hair. 

He'd balanced out his kindness with a biting wit and a certainty in himself and in me that would've put me at ease if it wasn't for my inescapable urge to self-sabotage, constantly convincing myself that it’s only a matter of time before I do what I do best and spoil it all. 

As it happened, I hadn't even been given the chance to spoil it all before the other humans had done it for me, the Romans spreading their war and conquest until it had brought an end to just about everything before the silver threaded through Malakhi's hair had even had the chance to spread. 

It had been a blink in the lifetime of Asgardian. I quite would've liked to keep his eyes closed for just a bit longer. 

I sigh, downing the rest of my drink and immediately starting in on another. This is why I don't let myself think about love. I start thinking about things that had happened centuries, lifetimes ago. It isn't worth dwelling on. What good could come from keeping ghosts alive? After love, what was left except for ruin? And all of that ruin for what? What is love, when you drill down into it? Nothing much at all. Nothing truly lasting or profound or time-tested, just another trick that people willfully fall for to give their lives a sense of meaning, a sense of beauty. A sense of purpose. I have plenty of purpose on my own. 

It’s like most things: just an illusion. It’s an enticing illusion, though, worse when it’s unexpected, when you go from feeling as you usually do to feeling like you’re teetering on the edge of a cliff in the span of what feels like only a few days. I feel pathetic, like some kind of easily manipulated child who latches onto anyone who offers something as simple as a kind word. 

Mobius doesn’t just offer kind words, though. He offers harsh ones, sometimes, too, calling me a scared little boy and telling me that I was born to do nothing but cause pain and suffering and death. Things I already know. Mobius hardly seemed to believe them himself, or at least believed beyond them, seeing me for not only who I am and who I have been but also for who I could be. 

It feels too much like understanding, too much like connection. Too much like hope. 

I manifest my dagger and trace a finger along the sharp edge. Love is sharp, serrated. Capable of causing great pain, easy to use against others when you know their weak spots. Easy to fall prey to when you have weak spots of your own, whether from up close or afar. I think of Mobius's legs tangled with mine beneath the table, of both of us trying to manipulate the other and ending up at a stalemate instead. It is adorable that you think you could possibly manipulate me. 

I tilt the blade, catching a glint of my eye in the reflection. I think of the way Mobius seems to see me: as someone misunderstood, someone broken but capable of more, someone who deserves the chance. If only I could see in myself what Mobius seemed to, although there’s no way he feels that way after I betrayed him. It's for the best; it never could've lasted. I think of Mobius sticking his neck out on the line for me more than once, Mobius pretending that it didn't matter to him when it clearly did, Mobius looking at me with a certainty that couldn't be faked. 

I run a finger along the etched lines of the blade. I had found an unexpected beauty at the TVA, somewhere in the midst of all of that boring brown bureaucracy. In the thrill of an exploding volcano, a hunch proven right. In someone who actually listened, for once. I press the tip of the dagger into my fingertip, feeling the pinprick of it testing my skin. I think of Mobius running after me and screaming my name. Trust willingly given and willingly forfeit.

In the end, none of it meant anything. An illusion. I’m an expert in those, after all. Mobius had given me my chance and I'd gone through the door, fully knowing what it meant. I'd made my choice. And after all of it, I’m still not entirely sure that love even exists. How is one to know what love is or isn't? If it isn't the absence of pain, in fact seems to be the abundance of it, then why did people risk everything for it? After all, in what world was my father's deception out of love and not out of pride? My own betrayal of Thor out of love and not ambition? I don’t think I’ll ever truly understand.

The woman in white pops back up again, braids slightly more unkempt than they had been before. 

"What are you thinking about all alone, Mr. tall-dark-and-handsome?"

I trace a finger along the rim of his glass, not looking up. "Love." 

"Handsome and lovelorn. Should've guessed."

"Not lovelorn." I murmur, finally glancing up. The bartender who had been ignoring me but is now clearly listening in gives me an I-don't-believe-you look and pours another drink, handing it off to the woman. 

"Not."  I insist, to both of them. 

"Fine, not. Who are you thinking about, then?" 

"More than one person." I grit out, still focused on my glass. 

"Feeling ruminative, huh? Our port tends to do that. Along with the end of the world, of course." The bartender says, clearly having decided to join the conversation fully. 

I raise an eyebrow. "I imagine the end of the world has something to do with it, yes." 

"Except it isn't your world." The woman says. "No offence." 

"No, it's not." 

"So, was it a fight? A goodbye? Maybe a—" she leans closer, "—breakup?"

I toy with the idea of pointing out that I'd just said that I'd been thinking about more than one person but decide to let it rest, sighing. "A goodbye, I suppose. With a friend." 

They both nod like they understand completely even though I’m quite sure that they don’t.

"A permanent goodbye?"

"I don't know."

"Must've been a good friend." The bartender says, pouring another drink and handing it off to one of the other passengers without looking. "That's worse than a break-up." 

"I barely knew him." I say, forcing a smile. "Nothing so dramatic as a break-up." 

"Which is why you're drinking alone thinking about love." The woman points out, wearing a wry smile. I’m beginning to seriously regret my decision to speak to her.

I sigh again. "Fine. I do barely know him, but I suppose I've never met anyone like him before. He has this...self-possession. He knows everything about me but he doesn't seem to see me as the villain that everyone else does. It's unsettling." I swallow, the honesty of the words burning more than the alcohol. 

"I can't see how you'd be a villain." The bartender says without a hint of irony, looking at me like she knows a single thing about me 

I smile wanly. "Oh, you never know." 

The woman tilts her head, thoughtful, like she isn’t sure if it matters either way to her whether I’m a villain or not. "Was he only a friend? Do you mind me asking?"

"...I'm not sure how to answer that."

They both fall silent, expressions far too sympathetic for my liking. I really loathe being pitied. I clear my throat. "Enough of entertaining this dreadful conversation, really, the end of the world is depressing enough. Is there any more of that champagne?" 

I let myself get swept up in the festivities around me as they pick up once more, deciding I’ve well and truly spent enough time thinking about love or anything adjacent to it for a lifetime. The alcohol helps substantially, making me wonder why I usually care so much about anything, really, but especially about something as insubstantial as love. What does it matter when I've already conquered it, refused to let it define him or control me, left through the Timedoor? Now that’s worth celebrating. 

"Does anyone know any drinking songs?" Somebody asks, drink held aloft. 

I grin. “I know just the one.”

▲▼▲▼▲▼▲▼▲▼▲▼

I, Mobius M. Mobius, am a colossal goddamn idiot. 

I really thought I was different. 

I really, really thought we were making strides. Not erasing thousands of years of experience, per se, but building off of it, healing over the old scars with new pink skin. Making progress. 

I did my best to stay at arm's length, but the thing is... Loki's pretty tough not to like. When you're the center of that focus it can get intense quickly, a million tiny annoying things growing on you until you realize they aren't actually that annoying after all. (The whole tendency towards extreme violence and betrayal thing is still annoying, don't get me wrong, it's more the fragile superiority complex and lengthy monologues that get kinda endearing.) 

When he leans in closer with a studied nonchalance and tells you that he thinks you two might be the only ones at the TVA who are actually free, it can't help but feel a little compelling, a little Bonnie-and-Clyde. A little tempting. It's interesting to be on the receiving end of his wiles, for once, somehow exactly and nothing like I'd expected all at once. I guess it was cocky of me to think that just because I've seen him do it before he wouldn't be able to manipulate me. That's kinda the whole reason he succeeds to begin with; he's convincing enough to make you think that this time is different, this time he let enough of his true feelings shine through that there's no way it could've served a larger purpose. 

To be honest, I've never felt this stupid. 

I've seen him scheme and manipulate, bully and seduce, but I'd expected it to be a lot more straightforward. More wink-wink nudge-nudge, less goat-freeing and falling asleep in front of me and asking why I like jet-skis like he actually wants to know. I'd be hard-pressed to guess which of it was real and which wasn't. I think the trouble with Loki is that even when he gets as close to earnest as he can, even when he actually seems to care, he's still going to lean back on his tendency to betray like it doesn't mean anything, doesn't erase everything he's said and done that's actually good. He's fine with that coexistence while the rest of us can't be. Nuanced doesn't even begin to cover it. 

It's easy to get caught up in his swirling, sparkling chaos, forgetting about the wreckage that he'll undoubtedly leave in his wake—forgetting that your own wounded pride will likely be scattered amidst the detritus. 

There's something tragic about him, something addictive about the way I know exactly what to say to make those intelligent eyes drop to the floor. I don't like to do it often, only when he's really pushing it and needs to be reminded that he can't get away with whatever he wants to. I can't deny that I'm a much bigger fan of the small, startled look of pleasure that flits across his face whenever I call him smart or talented or clever. He covers it up quickly, paints over it with a broad brush of arrogance, but I can tell he files everything I say away for further contemplation later, a magpie collecting shiny things to decorate his nest with. I might've even complimented him more than I had if I didn't think it'd make him suspicious. If I pointed it out every time he did something that I found witty or bright or charming, I'm afraid nobody would ever take me seriously again, particularly him. I guess it's a moot point since he clearly never took me seriously to begin with. 

Question: At what point does a soft spot become more of an Achilles heel? 

Answer: When you somehow feel shocked after somebody who you've seen betray thousands of others betrays you, too. 

▲▼▲▼▲▼

It starts the second we step through the Timedoor back, before any of us have even had time to catch our breaths. 

"Mobius—"

"I really don't need to hear it, okay?" 

"Oh, you think you get to make that call?

"Yeah, sorry that your little pet betraying you hurt your feelings, but the rest of us are going to have to pick up the pieces." 

"How are you going to make sure that no more Minutemen die because of this?" 

I pinch the bridge of my nose between my fingers, the beginnings of a monumental headache beginning to form. I elect to ignore basically everything said to me, instead trying to figure out what to say to Ravonna. She's the priority. I can already picture the look she'll wear when she sees me, the mixture of disappointment and pity. There you go, Mobius, in over your head again. This never would've happened if you'd listened to me.

When I see her and she says almost that exact sentence, I can't even muster a smile at having expected it. Not when I've just been extraordinarily wrong about something pretty damn important, actually. 

I sigh, going through the process of apologizing more profusely than normal. This is a bigger fuck-up than normal, after all. 

She offers a drink which I take gratefully. "I understand why you did what you did." She says, settling back into her seat. "But even you can see clearly now that you put your hand too close to the flame. You won't do it again next time, right?" 

"It felt more like holding the flame in my hands." I interject in lieu of answering. 

"Oh good, does that imply nerve damage?" 

I sigh, studying the rich wood of her desk. "It doesn't change where my loyalties lie, if that's what you're wondering. Loki made the choice to make himself an enemy of the TVA. I won't stand against that." 

"But you want to, right?" 

I snap my eyes up, expecting to see something accusatory on her face, but there's only that same mixture of disappointment and sympathy. "The Loki I believed in was the one who was here, helping. Not the one who left."

"I need you to remember that distinction, Mobius. Especially if he comes back here, which he probably will.”

I nod and let her reprimand me for a little while longer. It’s clear she needs somewhere to take out her anxiety about having to own up for something I did in front of the time-keepers. 

I can’t stop thinking about what C-20 said, about it all being real. I know it means something, it has to. I wait with B-15 while Ravonna talks to the Time-Keepers, doing everything I can to focus on the mission. 

I need to talk to C-20—He’s breaking down, telling me that it’s all an illusion, a cruel, elaborate trick conjured by the weak to inspire fear.

I need to track where they went—His hands are on my tie, he says it’s adorable that I think I could possibly manipulate him even though I already have.

I won’t let them get away this time—He’s out of breath and grinning at me, a giddy look in his eyes as goats bleat and Mount Vesuvius announces its intended ruin. 

I’ll prune him myself if I have to—He’s looking back at me, a Timedoor glowing in front of him. He almost looks sorry.

Enough. This is ridiculous. A Variant has never been able to get under my skin like this. I wonder distantly if he enchanted me without me even knowing it but dismiss it at once, shying around the edges of what I don’t want to believe is the truth. I still want him to be good, to give it a good college try. Somehow I still feel like he could. 

I also can barely breathe for how angry I am at him, how disgusted with myself I am for getting so caught up in it all. He’s not a broken thing, like Ravonna said, he’s a snake, wrapping himself around you and squeezing so tight that you almost mistake it for affection, unable to tell he’s trying to strangle you until it’s too late.

I followed his lead and got too arrogant, broke enough new ground that I thought I could pave over the rubble without the cracks showing through, mistaking his honesty for real currency rather than what it was: a cheap token, something to placate me until I was comfortable enough to start to think I could trust him. He gleefully left those tokens for me to find and watched me feed them all into one of those rigged crane games where you lose all of your candy money. I was so busy watching out for him manipulating my logic that I didn’t think to look too closely underneath, at my emotions. I don’t like paying them much attention anyway—it would make my job impossible—but if there ever was a time to, this had been it. Honestly, when has having a subconscious ever done anyone any good?

I thought I understood him more than I do, I guess. How could you look someone in the eyes and ask for their trust only to throw it away like a used tissue? Was it because that’s all that had ever been done to him, all that he’d ever been taught? I suppose he learned it from the best.

That’s why I thought he saw me as different to begin with, though. I was honest with him, I listened to him, I let him off of his leash. I treated him like a person worth something, a person capable of love, which he was...which he is.  

I've seen him re-earn trust, seen him feel regret deep enough to cut right through him. I know him. 

Maybe you're not so bad, brother.

Maybe not.

That’s the real kicker: I still don't regret it. Can't bring myself to, not when I think about all of the progress we made in just a few days. I have seen every attempt at manipulation Loki has ever perpetrated. He's capable of faking a lot; emotions, regret, love, weakness, strength, orgasms. But never interest. He can't help but show his hand when he's actually invested in someone or something, wants their attention. He'll either pull their pigtails like a schoolboy or, if he's more comfortable, he'll do the hard thing and attempt to treat you like a person, someone who's more-or-less an equal. (Usually less.) An equal who he deems worthy of the privilege of listening to his philosophical musings, his endless doubt of those in charge, his harebrained schemes, every profound or witty remark that crosses his mind. 

I can't even pretend that it wasn't a privilege. Can't pretend that he isn't the most interesting person I've met. It's probably good that he left when he did; if he'd known that all he had to do was be himself to make me feel more helpless than I ever have, who knows how he might've used that to his advantage?

I think he was starting to figure it out. It's for the best; it never could've lasted. 

If I'm lucky, maybe I'll never see him again. But that doesn't change that I still have to catch the Variant. The Variant who there’s no way he hasn’t teamed up with. The Variant who will probably know to use him as a bargaining chip. Excellent. 

I stare at the wavering timeline on the screen, a gnawing feeling in my gut. Where are you, Loki?

Chapter Text

So, this is how it ends. It's not so bad, I think, sitting here with Sylvie. Sitting here with myself. Two people who've only ever been alone finally have company, the only catch is that the world underneath our feet is imploding. I tell her that Lokis don't die, somehow still believing it even as I watch the purple landscape stretching out beyond us become more planet than sky, an alien rainfall of the world above fracturing and pulling itself apart. She takes my hand, a moment of pure connection passing between us. It feels like being beyond the need to speak, being beyond the need for anything at all. 

Then, right on time, two doors appear. 

Mobius barely looks at me when they bring me in, his mouth twisting into a funny little frown before curving into a smile as I struggle against the iron-clad grips of the guards, desperate not to be fucking back here again. He gets his little comments in just like I expect him to, sounding even more bitter than I expected. This Mobius is very different from the one that I met at first, the one who seemed completely unflappable. As is turns out, he is flappable, and all I've really had to do to affect him this much is be myself. I'm already under his skin, now, and I can use that. I suppose the only problem is that he's also under mine. I think about my time on the train, drowning my anxieties in alcohol and thinking far too much about love, of all things. It feels naïve of me now that I'm back here, now that Mobius is acting like ever deciding to trust me is the most foolish thing he’s ever done. It probably is. 

Also, do they really think Sylvie needs so many more guards than me? That might be the worst part of all of this, even worse than Mobius getting to get in all of the little quips he's clearly been storing up. I call him a folksy dope and he calls me an asshole and a bad friend, which actually does take me by surprise. He considered me a friend? So he isn't even trying to manipulate me into feeling guilty, he's leveraging the truth instead? That's honestly worse. 

Fine. I can use the truth, too. I try to warm him, try to show him how much I mean it. He just laughs, reminding me just how fractured the trust between us has become. He barely blinks as they throw me through the Timedoor.

I don't understand where he's put me, at first. Why would he send me to somewhere in Asgard? It's not as though I even have any—suddenly Sif is striding forwards, shorn hair clutched in her fist. What…? 

"You!"

"Sif!" 

"You conniving, craven, pathetic worm. You did this!"

“What?”

It all dawns on me at once, the rest of the memory flooding back. Right. It's actually kind of funny that this is the one he chose. I mean, if he really wanted to hurt me he could've chosen so much worse; the truth of my lineage, the bifrost, anything from the centuries spent in Thor’s shadow…instead he chose this. She tells me that I deserve to be alone and that I always will be without an ounce of fanfare, not needing any flourish for the words to do as they’re intended and embed themselves somewhere deep within. Hearing these words again does sting a bit more than expected, as do her blows, but it’s still nothing more than a footnote, nothing I’ve dwelled on before and nothing I plan on dwelling on now. What’s with Mobius and his incessant need to try and make me dwell on things? It really is horribly distracting, especially when he’s the one with the unexplored past, not me. 

I call it quaint, talk to him without knowing if he can actually hear me, desperate for him to know how unfazed I am. Yes, I see the irony in that.

I won’t allow him to dredge up unpleasant memories whenever he wants to manipulate an emotional response out of me—I’m not his own personal fiddle to play a sad tune on whenever he so pleases. I won’t be condescended to. I get to my feet again, setting my jaw. I'm the one who's been here before, who actually knows Sif. I have the control. 

I try to enlist her help, at first, explaining in every way I can that she’s only a reconstruction of a memory. No luck, and now I’m aching with the combined pain of every loop combined. Lovely. 

I try manipulation, next, telling her that I wasn’t the one who cut her hair, that I saw Fritjof slinking away with a pair of scissors. She never believes me, but she does continue to helpfully remind me that I deserve to be alone, just in case I forget. I don’t think I ever will. 

Actually, I don’t think I ever did. Maybe this was buried somewhere in my subconscious, somewhere with the rest of the memories I’d rather never have revisited. They probably would've stayed buried if it wasn't for him. Yet another reason to curse the existence of my subconscious: apparently Mobius loves to dig around in my memories even more than I thought he did.

I try to fight back next, dodging her initial punches only to immediately be hit by the next. I wile away some time trying to memorize as many of her moves as I can, for a while, but it doesn’t do anything but tire me out and she always inevitably gets me right after the last dodge. I only try to hit her back once, and she barely flinches before hurting me twice as much in retaliation. 

I stop fighting back, ignoring her words and trying to appeal to Mobius. I still don’t know if he’s listening, if he’s sitting somewhere and relishing in this, but I speak to him anyway, first trying to apologize even though it’s probably clear to him that I don’t really mean it. I do regret betraying him—I didn't exactly love discarding his trust right after he gave it to me, but I’m not sorry that I went through that Timedoor. I can’t be. When he doesn’t answer and I continue to take Sif’s abuse I get angry instead, calling him things far worse than a folksy dope. He still doesn’t come. 

My legs begin to wobble where I stand, weakened from the concerted effort of pulling myself back to my feet every time she kicks me down. I feel pathetic. I am pathetic.

She doesn’t blink when she sees me on the ground, just kicks me while I’m down and repeats the same words. I’m alone, have you heard? Alone, alone, alone. 

I know what I have to do. He always did like seeing me relinquish control. 

I stay on my knees. I beg. I apologize. I even do the hard thing and tell the truth. I unroll the entire list: horrible person, desperate for attention, narcissist. Scared of being alone. I think she might enjoy that one. It is ironic, after all, to pretend to enjoy my independence when it’s only ever been something I’ve worn, not something I am. I didn’t choose to be alone so much as it chose me, and it’s why those stubborn weeds of hope continue to persist even within my deepest recesses, straining against my sombre pride, my intense and hopeless gambits to hold onto whatever power I have left. 

It feeds off of the lack of nourishment itself, only leaving me hungrier in the process. 

She helps me to my feet. I think for a second that maybe I’ve done it, then: “You are alone. And you always will be.”

I know why he chose this memory now. It’s because apologizing won’t change anything, won’t undo what I’ve done. I’ll always be the version of myself that thought it would be funny to cut Sif’s hair just like I’ll always be every other version of myself, everything I’ve tried so desperately to leave behind. A scared little boy, shivering in the cold. 

“Okay, Loki.” I look up. Of course he’s here now. “Ready to talk?”

I follow him back through to the Time-Theater, our own personal little interrogation room. It all feels so familiar, sitting across from this man who I don’t trust while he tries to dig out my feelings through force, a clumsy and unpracticed kind of manipulation that I’m embarrassed ever actually worked on me. A loop of our own. Whatever Mobius I knew in the interim, the one who sat with our legs tangled and told me about jet skis, the one who let me wheedle him into visiting the edge of an exploding volcano, the one who was certain enough about me to stick his neck on the line for me, I think he might be long gone. Because of my own actions, of course. 

He tries to get information out of me, mistakenly believing that the emotional and physical battery of the Time Cell will have made me any more beholden to him or to the truth. 

He asks about the TVA lying to him and I latch at the hook, trying to leverage it to get out of here. That seems to make his mind up for him: there goes Loki, lying again. Mobius is all over the place, jumping from questions about Sylvie to little digs about me betraying him. I’ve never seen him this bothered. It’s kind of satisfying, seeing how much I’ve managed to disrupt his precious equilibrium here at the TVA; the unmoved Agent Mobius reduced to petty barbs and parlor tricks. It’d be more satisfying if it stung less, if he’d listen to me when I’m actively trying to help him. 

He keeps prodding at me until I snap. “It was a means to an end, Mobius, welcome to the real world. Down there we’re awful to one another to get what we want.”

He relishes in my anger, keeps asking about the Nexus Event as if angering me further will give him anything concrete to work with. He should know me better than that, but it seems that he’s caught up in a tirade of his own, unable to help himself from losing his composure. I don’t give in, not to someone who’s probably dying to turn around and prune me. 

When he tries to throw me back into the Time Cell I feel panic crawl up my throat, overtaking my pride. Fine, he wants a story? Wants to find some sort of preexisting connection between Sylvie and I even when there is none? I’ll give it to him. I conjure up a story for him, tell him what he wants to hear, speak of a plan that doesn’t exist as an intimidation tactic, try to get even further under his skin. It’s all going swimmingly until he tells me they’ve pruned her. 

I feel as though I’m thrown outside of my body, the sensation of my stomach dropping something that’s happening to someone else. I can’t help the rush of ice that the realization brings, the knowledge that Sylvie spent her entire life running, surviving end after end after end, only to meet hers after only a day of knowing me. It seems my path of ruin really doesn’t leave any survivors, after all. Not even another Loki. 

He calls me the superior Loki. The victory feels hollow, doesn’t taste like much of a victory at all. It tastes like another burned bridge, another spark of connection that smothers out before ever having the chance to light. I steel myself, force a shrug. “Good riddance.” I even try a smile, refusing to blink.

He stares at me, laughs. He sounds genuinely amused when he says “Look at your eyes—you like her!”

I blink, thrown off by the emotional whiplash. “What?”

“You like her! Does she like you?”

Oh, Norns, are we children? I can’t keep up with his oscillations, can’t follow him down whatever path he’s trying to lead me on, though I fear I already have. He won’t shut up, now, painting a delightful picture of how sick and twisted and demented he believes me to be, a narcissist of seismic proportions. He’s never unleashed such a bevy of cruelty on me before, even at our worst. I scramble to find the meaning behind the words, to ignore them until later when I’ll inevitably be unable to stop thinking about them, yet another inescapable time-loop. His bitterness isn’t what matters right now. 

“Is she alive?”

He smiles, slow and satisfied. “For now.”

I take a breath, let the relief wash away the residual adrenaline, trapped within the shaky, off-balance feeling that it feels like he’s woven into my very skin. 

I don’t know what it is I feel for Sylvie, what that moment of connection on Lamentis was, but I’d rather explore it without Mobius trying to tell me how I feel before I’ve even felt it. It’s worse that it’s him, worse that he’s seen every moment of my life and clearly feels confident enough to make such an assessment with barely any consideration. 

Is that all I am? Someone who’s so wrapped up in myself that I can only form a true connection with another version of myself? I stare at his smug face, barely resisting the urge to leap across the table. I’ll be damned if I let him play with my emotions any more than he already has, pushing my buttons like a careless child who just wants to see what they do. 

He seems to have gotten what he wanted, wrung me out until he’s gotten every last drop of use out of me, and yet he keeps squeezing. I try to push past it, try to yell over the grating sound of his voice to tell him the truth about the TVA, what they’ve done to him. Even despite it all, I want him to know, need him to know that there’s something else out there for him. I sound desperate to my own ears but I need him to feel that I mean it, need him to know me well enough to be able to tell, need him to use his knowledge of me to do something other than try and cause me further pain just to feed his petty sense of retribution. 

He doesn’t. 

I call him a liar before he throws me back into the Time Cell. I curse his stunning lack of self awareness, his willful delusion that he’s somehow an honest man making his own decisions despite the truth behind his existence, the clouded judgement of a man who’s never actually been in control. 

I stand back where I started, letting Sif hit me and barely feeling it. It all means nothing, after all. Even despite the pain it's easier to think when he isn’t sitting across from me with that interminable steady gaze, slinging arrow after arrow. Easier to see what should’ve been obvious, the elephant in the room-—which is, of course, the tremendous amount of jealousy that he obviously has no idea how to handle. It would almost be cute if he wasn’t the most maddening person I’ve ever met. 

I can’t even revel in the emotional triumph over him, not when everything’s already lost. Not when I’d rather not examine how I feel about him from too closely, not after I almost let myself drown in the feeling on the train. It’s a terrible mixture of obsession and anger and a dreadful sentimentality that still lingers despite it all. 

I sigh, getting to my feet after another well-placed kick from Sif. We've really done a number on each other, him and I.

▲▼▲▼▲▼

I’m going mad in here. 

I talk to Mobius even though I still don’t know if he’s listening, waiting for responses that never come and mimicking Sif’s words, words that I know well enough to recite in my sleep by now. 

Then suddenly he’s back, a flurry of movement and anxious energy, asking questions I can barely parse. His earlier anger has been replaced for something else, something that feels...rawer.

He looks at me, serious and intense, all traces of his earlier bitterness gone. “Do you really believe you deserve to be alone?’

I answer honestly despite myself. “I don’t know.”

He’s talking about the Nexus Event, again, a kind of light in his eyes that I recognize from before we left for Alabama. He has a hunch. Within a moment I’m caught up in it all with him again, chasing the rabbit right alongside him. I don’t even celebrate when he tells me I’m right, was right all along. I’m too busy formulating a new plan, one where him and Sylvie and I can get out of here. It almost feels too good to be true.

He asks me to trust him and I don’t even have to think about my answer, even after everything. He tells me the only thing I’ve ever wanted to hear him say, the only thing I’ve ever wanted anyone to say. 

You can be whoever, whatever you wanna be, even someone good.

I shouldn’t be surprised when we see Renslayer, but I am. What doesn’t surprise me is the ice in her gaze, the lack of regard for anything but her inflated sense of duty, even when she looks at Mobius. He hands her his TemPad, makes an excuse that I see right through and assume she does too. I feel a dawning sense of dread, a building of adrenaline in my veins. I wonder what it would take to make it to one of the hunter’s pruning staffs. I look at Mobius, watch a look of acceptance spread across his face that gives me the worst feeling of all: the feeling that we may not make it out of this. He starts talking, again, about where he’s really from, about jet-skis, the same wistfulness in his eyes that I haven’t seen since he told me about them the first time. I know what’s going to happen before it does. I watch him disintegrate into nothing within a blink, curving in on himself in agony. It rips through me as though I’m the one being pruned, that same feeling from before returning to overwhelm me only this time I’m all too aware of my body, of the water filling my lungs and the vice-like pressure on my chest. I let myself take one, two, three breaths then force myself to reign it in, to shove it down. I can’t afford to feel so much at once, not now. 

They start to take me somewhere but I can barely focus, can barely think in the face of this surge of helplessness and sorrow and rage, this feeling like if I had my magic I could level the entire TVA in seconds. 

I refuse to think about where we’ve been and where we ended up, the long conversations and mad dashes through apocalypses and the strange, disjointed sense of trust we developed against all odds. I refuse to let myself think of Mobius as who he is, which is someone who’s seen my entire life, someone who’s been up close and personal with the light-swallowing void inside of me without being afraid of the dark, someone who’s listened to me lie thousands of times but still chose to believe me, someone who likes me enough to completely lose his composure in the face of his jealousy, someone who was prepared to abandon the only life he’s ever known to take a bet on me. 

Someone who’s gone because of me. One in a long, long line. 

I guess I was right on the train, after all. No matter what either of us may have felt, it couldn’t have lasted.

▲▼▲▼▲▼

I didn’t want to have to put Loki in the Time Cell, but he’s kinda leaving me no choice, here. I can’t pretend that I’m not relishing it, a little, not when he’s begging to be knocked down a peg. 

I didn’t have to think too long about which memory to use despite the excessive collection of memories he has that also would’ve worked: a million different perceived slights from Thor, a million different times his mischief-making pissed the wrong person off and they said things far nastier than Sif does, basically anything that happened with some of his youthful paramours, especially that Greek guy from Earth. A lot of it felt too aggressive to use, honestly, like forcing him to relive those feelings would only succeed in driving him further and further into his angry little bubble of chaos. The temptation is there, of course—it'd be easy to use my Loki-knowledge to get under his skin the same way he’s gotten under mine, but I think that a subtler approach is more likely to soften him up, this time. As subtle as a timeloop of being kicked in the tenders over and over again can be, at least. I do feel a little bad about that part. 

I try to pester Ravonna into letting me interrogate the Variant, but she won't budge. I don't understand what her hang-up is. Why have I been in charge of catching her for all of this time if now that she's here I'm not even allowed to speak to her? How are we going to get any answers from that? Is the plan really just to prune her and move on, and, if so, what does that mean for Loki?

I know what it means for Loki. I just don't wanna think about it too much. 

I think about what he said, about the TVA lying to me. I don’t want to entertain what was almost certainly just a desperate bid to sow seeds of doubt to distract me, but I can’t help but wonder about it, at least a little. I wouldn’t have let it distract me so much if it wasn’t for what C-20 said on top of Ravonna’s refusal to let me see either her or Sylvie, but, well…

I just feel like there’s so much that I still don’t understand. This close to closing a case I shouldn’t feel like this, I shouldn’t feel even further from the truth. I go with my gut, you know? I follow my hunches. It’s why I’m good at what I do. That was also before Loki, though; before he scrambled my head with an enchantment of his own and made me doubt everything I’ve ever known. 

I let him marinate in the Time Cell for as long as I think he can stand it, sneaking it at some point around the 40th loop. He’s still trying to fight back for the first few loops I sit through, the only sounds to be heard the thuds of Sif hitting him immediately after he dodges her initial blows and his subsequent grunts of pain. He stops fighting back eventually and starts talking to me like he knows I’m there, apologizing and trying to appeal to the part of me that he knows cares about him, telling me that he’ll help me if I only let him out. I almost do at least ten times but force myself to wait, far too familiar with what actual Loki apologies are like. Weirdly, the more sincere he is the less inclined to believe him I feel. Despite how much he loves to talk he rarely shows actual sincerity through words unless it’s coaxed out of him. That’s what I’m trying to do; coax something genuine out from underneath all of his usual flourishes.

I can hear him getting more and more frustrated, calling me every name he can think of.  In one loop alone he calls me childish, petty, cruel, a pawn of the TVA, a sadist, etc. all before Sif gets her first hit in. I know he’ll burn out eventually. I make a mental bet with myself for when it’ll be. I go for loop 60, but he cracks at 58.

I don’t enjoy it nearly as much as I thought I would. I like hearing him actually own up to something, for once, but the waver in his voice when he says that he’s afraid of being alone barely even feels cathartic. It makes me think about the things I’ve been trying to forget, instead: our giddiness in Pompeii, the way he'd looked when he'd fallen asleep while digging through case files, him asking me to trust him and almost sounding like he meant it. He hadn't been alone then, but had he cared?

No  Maybe. I don't know. 

In any case, I know this is the point to pull him out, so I do. 

We're both being childish, I know that, but I really can't help myself. It's so hard not to prod at him when he's right there again, sitting across from me with that mask of indifference that we both know isn't how he really feels. 

I also can't help myself from asking about what he said about the TVA, testing the waters. He does what I expect and tries to leverage it to get out of this, so I move on, filing it away as just another lie after all. I ask about Sylvie, about the Nexus event. He's petulant and evasive even for him, refusing to play ball. I know I’m all over the place, can’t help but get in a few digs about his inability to work with a partner, to see someone as an equal. It’s too hard not to, not when I know he’ll immediately shoot back with some other predictable comment just to reassert how little he cares about me or anyone else. It sounds like it always does: like he’s trying to convince himself more than he’s trying to convince me. 

His refusal to take any of the real bait is getting us nowhere, leaving us at an impasse. I guess the water under the bridge is more shark-infested than either of us expected. I tell them to put him back into the Time Cell which does the trick, earning at least a little more runway. See, Loki? I want to say. I still know what makes you tick.

He spins a yarn about him and Sylvie having planned this from the beginning, something I’m not entirely sure I believe. I let him keep going, anyway, trying to parse how it is that he actually feels about Sylvie. I can tell that there’s more there than he’s letting on, but I can’t tell what. Something that was enough to cause that Nexus event, maybe. Now that would be something. I cast the line out, letting him pretend that she means nothing to him while I wait for him to bite. He does. I tell him we’ve already pruned her, throw it out casually like it isn’t a matter of much consequence for either of us. I watch him closely, watch the way he takes a steadying breath and smiles like it doesn’t bother him, eyes shimmering all the while. Frankly it’s ridiculous that he really expects so little of me, really thinks that I wouldn’t immediately be able to see right through him. I can’t help but laugh, realization dawning like the crashing of a wave. “You like her!” I say, really, truly unable to help myself. 

“What?”

I let myself spiral a little bit out of control, taking advantage of this weak spot and digging in until I’ve burrowed far past just under his skin. I can barely hear my own words as they leave my mouth, glib and spiteful and probably more condemning for me than for him, but, I mean, really? A Loki and a Loki? You couldn’t write better irony than someone with such a fragile blend of self loathing and narcissism falling for essentially himself. The thought of it makes me feel kind of sick, actually, and I hear myself calling him sick and twisted and narcissistic without taking any time to think about whether or not that’s the best approach right now, too wrapped up in how ridiculous this all is, how ridiculous it makes me feel, like I can’t even think straight—he’s yelling over me, not even trying to hide the way he feels now, asking over and over and over again if she’s okay, if she’s alive.

I let a slow smile stretch over my face. “For now.” The victory feels hollow, actually makes me feel a bit Loki-ish myself, a bit like someone who doesn’t care what arsenal I have to use as long as I make someone bend. 

He doesn’t stay down for long, surging in while I’m still reeling to try and play his hand again, the cute little story about the TVA lying to me that he’s clearly put a lot of thought into. He’s urgent, yelling then leaning forwards and speaking low and fast, like he actually cares about me knowing the “truth”. He tells me that I’m a Variant, that I have a past, a life. I push away the way that makes me feel, a strange tugging in my navel, like I’ve been somewhere before—nostalgia and Déjà vu, two feelings that I’ve never really felt before, not in the conventional sense. I hear this rushing in my ears, feel this barely there feeling of certainty, of tangible feeling. I hate him for it, hate for even making me entertain the thought for a second that he could be telling the truth. I take a leaf out of his book and laugh like it doesn’t matter to me, teasing him about Sylvie some more just because I can, needing desperately to not be around him anymore. 

The silence after he’s back in the Time Cell is deafening. It’s easier to focus the second he’s gone, thoughts less clouded by the strange, incredulous hostility that the thought of him and Sylvie seems to bring out in me. I think about what he said, about C-20, about Ravonna’s tip-toeing. They all feel like leads, like breadcrumbs that I’d be stupid not to follow. Puzzle pieces I’m hoping don’t fit together as well as it seems like they might. It stays in the back of my mind even as I go to close the case, this lingering feeling like something just isn’t right. 

Ravonna’s as composed as usual, brushing aside all of my concerns with her usual grace. She asks me where I’d go if I could go anywhere and I wonder what that has to do with anything. It’s the kind of question Loki might’ve asked, once upon a time, the kind of question I might’ve answered if it was him asking. If he really wanted to know. 

It’s just...it’s literally my job to look for evasion, to sniff out dishonesty. There’s something here that’s making my nose twitch, that’s all. I’m surprised when she tells me that the Time-Keepers want me there for their pruning, but not in the way I might've been, once, back when I felt my purpose was synonymous with their vision for me. Lately I’ve been feeling less and less like that makes the kind of sense it used to. It’s strange, how you can want something for so long that by the time it comes you’re a different person than you were when you wanted it. 

I ask about Sylvie again, use the opportunity to follow the lead, but she deflects again, says that she’s been worrying about me, performs a little monologue about friendship. I want it to be real so badly, but, well. I’ve learned a lot about what false friendship feels like, lately. All I’ve ever wanted is the truth, but it seems like it’s getting further and further away. I don’t have to think about taking her TemPad. I know it’s what I need to do. 

▲▼▲▼▲▼

Question: How do you act naturally when you’ve just learned that everything you’ve ever experienced is a lie?

Answer: You don’t. You get the hell out of dodge and don’t look back. 

I feel the same way I did following the Alabama lead, like my thoughts are firing so fast I can barely hang onto them. There’s a lot less excitement and a lot more dread this time around, though. All I know is that I need Loki, need to know if this Nexus Event is really enough to stake everything on. 

I don’t give myself time to think before re-opening the Time Cell, everything overridden by the overarching need to see Loki, to speak to him. I ask him if he really cares about her, knowing I’m not making any sense. I need to know if he really thinks he deserves to be alone, really prefers suffering alone to trusting others. If we’re actually going to do what I think we have to, we’re going to need each other, and we’re going to need Sylvie most of all. 

It doesn’t take anything to tell him he’s right, to ask him to trust me...to reach out one more time and, despite everything, feel him reach back. I tell him what I’ve always wanted to, what I’ve always believed, deep down. I tell him that he can be whoever, whatever he wants. Even someone good. Especially someone good. Someone who tells the truth when he doesn’t have to, someone who tried to help me even after I spent a solid ten minutes railing on him just because he formed a bond with someone. 

He deserves my trust more than I deserve his. 

Seeing Ravonna on the other side of that door feels like being doused with cold water. Of course she's here to rain on our parade. I think I might be doomed before I even open my mouth, praying that our thousands of years spent developing some sort of rapport will be enough to cushion this fall. Based on the look in her eyes, authoritative and emotionally removed, I’m kinda doubting that that’s gonna be the case. She accepts the TemPad with barely a blink, still staring at me like she’s just waiting for me to fold. Well, in for a penny....

I let my emotions seize me, something I'd never really done before Loki came along and gave my sedentary life a good shake. I'm glad I got to tell him that he can be anyone he wants to, that he can be good. He's already on his way. I think he'll still get there, even without me. I need to believe it. 

"You know where I'd go?" I say, looking her in the eyes even as I feel the end closing in, feel the pressure of the world folding in around me before she's even issued the command that I know waits on the tip of her tongue. I focus on the intangible past that I know lies somewhere behind me, can only hope lies somewhere ahead of me beyond this place. I can almost taste it, can almost feel the salt on my skin and the rush of a jet ski. I know I've lived it, am so close to feeling it. I say it out loud so that she knows that this isn’t a victory for her, that I’m closer to the great there than I’ve ever been before.

I think of the unspoken question that's hung in the air ever since we brought Loki in. Is he really worth it?

Yes. 

▲▼▲▼▲▼

I open my eyes. Why can I open my eyes? Is this another trick of the Time-Keepers, sending those they've pruned to a fate worse than death? I slowly sit up, taking stock of my surroundings, the realization dawning on me as I take a deep breath, feel the wind on my face. 

I'm not dead. 

Shit, okay. What now?